OK, so Toshiba’s initial Thrive tablet wasn’t a world-shattering piece of technological or stylistic innovation. But those of you looking for a stylish entry in the tablet market have one more option today – at least if you live in the United Kingdom. The Toshiba AT200, alternately known as the Excite X10, is now on sale starting at £399 for the 16GB model and an extra fifty quid for the 32GB version. At 7.7mm thin and weighing just 1.2 pounds, the AT200 is one of the thinnest and lightest 10-inch tablets on the market today. You can pick one up from Carphone Warehouse now, and they should start appearing in retail channels sometime next week.
Aside from an admittedly beautiful exterior, the AT200 has some fairly pedestrian specifications. A 1.2Ghz dual-core TI OMAP 4430 processor and 1GB of memory make it roughly the equal of the DROID XYBOARD (XOOM 2) models as far as power goes. A 10.1-inch LCD screen operates at the3 standard 1280×800 resolution, while the rear 5MP and front 1.2MP cameras handle shooting duties. Sadly, Honeycomb 3.2 is all you’re getting for software, and Toshiba hasn’t said anything about an Ice Cream Sandwich update just yet.
We got a look at some non-final AT200/Excite hardware at Toshiba’s CES press event, and make no mistake, it’s stunning. If you want to turn heads with brushed aluminum (sorry UK readers, I meant to say aluminium) style, this is certainly the tablet with which to do it. But at £399, over $630 USD, there are better both currently available and on the horizon. It’s a marked improvement over Toshiba’s first tablet, but the company seems to be making the same mistakes: pricing it to compete with the iPad instead of low cost off-brand Android tablets, where most of the growth in the tablet market is coming from.
[via The Verge]
Why is it always about ‘style’? I love my original THRiVE, sure it may not look as sexy as this guy, but it is a lot more productive. I use the full HDMI and USB every day and have 128GB in for the SD card slot plus the 1TB or 500GB external hard drives I regularly hook to it (Both of which are very slim and portable).
Instead of remaking the damn thing just make it a bit slimmer and much more good looking without loosing all the functionality. You could also get a better battery in there, as you have plenty of room to do so.