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Toshiba Excite tablets hands-on pictures and impressions

Toshiba's new Excite range of tablet share the same design, but can be had with different specs. We go hands-on.

Andrew Lanxon
Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once.
Andrew Lanxon
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Toshiba has three new slates to try and tempt your cash with and all come bearing the name 'Excite'. I went in for a hands-on with the tablets at a showcase so click through the images above to see whether they deserve that name.

They certainly don't excite in the looks department. All three are 10.1-inch slates with an all-glass front and a plain grey back panel. They're not the prettiest of slates, nor are they particularly slim. At 10.5mm, they're a lot chubbier than the super-sleek Sony Xperia Tablet Z and they don't feel half as nice to hold.

The entry level model, the Pure starts at £250. It packs a 1,200x800-pixel resolution display and a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. Those are very uninspiring specs, so you'll need to look further up the range for some actual excitement.

The Pro looks identical, but its key specs are wildly different. For a start, it's rocking the latest Nvidia Tegra 4 processor. It's quad-core, like its predecessor, but it boasts vastly improved power for gaming. I had a go on Riptide 2 which played extremely smoothly but I'll wait for a full review before giving a verdict on this new silicon.

Its screen is better too, boasting an impressive 2,560x1,600-pixel resolution. That's outstripping the retina-display iPad and is the same you'll find on the Google Nexus 10. Everything is unsurprisingly pin-sharp and the colours seemed good too. Again, I'll wait until I make a final judgement, but it's definitely off to a good start. The Pro starts at £350.

If the name didn't give the game away, the Write boasts a stylus. For writing. Spec-wise, it's the same as the Pro, so expect the same performance. The screen has the same resolution, but the tech behind it has been tinkered with to help support the stylus. I found writing to be very comfortable and responsive, but whether that's worth paying a whopping £150 extra depends on how much you value hand-written notes.

All three models are due to hit Currys and PC World in Q3. In the meantime, pop your comments and thoughts about the slates below or over on our Facebook page

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You can expand the storage with an SD card and output the display to a big screen over HDMI.
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The back panels of all models are the same. Don't be excited about the plain, plasticky design.
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Mind you don't cover up that speaker when you're holding it.
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There's an 8-megapixel snapper on the back.
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That happy little chap indicates Android Jelly Bean is on board. Version 4.2.1, to be precise.
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Let's give a warm welcome to the Pure. It sits at the bottom end of the range.
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That boring plastic back is still there.
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As is the Toshiba branding.
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Oh look, it has edges. Fancy that.
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There's a camera too. We'll see how good it is when we take for a test shoot.
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The Pure allows for HDMI output too.
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And it uses Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean.
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Its Tegra 3 chip isn't as burly as the Tegra 4 version you'll find in the higher models.
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The screen isn't as high resolution either.
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All models will be available with a Bluetooth keyboard stand -- handy if you want to do some proper typing.
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They keys are small, but I found it fairly comfortable.
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It's chunky once you've got the keyboard attached.
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The Excite Write is basically the same as the Excite Pro, but you get a stylus with it.
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The back is the same as all the others.
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Oh look, there's a camera too. Smashing.
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The stylus is quite chunky so it's easy to hold, but you can't slot it into the tablet.
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It's easy to write hand-written notes on the screen. The only issue is if you have awful handwriting.
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All models work with the keyboard stand.
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Good luck sliding that into a slim bag.

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