Swiss Army Knife Tablet: Toshiba's Thrive Reviewed

by Marco Chiappetta — Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 11:49 AM EDT

Toshiba historically has been know for building notebooks that perhaps aren't as thin and sleek as other machines but rather have a build quality and feature set that is best-of-class. On the tablet front, Toshiba's first effort with an Android-based 10-inch slate looks to be cut from the same cloth.

The Thrive doesn't make any apologies for its size and weight. It's built with very rugged construction and is designed to be full-featured. It's a tablet, so it's still relatively thin, but Toshiba took the stance that they would address some of the inherent limitations in many tablets already out there; most of which pertain to expandability and accessibility. You'll have to tolerate a slate that is just over half-an-inch thick and weighs a little over 1.5lbs. You wafer-thin types might be inclined to whine about that but we say suck-it-up and deal with it. The Thrive brings a bunch of extra utility, not just junk in the trunk...

Swiss Army Knife Tablet: Toshiba's Thrive Reviewed

Tags: Android, Toshiba, tablet, slate, Honeycomb, Android 3.1, Thrive, ToshibaThrive

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com