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BUILD QUALITY
Thrive comes with a gorgeous 10.1” screen and has a resolution of 1280x800p which makes it perfect for viewing HD video. That HD video can either be uploaded to Thrive or can be recorded with the rear 5MP camera in 720p. Thrive also has a front facing 2MP camera so you can use Google Talk or Skype to talk with friends.
The only thing I don’t like about the Thrive is that the bezel is a bit large and that the web camera is chromed out, rather than being blacked out so that it isn’t noticeable. Though the screen is, brightly lit, vivid and graphics are crisp, there is plenty of glare thrown back in your face by the mirror-like glossiness of the screen and bezel. I’d prefer if the bezel was shorter and the screen stretched as far as possible. Of course – that’s no reason to downrank the Thrive because it gets plenty of other things right.
The first thing the Toshiba thrive does right is offering you a choice in the color of your backplate. Pink, black, silver and blue are just a few choices immediately available from the company, but, in time, if Thrive thrives, there may be 3rd party choices available too. The material in use feels good in the hands, resists slippage and feels strong enough to resist cracking or damage if you store them.
The second intelligent choice is giving you a user replaceable battery. If you have the time to charge two batteries before going on a long plane trip, you can simply remove the backplate and pop the second battery in to continue doing whatever you were doing.
The only downside about having the user-replaceable battery and removable backplate is the fact that the device is thicker than other devices which don’t offer those features – namely: the iPad2. It is more than a half inch thick (0.62”) while the iPad2 enjoys a thickness of just 0.346” and the Web OS running HP Touchpad enjoys a thickness of 0.54”. This is probably the fattest tablet on the block. Even the Blackberry Playbook and Motorola XOOM aren’t this fat.
Even though it looks and feels big, it doesn’t weight as much as you’d think it does. The Thrive weighs in at 1.6 pounds which makes it about equal to the Xoom in weight. Both of these tablets are 130 grams more than iPad 2.
If you can look past it’s unsightly visual bulk, you will find awesome features that the thinner competition doesn’t have. There is a USB port, an HDMI port and a mini USB port. There isn’t another tablet I can name that gives you all of that. This means that, not only can you plug it right into an HDTV (which I did to watch a video), but, you can also use it with regular keyboards/printers/etc instead of requiring a Bluetooth device.
Like typical Google tablets, there’s an SD card slot which supports up to 128GB SDXC cards while regular Android tablets only support up to 32GB.
There’s also a docking port so you can plug it to the dock which also has a pass through HDMI-out to your television.
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READY TO THRIVE?
At the heart of the Thrive, Toshiba has placed an excellent combination of equipment. The first component, the CPU, is an NVIDIA 1GHz Dual Core “Tegra 2” with accelerated 3D Graphics processing. NVIDIA is probably the best maker of video cards there is and the only company I buy video cards from. What I love about them is not only their spectacular performance, but, the fact NVIDIA regularly offers support and updates for their products. I’ve graduated from their GeForce2 & 3 line to their GTX580. I’ve never gotten anything less than excellent performance from them.
The next component down is 1GB of DDR2 RAM. “Random Access Memory” basically allows the device to open more apps at a time or display higher quality graphics. The more of it, the better. Right now, 1GB is the highest you can get on a tablet.
Internal memory offers you a choice between 16GB and 32GB. Unless you have special needs, the 16GB is the one to go with since it’s only about $479 while the 32GB is $579 (depending on where you buy it). There is also a base version for $429 with 8GB, but, I feel that’s too little.
Naturally, internet connection will be done via WiFi. Thrive comes with an adapter ready to connect to virtually all WiFi networks, including, the higher speed 802.11N network. For now, there is no 3G or 4G cellular data access version available. Hopefully, they get one to market fast because this is the Google Tablet you are gonna’ want to have.
OPERATING SYSTEM
This is the second device where I’ve used Google’s “Honeycomb” operating system. Our Motorola XOOM launched with Google 3.0 and had Flash problems which took about 3 weeks for them to release an update for. The Thrive launches with Google 3.1 and it comes out of the box without the Flash problem I experienced on the Xoom.
Honeycomb is optimized for use on a Tablet and offers numerous improvements to the Android operating system such as support for SDXC, open USB modes, and dual core processor memory/power management. Before Honeycomb, many Android apps worked poorly on Tablets (such as on the older Samsung Galaxy Tab).
For the most part, Honeycomb offers the same improvements and the same disappointments I had when using the Xoom. My biggest problems where the lack of coherent context menus. Unlike Google Android phones, there are no hard [back], [menu], [search] and [home] buttons on the screen’s bezel. That means that whatever App you are using will offer them to you in the corners. Problem is, many apps I’ve used have contexts which never offer all of the options where I expected them to be. This became annoying while looking for “preferences”, “setups” or “ contact lists” in apps such as Skype and a few calculator utility applications.
