Surprisingly one of the more unexpected creators in the tablet market happens to be Toshiba. Normally sticking to the usual laptop and general computer parts, this company has had a bit of a wild ride during its journey into tablets. Unfortunately the original Thrive was very lackluster, being heavier and larger than typical 10-inch tablets at the time, and left users feeling a sense of haste from Toshiba. After the July disaster of a release, for the original, the new 7 inch Toshiba Thrive will hopefully correct the past issues we experienced while improving on some of the other components. Let’s see if the changes that Toshiba has introduced in the new Thrive are enough to warrant a purchase from their devout, not to mention vast, user base.
Starting out with the essentials lets see just where the Thrive stands against other tablets. Coming in at a moderate $379 price the Thrive is right in the middle of currently produced tablets that are available to the mass market. Notably the Thrive hasn’t actually changed its internals much, keeping the core components while mainly focusing on the ergonomic and user interface problems. It still comes with the Tegra 2 processor, a gig of RAM, and the same 16 gigs of internal storage. All of these are acceptable components, nothing terrible but nothing too special either, it seems that after the many problems that plagued the original tablet, Toshiba is not going to be making any bold risks with it’s second attempt. In itself that could cause some issues due to the ever-changing market and large competition, though it would be naïve to not notice a lowered price tag along with the decision to keep the beautiful high-resolution display.
The main differences that we experience in the new Thrive are a smaller screen and greatly improved ergonomics. Big and bulky are no longer the best ways to describe the Thrive, rather detailed and delicate, definitely a great improvement. It is very apparent that Toshiba decided to take a step back and redefine just how we judge tablets. Most people like to jump towards larger screens and unneeded features that add nothing to the typical users experience, for reference see how plasma televisions were originally priced towards each other, and Toshiba has staked their belief on the ‘quality over quantity’ mindset. To further this point, the new Thrive has a high resolution and great looking display with rather lacking viewing angles. This leads to an improved single user experience but you shouldn’t expect great results from having a group of people try to watch a video on your tablet. Suffice to say, this is a moderately priced tablet that has definitely been improved over the past few months of research by Toshiba, but the same mindset that has been put forth to improve the Thrive are what’s holding it back, a willingness (or lack thereof) to implementing change.
