Toshiba is ready to make Samsung jealous, since it has just announced at IFA 2011 an incredibly slim tablet, with a mere 7.7mm waistline. If I’m not mistaking, this is the thinnest Honeycomb tablet available on the market right now, or better said, to be available soon.
The AT200 has been rumored for a while now, especially under the name Toshiba Excite, that was spotted officially days ago. As far as specs go, nothing mind blowing here: a 10.1 inch LCD display with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, a TI OMAP 4430 CPU at 1.2GHz and up to 64GB of internal memory, plus an extra from the microSD card slot.
The video and photo capture are handled by a 5MP shooter at the back and a 2MP sensor upfront. The battery should be more decent than on the Thrive, reaching around 8 hours, according to Toshiba. No launch date or price was given, but we expect further details to pop up during the following days of IFA 2011. Another interesting addition to this slate are the new Toshiba stereo speakers with Adaptive Sound Device Enhancer algorithms in the work, for hugely improved audio quality.
As expected, Toshiba has taken the wraps off of their latest Android tablet offering, the Honeycomb 3.2, 10.1-inch AT200. Measuing in at a mere 7.7mm thick, the Toshiba AT200 comes in as one of the thinnest Honeycomb slates yet, making even the anorexic Galaxy Tab 10.1 look like a whale. Tucked within the tablet is a 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 CPU, 5MP and 2MP cameras, and up to 64GB of on-board storage. The new Toshiba offering is decked out with microUSB, microHDMI, and microSD support.
We admit the AT200 tag isn’t quite as exciting as the Toshiba Excite branding rumored for the new tablet, but there is still time for the marketing department to slap the name on it before it ships. Even if Excite misses the mark, we still suspect a new name for the slate by the time it comes to market.
Toshiba unveils its world-class, ultra-thin, ultra-light tablet
Toshiba AT200 tablet built to exceed expectations at only 7.7mm thin and 558g with full 10.1″ screen
Neuss, Germany, 1st
September 2011 - Toshiba Europe GmbH unveiled an exciting new product today - the ultra-thin 25.7cm (10.1”) AT200 tablet. Despite measuring only 7.7mm from front to back, the Toshiba AT200 delivers a broad range of essential ports and interfaces. It offers an amazing wide-view display for comfortable content consumption plus full web browsing capabilities to meet the preferred usage for tablets. Every bit as powerful as it is stylish and robust, this tablet is built to exceed expectations. The Toshiba AT200 will be available in the fourth quarter of 2011 in Europe.
Ultra-thin, ultra-powerful
“The new ultra-thin 25.7cm (10.1″) tablet Toshiba AT200, featuring Android™ 3.2, Honeycomb, is the latest in a long line of Toshiba products that are masterfully engineered”, said Marco Perino, General Manager DS Digital Products Division. “With a thickness of only 7.7mm and a weight of just 558g, the elegant Toshiba AT200 is highly mobile yet extremely smart and powerful.”
All essentials on-board
To connect with other devices the ultra-slim tablet comes with all essential interfaces and ports onboard: amongst them micro-USB, micro-SD, Wi-Fi™ and Bluetooth®. The micro-HDMI ®-port allows streaming HD content to the large screen of a TV. Front and back HD cameras are ideal for video conferencing and augmented reality applications.
High-quality media consumption – no matter where you are
The Toshiba AT200 allows users to enjoy videos at home and while out and about. It features a brilliant 25.7cm (10.1″) high-definition screen that displays pictures with crisp colours and in full detail.
Despite being ultra-thin, it allows up to eight hours of video consumption.
Sound quality at its best
To complement the first-class video capabilities the new Toshiba tablet with stereo speakers allows for a high quality sound playback. The Adaptive Sound Device Enhancer’s sophisticated algorithm maximises sound quality to achieve a quality that normally only can be found with large speakers. Plus, a technology called Sound Masking Equalizer identifies and enhances sound that is being masked or distorted by surrounding noise. The result is a well- balanced, powerful playback of music and video sounds even under high ambient noise levels.
