The original Toshiba Thrive 10 inch impressed us with its full sized boards and the ability to remove its battery and swap in a new one.
The 7-inch version is here now but can't possibly offer the same experience.
I am Eric Franklin and today we're taking a first look at the Toshiba Thrive 7 inch.
On the 7-inch, you'll find a rotational lock switch, volume rocker, and a power/lock button.
Opening the little court door reveals mini HDMI, mini USB and a micro SD slot.
There are 2 speakers in a very large (??) with the over-sized power Decker can plug into.
The tablet retains the multi-groove back side from the 10-inch version but to be honest, doesn't feel all that groovy.
There's a 2 megapixel camera on the front with a 5-megapixel on the back.
It's typical to imagine any worst place for a camera on a 7-inch tablet and right here, midway between each side.
The thrive 7-inch ships with honeycomb 3.2.1 install, a couple of games and quick office HD.
Toshiba also includes its own file manager app making it easier to find unorganized files stored on the tablet's internal flash or expanded memory.
Toshiba also includes a video enhancement feature called Resolution Plus that pumps up the color in contrast of standard deposition video while we did see some improvement.
It's very subtle.
What we did notice was the stuttering and pausing in the video when we played that with the feature turned on.
Never getting honeycomb felt fast, smooth and responsive, however we did noticed a lot of clipping when scrolling through web pages.
While games run well in the 7-inch, we've seen tablets like the Samsung 7.0 plus run them better.
Both .mkv and .mov movies we tried on the Thrive wouldn't play and unlike some tablets, we got no options to convert them to a compatible file format and copying them over.
7-inch aren't cheap.
Well, full-sized 7-inch tablets aren't cheap.
Though the Kindle Fire and (Net?) Tablet offer very control experiences, if all you wanna do is read a book, watch some movies, play a game every now and then and surf the web, there aren't much better ways to spend $200 to $250.
The 10-inch Thrive got plus for offering full-sized boards and a swapable battery at a very descent price and not including those same features here kinda misses the point.
The Thrive 7-inch has a lot of ports and a responsive screen and isn't a bad tablet.
There are just way more appealing options out there for your cash.
Once again, I am Eric Franklin and this has been a first look at the Toshiba Thrive 7-inch
