Toshiba Thrive Hands-on and Unboxing

We’ve received none other than the Toshiba Thrive Android 3.1 Honeycomb tablet in the mail and it’s that time again – unboxing to the max! This device as you may well know is already available at your local Best Buy store in the sweet tablet area they’ve got going on, up for sale for you for one of the following prices: $429.99, $479.99, or $579.99 – the difference between these three being the hard drive of 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB. We’ve got the 16GB version on hand here and we’d just LOVE to show you around.

This tablet had a cool 10.1 inch screen at 1280 x 800 pixels, it being an IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen held by a chassis at 272 x 175 x 15 mm and 771g. Right from the start you should realize that this device is not going to be entering in any weight loss contests, as its a far cry from the thinness and lightness of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the iPad 2, but it’s certainly not the ugliest tablet we’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. You’ve got a 2 megapixel camera on the front, a 5 megapixel camera on the back, and some ribbed pleasure all around the sides and the back so you can hold on tight.

The casing is mostly made of ribbed medium-weight (not exactly hard, not truly soft) plastic while the front is all glass save for the lights in the upper right of the screen for battery, power, and Wi-Fi signal connection as well as a couple of chrome-looking plastic bits that appear to clasp the top of the device, showing you where the cameras are. This tablet is strange in that it appears to not quite know which way it wants to be situated. Not that all tablets don’t have somewhat of an identity crisis, but this one shows all signs of being a portrait-standing tablets save for the docking port at the bottom if you’re looking at it landscape-wise. Furthermore if you’ve ever used Honeycomb you know it feels more natural to use in landscape mode, wouldn’t you say?

Have a look at this initial hands-on look at the device as it stands directly out of the box, feel the excellence in the look of the device, then stick with us for a full review soon!