Endless usage possibilities
Toshiba’s new tablet also offers a rich web browsing experience including support of Adobe® Flash® Player, access to more than 250,000 apps on Android Market™ and Toshiba Places for endless possibilities.
Remember the whole story about Toshiba coming up with a new tablet and then the name “Excite” was trademarked? Well, the Thrive follow-up with Honeycomb was just spotted at IFA 2011, sporting the chromed edges we’ve heard about and an ultra slim design. Showcased at the Toshiba stand in Berlin, this device will probably get an official launch in the following days.
The Excite uses a brushed metal cover and a chrome outline and rumors say it will come with a microSD card slot, microUSB port, a mini HDMI port as well and a front camera, so everything predictable here. As far as internal go, we’ll get a TI OMAP4460 dual core 1.5GHz CPU, making this the most powerful tablet on the market right now.
Expect availability and prices to be detailed once the product hits the stage and it’s seen in the hands of a Toshiba official. I’d also like to know how much RAM and storage space it has and the back camera’s resolution, if possible… but more on that in the following hours!
Toshiba hasn’t quite taken the lid off their brand new Honeycomb tablet later this week at IFA, but the folks over at Notebook Italia went snooping around and were able to grab some shots of what could be known as the Toshiba Excite. Along with the images comes confirmation of microSD, microUSB, and mini HDMI ports. Rumors point to a dual-core 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460 chipset calling the shots. More information will surely become available as the week progresses, but Toshiba’s new tablet isn’t looking too bad at first glance.
Toshiba has some exciting news today, since they’ve just filed for the trademark of a mystery product called Excite. Well, the device is not that mysterious, since word on the street is saying that it’s in fact that tablet we’ve detailed here a couple of days ago. Supposed to follow the Thrive and be unveiled at IFA 2011 this week, this is yet another Honeycomb model.
We’re dealing with an ultrathin slate, that was recently registered with the US Trademark office, under the category Tablet Computers. The company also bought a couple of associated domain names, such as excitetablet.com, toshibaexcite.com and thetoshibaexcite.com, all of them redirected to a Toshiba site.
One may remember that before the Thrive was real, there were already websites with its name used for the domain, so this is happening yet again. Let’s hope that the commercials for the product won’t be as lame this time as they were the last time and they won’t focus on the ability to run Flash, unlike the Apple iPad.
AndroidPolice scored a tip from one of their readers on some recent trademark filings that could give us a name to go along with today’s leak on Toshiba’s upcoming ultra slim, super sexy Android tablet. According to the filings, the tablet could be called the Toshiba Excite although we don’t really have anything that specifically pegs the new tablet to this name so I guess you could call it more of a hunch.
Toshiba’s last effort at an Android Honeycomb tablet fell completely flat with me. It’s overall massively thick size made me feel like it was some kind of ruggedized tab or something manufactured by Nerf. I think this new tablet design finally hits the mark. What do you guys think? Oh – and did anyone actually buy the Thrive?
Toshiba appears prepared to issue an announcement regarding a followup to the summer release of their first Honeycomb tablet, the Toshiba Thrive, and it could come next week at IFA. The new slate looks to improve on the shortcomings of their previous device, most notably with a svelte new look revealed in renders obtained by Notebook Italia. Featuring a thinner frame with brushed metal accents, little else is known about the new offering aside from the inclusion of microHDMI, microUSB, and microSD ports revealed in the leaked images.
Toshiba’s previous two attempts at entering the Android tablet space haven’t gone as successfully as they had hoped. The company would rather forget the poor performance of their initial Folio 100 and very well could be looking to erase the Thrive from their memory as well.
Some may not know that Toshiba has been in the tablet PC biz for a while now, launching an ARM-based unit with Windows CE back in 2009. Well, they’ve also launched the Thrive Honeycomb model this year, but that didn’t go down so well, as the slate has some pretty important power bugs. Now, there’s a follow-up coming, yet another “tablet killer”.
