Key Specs | |
| 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 Dual-Core 1GB RAM 32GB (onboard) 10.1 inches (1,280x800 native resolution) 1.6 pounds 0.6x10.75x7 inches Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) | |
Toshiba Thrive 10 Tablet (32GB) Review | |
| Reviewed by: Daniel A. Begun Review Date: August 2011 | |
Gamble much? If so, you'll appreciate the risk Toshiba has taken with its Thrive 10 Tablet, the first Android tablet to offer full-size ports and a removable battery. Those additions come at the cost of size and weight, but in the increasingly crowded world of tablets, we welcome having a choice like this one. At first glance, the Thrive seemingly goes head-to-head with the strongest competitors, but on closer inspection, it fails to knock either of the top two consumer tablets off its perch. Nonetheless, you may deem the ports and battery flexibility of this tablet to be worthy trade-offs. What this tablet screams the moment you lift it: Thinner and lighter—as exemplified by the Apple iPad 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1—is not necessarily better. Unlike the svelte and buoyant form of those other two tablets, the Thrive employs a plump and relatively hefty chassis. On paper (or here, in pixels), this may not sound good, but in exchange, you do get several full-size ports (not those namby-pamby miniature ports found on most tablets), as well as a removable battery. The gains in size and weight also bring better connectivity and longer usage away from a power outlet. For many users, those extras mean more portability, despite the extra ounces. The Thrive is currently available in three models: a version with 8GB of onboard memory ($429.99), a 16GB version ($479.99), and the 32GB version we tested ($579.99). All three are Wi-Fi-only models, with no 3G or 4G versions on the horizon (as of early August 2011, when this review posted). You can find similar tablets selling for less, such as the $399 Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 (16GB) or the Acer Iconia Tab A500 (16GB). Meanwhile, today's two most popular tablets, the iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, have 16GB and 32GB versions that sell for about $20 more than the comparable Thrive models. (There are no 8GB versions of the iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab 10.1.) The bottom line on price: The Thrive is priced in the right zone, considering its competitors. DesignMeasuring 0.62 inch thick, the Thrive is one of the thickest tablets we’ve tested. You could stack an iPad 2 on top of a Galaxy Tab 10.1 (each of which is only a third of an inch thick), and both of these tablets together would be just a hair thicker than the Thrive...  The Thrive’s weight (1.6 pounds) is also noticeably heavier than the iPad 2's 1.33 pounds and the Galaxy Tab 10.1's 1.24 pounds. That said, the Thrive weighs the same as the Motorola Xoom, and a few tablets weigh marginally more than the Thrive, such as the 1.63-pound HP TouchPad, the 1.69-pound Iconia Tab A500, and the just-released 1.65-pound Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1. (Look for our review of the IdeaPad Tablet K1 soon.) Why these other tablets as thick and heavy as they are varies by model, but one look at the Thrive and you instantly know the reason. On the bottom edge (when held in portrait orientation), hidden beneath a cover, are full-size USB and HDMI ports, as well as a mini-USB port...  Full-size USB and HDMI ports are rare on tablets, although you will find a full-size USB port on the Acer Iconia Tab A500. You can attach USB keyboards and mice to the Thrive’s USB port, as well as USB storage devices, such as flash drives and hard drives, with read and write support. An even bigger plus in our book is the full-size HDMI port. Trying to find the micro-HDMI cable that most other HDMI-equipped tablets require can be a real pain. You use the mini-USB port on the Thrive for connecting the tablet to a computer for data transfers. Note that you can’t charge the Thrive’s battery via the mini-USB connection, and this is actually an older-style port, as opposed to the newer, more-streamlined micro-USB ports more commonly found on today’s tablets and smartphones. Also, you need to be careful when you remove the plastic cover for these ports: It's attached to the Thrive by a thin strip of plastic that feels like it might break with repeated flexing. To the left of these ports, on the same edge, are a 3.5mm headset jack and the DC-in jack. The right edge of the Thrive is cleaner. Here, you'll find a full-size SD-card slot, a screen-rotation lock switch, a volume-control rocker button, and a power/sleep button. | |
Some tablets don’t come with SD-card slots at all, and for those that do, they are always MicroSD slots. The Thrive represents the first Android tablet we’ve seen with a full-size SD-card slot. In this case, the slot supports SD, SDHC, and SDXC cards.
