7-inch Toshiba Thrive arrives in stores, prices start from $379.99

Looking for an affordable 7-incher? The Toshiba Thrive 7-inch tablet would have been exactly that had it been released a couple of months earlier, but now it looks more on the pricey side in a world where there are the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire, $249 Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet and the $299.99 HTC Flyer. The Thrive arrives in two versions: a 16GB one for $379.99, while the 32GB model carrier a price tag of $429.99. Interestingly, this prices the 7-inch Thrive above its 10.1-inch sibling which retails for $299.99 for the most basic version.

Nonetheless, the 7-inch Thrive offers a solid dual-core punch with the NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor on the inside paired with 1GB of RAM, all powering Android 3.2 Honeycomb. 

It does also offer a pretty solid resolution of 1280x800 pixels. In terms of cameras, there’s both a rear-facing 5-megapixel sensor, and a front-facing 2MP camera for video conferencing. It does also come with a variety of ports such as mini-USB and micro HDMI.

The tablet fulfils Toshiba’s earlier promise to make it to shelves in December, but we’re left wondering whether it’s not a bit too late for it. With quad-core slates like the Asus Transformer Prime just around the corner with a price nearing the one of this small dual-core tablet, it will have a tough time battling for the user’s heart. How do you like it?

source: Toshiba via GSM Arena