Thrive was bulky, had a removable battery, a 10 inch display and was pretty hard to hold with one hand. The newcomer from Toshiba comes with very much the same ports, but integrated in a more subtle way, not using a special plastic lid like the Thrive. Also, by comparison the new tablet is much thinner than the previous Honeycomb model, actually two times thinner.
We’re expecting to see a microSD card slot, a microHDMI port and a full USB port, if possible on the device. The new Toshiba tablet is now more elegant, has more attractive lines and comes with a brushed metal finish and a chrome bezel. With such elegant laptops in its portofolio, it would be a pity for Toshiba not to deliver the same experience on tablets…
Toshiba Thrive came to use with great expectations, since this device promised to be something special. After all, it’s not every day that we get to see a Honeycomb device with a removable battery and also a slate made by one of the top notebook makers. We reviewed the Thrive and had high hopes for it, but it didn’t quite deliver… Here’s why:
Measuring 16mm in thickness and weighing 725 grams, the Toshiba Thrive is by no means an easy to handles late. It’s bulky and it makes your hand hurt after a single hand use for a couple of hours. The device has some reasonable specifications and it comes with Bluetooth, WiFi, a full USB port, a HDMI port and a 10.1 inch LED display with a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. There’s also an SD card slot on board, as well as internal memory, either in 8, 16 and 32 GB versions.
Under the hood there’s a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU at 1 GHz, plus 1GB of RAM, that will be used to run Android 3.1 Honeycomb on this device. On the side there’s an interesting integrated camera, with a 5 megapixel sensor at the back and on the same side, united with a metal ring there’s the 2MP front camera. The cam at the back does 720p HD capture supposedly, although it didn’t look HD to me. Front cam does videocalls, if you’re interested.
Nothing special till now on the Thrive right? Well, its selling point might be removable battery, but it might also be the impressive amount of custom software that Toshiba provides. They’ve thrown in a demo version of NFS Shift in HD, an App Place (a special app store created by Toshiba), a Book Place (Toshiba’s eBook Store), Kaspersky for free, Log Me In Ignition and tons of other software.
There’s also a printing via wireless client installed and as far as that Toshiba application store goes, you’ll find too little software to be impressed – about 2-3 apps per category. There’s also a press reading software installed and all in all you might want to know that all these apps are pretty useful and make an interesting selling point, since they’re available for free here, but separately they cost a bunch. Take Kaspersky for example, or the Log Me In Ignition app.
Also, Toshiba offers you a Swype virtual keyboard on the tablet, that works just fine. As far as the battery goes, it’s pretty hard to remove it, unless you have long nails and lots of patience. The advantage here is that the power source will recharge in a mere 30-60 minutes, but it will only last about 6-7 hours, so no impressive functioning time here. And of course, the bugs I mentioned: the tablet won’t exit sleep mode once it enters it and sometimes it restarts out of the blue while charging…
Add to that the battery life and bulkiness and we’ve got a not so appealing product after all, especially with an over $600 price point. Maybe the second tablet from Toshiba will get it right…
We’ve just received a Toshiba Thrive Honeycomb tablet for testing and we’re proceeded to the unboxing and battery removal, for you all to see. The Thrive is an older friend of ours, since we’ve played with this unit back in the day of Mobile World Congress and now we have the unit for review.
This 10.1 inch tablet comes with a big black box, that includes a bunch of manuals, some pamphlets with accessories, an USB cable and the two-piece charger, that’s actually a huge accessory. In order to access the removable battery of the Toshiba Thrive, you need to remove its back cover, by first unlocking it with a special side button.
After that it’s as simple as removing a HTC phone case, for example, provided that you have long enough nails. The battery needs two button pushed before exiting its special slot, that reveals some internal tablet components, shown in our video. And then we started the slate and revealed the custom Toshiba apps that the maker implemented on its tablet. We’ll be back with a full review in a couple of days, but till then, you should remember that the rumors about the tablet not waking up from sleep mode are sadly true.