On the left edge of the unit are a pair of stereo speakers and a dock connector port. Toshiba currently offers two dock options for the Thrive: a standard dock ($39.99) that includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a multimedia dock ($59.99) that includes two full-size USB ports, a full-size HDMI port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Remember that removable battery we mentioned? To get to it, you first have to pry off the back cover. You do so by sliding the back-cover lock/unlock switch—which is found on the top edge of the unit—to the unlocked position. You then have to finesse the back cover off by sliding a finger into a recessed space by one of the speakers and gently lifting the cover up. Every time we removed the cover, it felt in danger of breaking if we moved it the wrong way. Thankfully, that never happened, but it did feel a bit flimsy to us.
With the cover off, you can now remove the battery...
The only reason you would want to remove the battery is if you had an extra one you wanted to swap in when the first battery was out of juice. (Extra batteries cost $89.99.) If you go this route, be mindful of two things: First, removing the battery instantly shuts off the Thrive. (In fact, it's best to power down the tablet before you do a battery swap.) Second, Toshiba doesn't sell an external battery charger. The only way, at the moment, to charge the Thrive’s battery is to do so with it inserted into the Thrive. As a result, if you plan on using a spare battery, you’ll need to charge it in place, then swap it out with your other battery.
The Thrive’s back cover is textured and rubberized. When attached to the Thrive, it has a reasonably solid feel to it, with only a little bit of flex when you press down on it. Although the Thrive felt somewhat heavy in our hands, the back cover’s so-called “EasyGrip” surface gave it an overall secure and comfortable feel.
The back cover comes in black, matching the rest of the Thrive’s design. For a bit of flair, you can accessorize your Thrive with one of these colored back covers...
Features
There are two displays against which today’s tablet screens should be compared as a benchmark: the ones on the Apple iPad 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Few tablets are able to measure up to these, and the Thrive is no exception. The Thrive’s display is relatively bright and easy to view, but when placed alongside those two tablets, it pales in comparison. The Apple and Samsung displays are noticeably brighter and crisper than the Thrive’s, and they have wider viewing angles. Watching a number of movies on the Thrive, we observed that colors appeared muted by comparison.
While the Thrive’s display quality was acceptable, its audio quality left much to be desired. Music and movie soundtracks sound tinny (with hardly a hint of bass), and the audio distorts when you crank up the volume. You'll find a number of audio-enhancement settings in the Thrive’s system settings, but no matter how much we played with them, we couldn’t make the audio sound any better.
Things don’t get much better with the Thrive’s built-in cameras. The 5-megapixel rear-facing camera captures still images (as JPEG files) up to a resolution of 2,592x1,944 and video (as 3GP files) up to 1,280x720. Despite these impressive-sounding specs, still images and videos showed a significant amount of noise. Videos also had a fair bit of blockiness (a product of less-than-ideal video compression). Captured videos that we copied to a computer and then played on the computer played back fine. But when we played any of the videos we captured on the Thrive back on the Thrive, the audio was always out of sync. And speaking of audio capture, the Thrive’s built-in microphone tends to grab audio at too low a volume level.
As to the 2-megapixel front-facing camera, it captures still images up to 1,600x1,200 and video up to 640x480. It had the same issues as the rear-facing camera, but captured images and videos had even more noise and were relatively grainy—a product of the smaller 2-megapixel sensor.
There is no physical camera button on the Thrive, but a shortcut to its basic camera app can be found on the device’s Home screen...
Unfortunately, whether you’re looking for apps in the Toshiba App Place, the Android Market, or the Amazon Appstore, the number of apps optimized for Honeycomb tablets is still only several hundred strong. This contrasts greatly with over 90,000 apps in Apple’s App Store that are optimized for the iPad.
Another Toshiba-branded app you get with the Thrive is Toshiba Book Place, which, as the name suggests, lets you purchase, download, and read e-books. (It also handles free e-books.) A third is Toshiba Start Place, which is a basic news app that is optimized for the touch-screen interface...
Toshiba also includes a simple Media Player app that can play music and videos, view photos, and let you read RSS feeds. In addition to accessing media (stored on the Thrive’s internal storage, inserted SD cards, and attached USB storage devices), the Media Player app can stream media to the Thrive from DLNA-supported devices on your wireless network.
Since the Thrive makes it so easy to access files on connected storage devices, such as SD cards and USB flash drives, Toshiba strategically includes the Toshiba File Manager. This acts much like its Windows equivalent. You can copy files and folders between your connected storage media and the Thrive’s built-in storage, as well as delete files and folders, and even create new folders...