I was also not crazy about the way apps are presented on the Home screen. The detailing and wallpapers look fantastic, but, unless you spend the time organizing your apps onto individual pages, you may become bewildered as to where they actually are. It’s not as straightforward as Apple’s iOS.
Web browsing is fast on the Thrive, but, to make it faster, you may choose to turn Flash off. On some websites, Flash content seriously hogs resources and is noticeably the slowest content to load. It can take over 15 seconds for all the Flash video players to pop up.
Ultimately, choosing whether to go with Google Android, Apple iOS or Hewlett Packard’s Web OS is going to come down to the apps available. There are some apps on iOS you can’t get on Android ( and vice versa), but, those are operating system issues unrelated to the quality of the hardware. Nothing to attack the Thrive for.
TYPING ON THRIVE
The virtual keyboard on the Thrive is straightforward. Since the virtual keyboard is based on the Operating system and can be changed, I bothered to mention it because I felt that the Thrive and Honeycomb work well together. The only downside is that number keys aren’t immediately available until you push the [123] key and that in many apps, the “Enter” [<-] key doesn’t do exactly what you expect it to do and you may be required to use one of the virtual soft keys instead.
Thanks to the USB port and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, you can connect a standard keyboard easily and type on the Thrive while on it's dock. Unfortunately, there is only one dock connector on the side which means you can only use the dock in landscape mode. The HP Touchpad has a special dock which allows it to use portrait or landscape.
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CAMERAS, VIDEO and AUDIO
I found the 720p Video recording on the Thrive to be excellent looking and sounding when viewed on the tablet or ported to our 27” HP Monitor. Thanks to noise cancelling microphones, you can record outdoors and not get excessive wind noise. The only downside is that the Thrive lacks a rear flash LED. Then again – I doubt anyone would seriously use this thing as a camera.
The 2MP front facing camera is activated by default in Honeycomb. It is high enough in quality to record blogs from (and then post to YouTube), or just use for net chat on Google Talk. Since most other tablets only offer VGA quality front facing cameras, there is nothing to complain about in the Thrive in this regards.
Honeycomb OS includes numerous camera tools and a basic video editor just as it did on the Xoom. There are color effects such as sepia and negative appearances, flash controls, white balance, and numerous scene modes. The last picture taken is displayed as an icon and tapping that icon opens the gallery so you can view previous photos taken. This is definitely a great camera app and thanks to the Thrive’s versatile cameras, you’ll get plenty of use out of it.
Thrive also includes SRS sound technology which allows its relatively small speakers to sound louder, clearer and “wider” than they are – since SRS is very good with 3D audio. I enjoyed playing Shawana’s “Candy Coated” and “Getting some” as well as some Linkin Park songs and was amazed by the Bass response of the speakers. Though you’ll definitely want to have headphones if you plan on using it in public or an airplane, Thrive definitely offers great speaker ability in an ambient environment so you and your friends can watch the latest Youtube videos.
As an added bonus, the USB port on the Thrive can be plugged directly to external USB hard drives thanks to proprietary Toshiba firmware which will recognize them. Therefore, if you have a flash drive or netdrive with TV shows or movies stored, you can use the Thrive with an HDTV for some serious HD movie viewing. This can also allow you to carry your entire music collection with you even if you only have the 16GB version.
Toshiba has also included it's own firmware upgrades which will enhance non-HD content to near HD quality - essentially "upconverting it". It contains it's own video and picture upconversion codecs. As far as i could tell, the system works well, but, can lead to some serious framerate slowdown while viewing movies. Fortunately, this can be turned on or off to your desire. SRS enhancements can be shut off too.
Reviews and More Info From Amazon
BATTERY LIFE and CONCLUSION
Having a user replaceable battery is definitely a plus for the thrive because, thanks to such a powerful CPU, the Thrive has some of the worst battery life I’ve seen. The most I could pull out of the Thrive was about 6 hours of continuous use. Meanwhile, the iPad2 returns over 9 hours and many other Android Tablets return around 8. The Xoom, which I consider the closest competitor to the Thrive returns over 8 hours of life. Battery life was the only thing that really hurt the thrive. Charging the battery to 100% takes a little over an hour and a half using the laptop-like ac adapter.
So that’s it. Toshiba does “get it right” and is easily the best Android tablet you can purchase right now. Most of you may be over to get over Thrive’s thickness considering the range of outputs it offers. If you definitely need a thinner, high powered android, you should go with the Xoom - which gives you equally good cameras but, doesn’t offer the full-sized HDMI/USB output ports. If you need mobile internet, smaller and less expensive, go for T-Mobile's Galaxy Tab.
If you, however, want the most versatile Android tablet, the Toshiba Thrive is where you should look.
Recommended:
Yes
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