Anyone got the Toshiba Thrive yet?

[Nimbus]

I plan on getting one for christmas (Yes I just spelt that out in full!)

I wish to know how good it is. I'm pretty set on getting it seeing as it has the NVidia Tegra and Dual Core and all that fancy stuff, it also looks well built and knowing Toshiba I could probably drop a rock on it and have it survive intact. I've heard some good stuff about it too, but I wanted to confirm if it was all true.

If anyone has any other suggestion, I'm willing to listen XOOM, iPad are both out of the question, the former because of it's price tag and the latter because I absolutely hate apple with a passion.

 

[CarbonX13]

Most major, flagship tablets on all companies have the dual-core processor with a nVIDIA Tegra 2. This applies for a plentiful list of devices from different companies:
- Acer Iconia Tab (most versions)
- ASUS Eee Pad Transformer
- ASUS Eee Pad Slider
- LG Optimus Pad
- Motorola Xoom
- Samsung Galaxy Tab (series)
- Sony Tablet S
- Toshiba Thrive

You complained about the price tag of the Xoom, but the Thrive's price-point is above the Xoom. Most of these tablets will run you anywhere between $450 to $600 in most cases. The lower end is for 16GB models, while the high end is for 32GB flavours. So with that, you can go with pretty much any one of these and get a similar experience out of it.

I'd go with an ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, for the keyboard add-on that also doubles its battery life. If not, a Galaxy Tab from Samsung is another fantastic choice. If you're wanting cheap price for the same specs, Acer will be your option, though their device(s) seems laggier than other ones for some reason.

Note some companies' customized versions of Android Honeycomb feel much smoother than others, which explains why the ASUS and Samsung tablets feel faster than the Acer or LG despite very much the same hardware.

 

[Terminator02]

What do you want a tablet for? What use case do you have for one?

Edit: Not hypothetical questions.

 

[Nimbus]

What do you want a tablet for? What use case do you have for one?

Edit: Not hypothetical questions.

Well lets put it this way.

I have a relatively powerful laptop, but I dont always like taking it everywhere I go.

I'd rather take a Tablet with that is much less bulky than my Laptop backpack.

That and I need something to replace my dated MP3 player, which although smaller and portable, is not doing so hot lately (Damn thing's battery only holds 1/3 of what it used to). I also do not like booting my computer up past 7:00PM, so thats another reason.

At my work the 8GB Toshiba Thrive is actually $349-$379 depending on whether I don't get the bundle that comes with the dock and matching case, or if I do get it. Even the Acer Equivalent is more expensive currently and comes with a few games on it that I could honestly not give two craps about.

The higher capacity ones are more expensive, and honestly I could just get a 16-32GB SD Card (I cannot believe this thing has a full size SD Card slot, I haven't seen any other tablet so far that lays claim to that) and have do with that.

 

[Nathan Drake]

The bulk of tablets just have a MicroSD card slot if they have removable storage. A MicroSD card is smaller and less obvious on the device, making it a more attractive choice than the normal SD card. Regardless, with a tablet, I don't see anybody needing more than an extra 16GB anyways, so that isn't a huge deal in the long run.

 

[Nimbus]

The bulk of tablets just have a MicroSD card slot if they have removable storage. A MicroSD card is smaller and less obvious on the device, making it a more attractive choice than the normal SD card. Regardless, with a tablet, I don't see anybody needing more than an extra 16GB anyways, so that isn't a huge deal in the long run.

Yeah, but a full size one is easier to remove, and it's a first IMHO for a tablet to have one.

It apparently goes in all the way as well, so it's not like it's sticking out at all.

Not sure if the thing can be rooted/CM'd but I'm not sure I'd even care about that seeing as it runs Honeycomb.

One thing that I adore about it's features even from reading about it is that is supports Ogg Vorbis out of the box and many other formats, and likely with updates FLAC. FLAC is an eargasm, no audio loss at all, filesize is huge though, but worth it in some case. Ogg Vorbis is like MP3 only with a fraction of the audio loss. I never rip my Music in Linux to anything other than one of the two, so this is a nice feature for me.

I hope that the Ubuntu One app works on it, or at least Banshee works on it for syncing stuff. Not that it matters much though as I could just use the file manager on my Ubuntu Install and drag and drop them. That also brings up another thought in my mind, I wonder if the stock rom/firmware supports ext2/3/4 volumes, including those on an SD Card. If it does then I can say goodbye to crappy FAT32 and it's undesired 4GB size limit for any single file.

 

[Terminator02]

You should wait for the ice cream sandwich announcement coming next week, on the 11th

and look into the kindle fire, not sure whether you're up for the amazon mp3 cloud player, but that's a potential solution for you, and only $200 (coming November 15th i believe)

 

[Nimbus]

You should wait for the ice cream sandwich announcement coming next week, on the 11th

and look into the kindle fire, not sure whether you're up for the amazon mp3 cloud player, but that's a potential solution for you, and only $200 (coming November 15th i believe)

Bahh...already looked into the Kindle before I looked at the Thrive. Kindle Fire is too weak, I cant stand weak computers/devices anymore. I have to have power!

Having an MP3 Player that doesnt have the music locally, no thanks...both of those two are out of the question.

Again, Toshiba thrive at my work is $349, and the bundle version on our website is $379. Thats a reasonable price range, and I'll honestly sell my soul to Toshiba anyday, their laptops are built like tanks, so I trust that my judgmenet is not misplaced on their tablets.

Also, full size USB port on the Thrive. Thats pretty b---hin if you ask me

The only alternative I think I'll settle on would be the Acer Iconia, but it's ironically $399 just cause of some games I could honestly give no shits about.

Yeah, I think I'll go with the Thrive. This topic was originally intended to see if anyone else had it and what they thought of it, but thanks for the insight anyway.