While Android 3.0 Honeycomb itself still needs some polish, prices for tablets running the software may need it anymore. We could imagine that the Xoom would have shipped even more units had it been priced affordable, or even offered multiple versions from the beginning. Well, the first affordable, feature-rich Android Honeycomb tablets are certainly on their way and Toshiba will be one of the first.
While nameless at the time, Toshiba showed off its Honeycomb tablet back at CES and we were pretty impressed by the powerful device. Sporting a 10.1 inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800, NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 5 mega pixel rear camera, and 2 megapixel camera on front for video chat. Toshiba also offers something we’ve yet to see for a tablet before: replaceable backings. These backing are rubberized and come with a nice design and feels nice in the hand.
Toshiba will be selling the tablets in two versions, 8GB and 32GB. The 8GB version of the Thrive will run you $450 which seems like a pretty fair price for a tablet of its caliber. Those looking for a little more internal storage and don’t want to use the built-in SD card slot, you’ll have to pay $579 for the 32GB version.
For the price and features the Thrive offers up we’re pretty impressed. With a nice spec-sheet and the unique option to replace the backing make the Thrive an interesting Android Honeycomb table that doesn’t kill the wallet. More tablets are coming down the piper with affordable prices and we’re glad to see Toshiba at the front of the line.
We’ll have to get the thing in our hands before we can come up with any solid conclusions about the Thrive, but the tablet is definitely one to look out for if you’re in the market for a Honeycomb tablet sometime this year.
[Via: PhoneDog]