Home Reviews Mobile Devices Review: Toshiba AT1S0 tablet
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It's boxy, but it's good.  Mostly.

 

The Toshiba AT1S0 (known as the Thrive in many other markets) is a 7-inch tablet running Android Honeycomb (v3.2).

 

Being 7-inch, it is (relatively) easily held in one hand, although the thickness (at 12mm), the weight (around 400g) and the rather boxy shape leave the user preferring portrait mode.

With both Bluetooth and WiFi, the device has most of the connectivity issues solved, but the lack of 3G means you're at the mercy of your own (or leached) wireless 802.11b/g/n connections.  The Tegra 2 processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB of flash memory power it along nicely.

Taking a few seconds to boot, the unit has all the expected default apps (ThinkFree Office, Evernote and Amazon's Kindle, to name a few) and a bunch of media playing apps as well.

Looking around the unit, we have a 1280x800 touch screen on the front, along with a 2M pixel video chat camera.  On the back is a 5M pixel (with LED flash) for stills and video.

Around the edges we find microSD, mini-USB and micro HDMI sockets under a single protective rubber flap (we're not sure why) along with a power button, headphone jack, volume rocker and button lock.

Oh, and the rather bizarre power connector (which doubles as a docking port).

The power-charging cable has a honking big connector at one end (to plug into the power/docking port) and what seems to be a standard USB connector at the other (to plug into the USB-socketed wall-wart).  Unfortunately, this connector has no ability to convey data; that will require a (not supplied) standard USB-to-Mini USB cable.  In addition, the device cannot charge its battery via the 'normal' USB port.

At $349 (rrp) this is a rather expensive eBook reader, although a 16GB unit for $399 might sweeten the deal a little.  On a quick web search, iTWire did not find any significant discounts for either the 8GB or 16GB models.

If someone wants a solid (read-as nearly indestructible) 7-inch tablet computer, the AT1S0 will take some beating.  Unfortunately, there are some much better feature-sets out there (potentially with a weaker chassis) which leave the Toshiba a little pale in comparison.

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David Heath

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David Heath has over 25 years experience in the IT industry, specializing particularly in customer support, security and computer networking. Heath has worked previously as head of IT for The Television Shopping Network, as the network and desktop manager for Armstrong Jones (a major funds management organization) and has consulted into various Australian federal government agencies (including the Department of Immigration and the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence). He has also served on various state, national and international committees for Novell Users International; he was also the organising chairman for the 1994 Novell Users' Conference in Brisbane. Heath is currently employed as an Instructional Designer, building technical training courses for industrial process control systems.

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