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Toshiba Excite 13: A mammoth, stay-at-home tablet (hands on)

A 13-inch tablet is no joke. What do you do with a device that starts at $650 and is almost too unwieldy to hold? Keep it at home.

Jessica Dolcourt Senior Director, Commerce & Content Operations
Jessica Dolcourt is a passionate content strategist and veteran leader of CNET coverage. As Senior Director of Commerce & Content Operations, she leads a number of teams, including Commerce, How-To and Performance Optimization. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on iPhone and Samsung. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds. Jessica began leading CNET's How-To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones and home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick (UK).
Expertise Content strategy, team leadership, audience engagement, iPhone, Samsung, Android, iOS, tips and FAQs.
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Jessica Dolcourt
Watch this: Toshiba Excite 13

NEW ORLEANS--We heard about the massive 13-inch Toshiba Excite 13 back in April, when we declared the thing too large to really be considered a portable device.

Now that I've seen the so-called tablet in its footlong glory, I can say with complete authority: as a tablet, it's insane; unwieldy and hard to handle.

Toshiba Excite 13
It's big, it's heavy, and it's hardly portable. Meet the Toshiba Excite 13. Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

That's perhaps why Toshiba envisions use cases that more or less keep it within domestic confines -- playing games, propping it on its included stand to use in the kitchen, watching movies in a room without a TV.

Get beyond its size and you'll find a 1,600x900 pixel resolution, an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, and the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. It also sports a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. There are Micro-USB and Micro-HDMI-out ports and a full SD port in addition to the headset jack.

I can see the scenarios play out in my head, but I can't see a real market. For the $650 it costs for the 32GB version and the $750 for the 64GB version, you might be better off considering a full-on laptop. Then again, you might gain some serious muscle carrying it from room to room.

The Wi-Fi-only Toshiba Excite 13 goes on sale June 24 -- if you can hoist it home.

Catch all the latest news from CTIA 2012.

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