Toshiba Thrive Review

Introduction:

To date, most of the Android Honeycomb flavored tablets we’ve checked out have all performed similarly with their platform experience, but as we’ve seen, some are able to distinguish themselves by offering some sort of unique functionality. In fact, we’ve seen things like 3D video capture, the return of the stylus, and add-on keyboard attachments – all of which are deem supplemental, but not profoundly practical. Well, the Toshiba Thrive doesn’t try to woo consumers with some sort of gimmick, but rather, it goes back to the root of things in hopes of strengthening the fundamental functionality of tablets. Seeing that this is their first foray into the Android tablet market, it’s interesting to see if it’s actually going to be “the first tablet to get it right.”

The package contains:

• Toshiba Thrive
• miniUSB Cable
• Wall Charger Adapter
• Start Guide
• Health & Safety and Warranty Guide

Design:

Scary to say, the Toshiba Thrive is hands-down the bulkiest Honeycomb tablet we’ve scoped to date weighing in at 25.57 oz and sizing up evenly all around at 0.62” thick. Additionally, when so many other tablets try to keep a slim figure, it’s quite baffling to find the Thrive doing the complete opposite with its overall uninspiring and bland looks. Of course, the only noteworthy difference that it can call its own is the fact that its offers slip-resistant rear covers that are available in a myriad of colors – thus, adding just a subtle hint of personality to its appearance.



Rather than finding an IPS display like some of its contemporaries, the Toshiba Thrive instead features a 10.1” LED-backlit display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. Honestly, we’re content with its overall quality since it produces an abundant amount of detail and punchy looking colors that aren’t too overly saturated. Combining its wide viewing angles and high brightness output, it’s able to maintain its appearance even in outdoor conditions – albeit, we’re still finding ourselves shielding it from the sun.


Initially, we’re turned away by its sheer size, but after taking a peek around its sides and rear, we’re able to better clearly comprehend why it’s packing so much more girth than others. For starters, the Thrive does its best to accommodate the needs of many users with its standard set of components – like its 3.5mm headset jack, full size HDMI port, full size USB port, SD card slot, and miniUSB port. In all honestly, some will appreciate that the Thrive maintains most of the key elements found with most laptops and netbooks nowadays – then again, its size is rather difficult to overlook.



Much like its rivals, it features a front-facing 2-megaixel camera and a 5-megapixel auto-focus shooter in the rear – though, it doesn’t offer any flash. And even though it’s not something you find common with tablets, we find an unlikely element with the Toshiba Thrive since it actually offers easy access to its removable 2,030 mAh battery.

Interface and Functionality:

Unsurprisingly, the Toshiba Thrive is powered by the all too prevalent 1GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor with 1GB of RAM, which dishes up the same exact performance as other comparably equipped tablets. Navigating around the homescreen in landscape is effortlessly accomplished with a decent amount of responsiveness, but we’re still seeing the same choppy execution when doing it in portrait. Besides that, we’re satisfied with its overall operation, however, the experience is marred by quite a few annoying bugs and force closes that randomly appear. Specifically, the Thrive enters sleep mode when it’s been inactive for some time, and cannot be waked up from its deep sleep – thus, requiring a hard reset. Luckily, it appears that Toshiba is aware of the issue and will have a fix for it very shortly, but nevertheless, we still experience more errors on this tablet than others.

Greeted with the stock Android 3.1 Honeycomb experience, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but the only new additions to it are some new static and live wallpapers. Besides that, everything else remains intact with its resizable widgets, grid-like app panel, and available shortcuts. As much as we’d love to see some sort of manufacturer customization, we’re nevertheless still appreciative with the stock experience since it’s choked full of personalization and usefulness.


Typing up long messages is such a joy with its responsive stock keyboard, but as an alternative, the Thrive also offers the Swype keyboard as well. However, we’re not all too keen about using the landscape one mainly because its layout extends to the entire width of the display – meaning, there’s a lot of travel required by our fingers, which causes fatigue very quickly. Thankfully, the portrait one is moderately better with its smaller footprint, but either way, you can always input text the manual way by simply tapping on a button.


Mainly due to the stock experience we find with the Toshiba Thrive, it doesn’t deviate with its set of core organizer apps – like Gmail, Calendar, Calculator, Contacts, and Clock. However, there are a few third party apps that might prove useful to some people. Actually, business and enterprise users will no doubt find apps like Kaspersky Tablet Security, PrinterShare, Quickoffice, and LogMeIn fitting for their needs. Meanwhile, Toshiba throws in their own branded apps that mimic some of Android’s offerings – such as App Place, Book Place, Media Player, and Service Station. But if there’s one app that we find most useful on the Thrive, it has to be the File Manager since it allows us to manage content stored on either the tablet, USB flash drive, or SD card.

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.

Performance:

Without a doubt, we love that the Thrive is one of the few Android tablets that actually offers a removable battery, however, its performance is nothing too surprising with its average-like results. Testing it out by playing a movie in DVD quality with the brightness set to 50% and volume at the middle setting, it’s able to continuously play it for 7 hours before its battery is completely dissipated. Moreover, we’re very happy with its solid one day’s worth of normal usage, which is more than what we’re expecting out of a tablet of this caliber.

Conclusion:

Call it a standard we come to expect nowadays, but when a tablet is priced around the $400 mark, there are certain requirements that they need to achieve. Sadly, we can’t say that the Toshiba Thrive is “the first tablet to get it right” mainly because it doesn’t necessarily bring anything new or excitingly different to the tablet form except for its standard sized ports and removable battery. Actually, the Thrive seems all too similar to any netbook out there, and doesn’t particularly take the tablet form factor as seriously as others. With its uninspiring looks, massive size, and buggy platform experience, it’s already at the cutting block even though it’s priced moderately enticing at $429.99. For the money, you’re better off spending it on the better equipped Asus Eee Pad Transformer.

Android Version: 3.1
Build number: HMJ37.01.5.0022
Kernel Version: 2.6.36.3-00018-gfe4777a