Toshiba Thrive: Honeycomb Hits $300
by Vivek Gowri on December 12, 2011 3:00 AM ESTBut while the device hardware isn’t necessarily all that impressive, the internal components on tap are still pretty competent. Even with the quad-core Tegra 3-infused Transformer Prime going on sale next week, Tegra 2 is still the SoC of choice for most of the Honeycomb world. Beyond the Prime and a couple of Snapdragon-based tablets, there are very few Honeycomb tablets currently shipping with anything other than Tegra 2 inside. What this means is that, regardless of how the Thrive looks and feels, it’s on par performance-wise with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and every other Tegra 2-based Honeycomb tablet on the market. As such, the benchmarks end up along the same lines as the rest of the group. It’s not cutting-edge silicon anymore, but Tegra 2 does the job pretty well—the main things you’re giving up versus Tegra 3 are the extra cores and corresponding increase in multithreaded performance as well as the faster GPU.
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doggod - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
How is what Microsoft wants, come into the net books argument at all. None of the tablets people are buying come with a Microsoft OS so you would imagine that manufactures would jump on having net books with android installed which negates any licensing costs.Personally I dont get their use either, apart as a toy. And an expensive toy.
Portability is negated by having to type on the screen( which if you haven't left the tablet down on a surface you have to do one handed)
Websites have to be zoomed to read properly
mathew7 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - link
"How is what Microsoft wants, come into the net books argument at all. None of the tablets people are buying come with a Microsoft OS so you would imagine that manufactures would jump on having net books with android installed which negates any licensing costs."Please research before you talk. Just a hint: tablets are not sold with Windows because there is no way to run it. The CPU from the tablets has nothing in common with what you have on a netbook or desktop. It's like diesel vs. gasoline engine: they both take you somewhere, but how they make power is completely different (you cannot run and/or you will damage either engine if you put the wrong fuel).
So tablet designers take no attention to MS Win Starter limitations. But netbook designers, even if the tablet will be sold with Win7 HP, it's still designed for Win7 Starter because of HW sharing between models.
DanNeely - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
Viewing angles? IPS vs TN?Hrel - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
I can't beleive someone who reads anandtech has to ask this. TN maxes out at about 170 degree viewing angles, marketed, not practical application. IPS is basically 180 degree, ie you can always see it and it always looks good. IPS has significantly longer response times though. Pretty much all flat panel LCD tv's are IPS.Aloonatic - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
Why bother to read anandtech at all, when you know everything already?mjcutri - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
I made the mistake of buying a Thrive for my wife when they first came out in July. It was one of my worst tech purchases ever. I liked the idea of the dock and full size ports, but the flaws just don't make up for what I perceived as advantages.The screen takes next to nothing to break it and Toshiba knows it. They charge over $300 to replace it. Initially you could get a replacement screen and spend 4 hours trying to fix it yourself, but there was such a run on them (since the screen is so crappy) that they ran out of stock quickly. Since then, they have increased the price from $80 to $160 for the replacement screen, which now isn't worth it.
I'm getting her a Transformer when the price drops on those.
mjcutri - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the incredibly buggy software.The well known problem of not waking from sleep has still not been fixed. (You have to turn it completely off and then back on again.) The screen randomly turn on by itself. (which is really annoying when you're trying to sleep.) The screen randomly doesn't go to sleep when you press the power button. (It just flashes black and then back on again.)
VivekGowri - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
There was an update to fix the sleep-wake problem, I never encountered it after that...As for the screen, yeah - because it's plastic, it's easier to break/scratch/damage. I really, really wish Toshiba would have gone the extra distance and gone for Gorilla Glass or some other kind of chemically treated glass covering for the screen.mjcutri - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link
Yeah...that update...didn't fix crap...And the screen is glass, just not gorilla glass.
TexasAg03 - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
"...eventually settling in the $4-500 range."Could you please let me know where the $4 tablets are?