Toshiba Thrive Review

Camera:

Unfortunately, we’re not too convinced with the quality of the Thrive’s 5-megapixel auto-focus rear camera because it produces soft looking fine details that tend to make images appear muddy up-close. Furthermore, there is this strange bug that sometimes occurs that makes colors appear washed out towards the left and right sides of an image. And finally, you can kiss it doing anything in low lighting conditions due its hazy looks, abundance of noise, and extremely bland color production.

Likewise, we can say the same about its 720p high-definition video recording seeing that the only thing going for it is the clear audio recording and smooth capture rate of 27 frames per second. Besides that, we can’t overlook the fact that its quality is muddied by its lack of any solid detail whatsoever, which in turn makes it appear pixilated. Additionally, the presence of artifacting when panning at a normal pace lessens its appeal even more.

Toshiba Thrive Sample Video:




Multimedia:

When it comes to watching videos, we’re able to use the Toshiba Media Player in addition to the stock one. Playing a video encoded in MPEG-4 1920 x 1080 resolution, the tablet is able to initially play it swimmingly without any faults, but when a notification pops up, its playback becomes distinctively choppy in operation. Still, it’s not a cause for too much alarm – well, that’s as long as you don’t get a lot of notifications. Also, it’s worth noting that the Thrive features Toshiba’s Resolution + upconversion technology that takes standard definition videos and upscales them to produce sharper looking visual, which emulate the feel of a high-def video.


In addition to the stock music player, which offers one glitzy looking presentation when browsing through songs and albums, the Toshiba Media Player is an alternative option as well. Although it’s not as pronounced with its layout, it’s nevertheless functional in playing some tunes. However, we’re not blown away with the audio quality of its two speakers seeing that it’s more reserved with its output and lacks any robust bass tones. And even though it offers SRS enhancement, it’s still paltry in tone with its quality.


Again, most people will truly adore the Thrive’s use of a standard HDMI port, which offers the always useful mirrored experience that allows us to display our interactions with the platform all on the big screen.

With our review unit, it boasts 16GB of internal storage, it’s indeed plentiful for its $479.99 pricing, but you can naturally supplement its capacity with its available standard sized Secure Digital card slot. Also, you can get the Thrive cheaper at $429.99 with 8GB of storage, or $579.99 for the higher 32GB one.


Internet and Connectivity:

On the surface, everything appears to be fine and dandy with the Thrive’s web browsing experience seeing that it offers Flash support and is able load up complex pages in a good amount of time. But as soon as we begin to navigate, we’re hit with this overpowering presence of choppiness with kinetic scrolling. In fact, it’s prevalent throughout its operation and makes its performance feel as though that it’s unresponsive at times.


Currently, the Toshiba Thrive is available in Wi-Fi form only – with other connectivity features like Bluetooth and aGPS naturally on board for the ride. Overall, it’s able to solidly connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot that’s situated approximately 25 feet away in another room. Meanwhile, it takes less than 10 seconds for it to get an exact fix on our location in Google Maps from a cold boot.