Yet another useful included app is LogMeIn Ignition, which lets you remotely access your computer from the Thrive over the Internet. (It ordinarily sells for $29.99 in the Android Market.) The inclusion of LogMeIn Ignition is meant to appeal to business users, and in that same vein, Toshiba also provides the QuickOffice HD and PrinterShare apps for working with and printing Microsoft Office documents. Unfortunately, the versions of QuickOffice HD and PrinterShare on the Thrive are the free versions, so QuickOffice can only read documents (it can’t create or edit them), and the free version of PrinterShare is limited in what it can actually do.
You’ll also find a basic video editor app on the Thrive (this is the same app that comes with the Galaxy Tab 10.1), as well a handful of casual games, such as backgammon and Solitaire. Here’s a look at some of the Thrive’s default apps...
Performance
You’d think that with most of the Honeycomb tablets so far using the same 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor—as does the Thrive—that they would all perform exactly the same. This, however, is not the case. Take for instance, the Thrive’s performance on our CPU-centricLinpack for Android test. The Thrive’s score of 30.7 is nearly identical to the Galaxy Tab 10.1’s score of 30.8, but both tablets fall well behind the Eee Pad Transformer TF101 (42.8) and the Iconia Tab A500 (42.6).
Similarly, on our SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark (which measures a tablet's JavaScript capabilities inside its browser), the Thrive’s score of 2,171 is the slowest we’ve seen yet on a Honeycomb tablet. (Note that lower scores are better on this test.) The Galaxy Tab 10.1 wasn’t too far off with a score of 2,145, but once again the Eee Pad Transformer TF101 (1,893) and the Iconia Tab A500 (1,981) had speedier showings. For comparison, the iPad 2 scored 2,088 on this test.
On our GUIMark 2 test, which simulates a Flash-based tower-defense game, the Thrive’s score of 27.4 frames per second (fps) was marginally faster than those of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (24.9fps) and Iconia Tab A500 (26.6fps). Only the Eee Pad Transformer TF101 (27.9fps) was faster, but again, the difference was negligible. Note that the iPad 2 (or any iOS devices, for that matter) can’t run Flash. We saw similar results on our An3DBench test, which measures 3D-graphics capabilities. The Thrive’s score of 7,719 was better than what we saw from the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (7,585) and Iconia Tab A500 (6,918), but still behind the Eee Pad Transformer TF101 (8,627).
While our benchmark tests show below-average CPU and above-average graphics performance, in our day-to-day usage, we found the Thrive zippy and responsive. We didn’t notice any significant differences between how the Thrive and other 1GHz Tegra 2–based Honeycomb tablets performed with apps and media playback.
One area, however, where we did see a big difference is with startup time. In our tablet boot-time test, the Thrive needed only 24 seconds to power up. The only tablet we’ve seen that was faster than this is the iPad 2, which needed only 22 seconds. (Like the Thrive, the first-generation iPad took 24 seconds to boot.) The average boot time we've seen across all Honeycomb tablets we've tested is 34 seconds, with times that range from the Thrive’s 24 seconds to the Motorola Xoom’s 47 seconds.
The Thrive’s victory dance was short lived, however. On our tablet battery-rundown test, we play a video on a loop with the tablet in airplane mode until the battery dies. Here, the Thrive showed the shortest battery life of any Honeycomb tablet we’ve tested yet: just 6 hours and 40 minutes. The average across all Honeycomb tablets we've tested to date is 8:36, with the Xoom lasting the longest, at 9:40. (The average battery life for all of the tablets we’ve looked at, regardless of operating system, is 8:17.) To put these numbers in perspective: None of these come close to the iPad 2’s time on this test of 14:22.
Conclusion
The bulk and weight of the Toshiba Thrive 10 Tablet will disappoint many would-be tablet shoppers, especially considering how thin and light the iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 are. Also, part of the appeal of taking a tablet with you anywhere is that its battery will last a while on a charge. More than six and a half hours is nothing to sneeze at (at least versus typical laptop battery life, which is often around three hours), but the Thrive was in the back of the Honeycomb-tablet pack in terms of battery life. Yes, the Thrive has a user-swappable battery, but consider the 9-plus hours of the Motorola Xoom's battery or the 14-plus hours of the iPad 2's against the need to invest in a second battery to make up the difference.
These will be significant trade-offs for many users. On the other hand, the Thrive’s heft follows from its unique feature set. Connectivity is the Thrive’s strongest suit, with a decent arsenal comprising a full-size USB port, an HDMI port, and an SD-card slot. These are connections that users expect from laptops, not tablets.
Whether the Thrive is the right tablet for you depends on your definition of a tablet. Should it be thin, light, and lasting, or should it have lots of laptop-like ports? You make the call.
Price (at time of review): $579 (est. mfr., as tested)
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