Too bold for a 7-inch tablet? Not bold enough for a 13-inch monster? Then you might want to check out Toshiba’s Excite 10, now shipping from major online retailers in the US. It’s the 10.1-inch middle child of Toshiba’s new tablet trio, and the most affordable of the bunch with a 16GB version starting at $449.99.The Toshiba Excite 7.7 and Excite 13 are scheduled to go on sale next month.
The Excite 10 presents a pretty impressive setup for $450: it’s powered by NVIDIA’s ever more ubiquitous Tegra 3 with a gigabyte of RAM, and the software is mostly unmodified Ice Cream Sandwich – a plus for any Android enthusiast. Cameras are 5MP on the rear and 2MP on the front. Expansion options include a full-sized SD card slot and MicroHDMI, and the battery is rated for 10 hours. The 32GB and 64GB models will be available later, for $529 and $649 respectively. WiFi is the only connection option at the moment.
The more dramatic entries in Toshiba’s lineup are due for US release in June, with the 13.3-inch Excite 13 making the biggest splash. It’s the biggest mainstream tablet to date, and crams all of the Excite 10’s features plus a 1600×900 resolution and SRS certified sound. the Excite 13 starts at $649.99. The 7.7-inch model competes with Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.7 with a 720p Super AMOLED display, though it goes for a MicroSD card slot instead and starts at $499.99.
Also those widgets……geezzz I sure hope this “feature” will never migrate to iOS in that butt ugly form