Toshiba Thrive 10.1-Inch 16 GB Android Tablet AT105-T1016

Edit to Add: Typing this extra from tablet while testing Dolphin HD browser. Hope there won't be too many errors ;-) Did not need to side load any apps (like the Amazon App Store). Going through reviews, have downloaded a few extra. I do go into applications and Storage, occasionally clearing out cache, or data for apps I won't use but can't delete. Opera and Android browsers are not so great on streaming, so I am trying this one out. I also like how the keyboard corrects spelling errors. Now off to see how streaming media plays. PS' Adobe Reader rather shallow for Android. ************************ Let me start by saying I'm NEW to Tablets, Netbooks and Honeycomb. I can't stand the scroll pad on my laptop, my arthritis KILLS me, so I purchased a USB mouse. Rumors of an Amazon Tablet had me excited, folks kept bringing up "Wait for ICS", etc. I've been saving for a tablet due to smaller size and portability for a long time. At some point - the price point meets your expectations, and it is just time to buy. At the minimum - my apartment is dark, and I can switch between the Kindle and the Tab for Reading, and not spend so much on batteries. I can also play some games on the Tab - worth the extra bucks to compliment a plain Vanilla Kindle any day (I originally purchased the free 3g Kindle without Special Offers back in December 2010). My Tablet arrived from Amazon on Tuesday - July 12th. Below are my experiences so far: Pros: 1. System Settings to mess around with. File Manager, App Manager and Storage are handy for deleting files and saving space. Just click by the Time on the bottom bar, and you can get to everything. Sound and video settings can be set on the fly. 2. Screen rather durable, may not need the Screen Protectors . So far - haven't needed the extra SD card I ordered. VERY responsive, fast rotation, beautiful graphics (tweak the factory settings for that), first time I've actually LIKED gaming since pre-2000, pinch and zoom very good. No, I can't play Chessmaster on it (as far as I know) - but I have my Laptop for that. 3. The case is PERFECT , just like my Kindle Case . Since I'm in the middle of a move - no real square footage to sit it up for watching, but will in my new place. You might want to consider a USB Keyboard, especially one with an additional USB port . 4. Register ONCE for Google, that's it. Have your GMail - can sync all data and settings with Google (even some old Picassa pics from a blog I wasn't really interested in). Don't know WHO I will be using for Cloud yet - Google or Amazon. 5. Apps galore. Haven't purchased DocsToGo yet, but will eventually. Downloaded Opera, haven't had a chance to set it up (use Firefox on main computer, not so good on tablets). Read reviews and PERMISSIONS BEFORE DOWNLOADING APPS!! For instance, TapATalk is a no go. 6. Kindle and Archive just perfect. Yuck on Toshiba books. If you're into ePub, I'm sure the Reader App of your choice will work also. 7. Keyboard is perfect for me in Landscape mode. No lag, in fact - so sensitive to touch, need to watch my typing. Easy switch between Qwerty and Number/Symbols. 8. Turn Wifi off WAY extends your battery life. Overnight sleep, still have 74% battery. Cons: 1. The Sleep Mode experience. Apparently - a problem with many. I just power off, then power on when it won't wake from sleep mode. If it sleeps for just a little time, no problem. Its when sleeping for an hour or more - then we have the reboot experience. My guess? A problem with all the hardware configuration specific to Toshiba and Honeycomb conflicts. I've had the same problems with laptop sleep and hibernation. I also get around it by putting to sleep, wake up in locked mode, and put back to sleep in locked mode. 2. The News App from Toshiba (Starting Place). It hangs, can't exit. Must kill the process. Would have been nice to use - but so far, not so much. Can't delete apps - even third party ones that are pre-loaded and will never be used (demo games, Kaspersky, etc.) 3. Watch out for too much syncing, you may get downloads from years ago. Turn GPS off (unless you need it at that point in time). 4. Lack of a 3g/4g/etc slot. I know this is the trend with new tablets, and carriers are taking advantage of it (either a monthly charge, or quite the premium). I want to spend for 3g/4g on the go, when I need it. The first to come up with a reasonable MiFi - you get my business. 5. Sound: My Sony Walkman Cell Phone was getting better speaker quality (comparison of Bad Romance mp3). One needs to tweak the SRS settings under Multimedia. Select settings for each one, turn off default, and press okay. Turn off Ambient Noise Reduction (or whatever), and the devices sound much closer together. Sound via flash could be improved (believe they are using hardware acceleration, would need to check flash settings). Headphones are fine, sound improves with the aforementioned tweaks. Bottom Line: great compliment to Kindle - now, don't need so many apps (active content) on the Kindle, Easy to use even if nube to whole experience (but it pays to spend some time in Thrive and Honeycomb forums, watch some Tablet reviews on You Tube). Build of Tab is great, just a swipe of the glass, keep in Case - and you are good to go. You can either get the two year Square Trade Accident warranty, or the one year Toshiba Accident Coverage. Three years is WAY too much for Technology that will probably change in a year. Will it be the new NetBook? Competition and price wars are a GOOD THING! Happy Shopping!

Thrive is my first tablet. I won't pretend to know a lot, but I will give a review on this tablet, based on my experience, as a normal everyday user. If you're super technologically savvy, chances are you won't need to read this anyways! I love everything (ok, maybe 99%) about it, especially the USB. I get dumbfounded sometimes by just how easy they make it for users like me. Plug in your external drive, go to file manager, voila! Or go to media player, and all your movies and music are there! Unless you have a hdd with lots of stuff in it (like mine, I have 1 TB external hdd that is almost full, and it took a while to load at first, but after that you wouldn't have to wait anymore), but usually it loads quite fast. It loads a flash drive quicker than my nifty 2 year-old self-built PC. I honestly believe that if your tablet doesn't have USB, you really don't know what you're missing. I don't have time to go home and load files onto my tablet ahead of time. I want my files to be readily available to me. Inside: Touch screen is very smooth, not too dull or sensitive. I can flip through menu options or type perfectly fine. Android honeycomb lets my apps run pretty fast and smooth, I haven't run into any problems. Five screens available for you to put your apps anywhere your heart desires. Touch the screen (or a specific icon) for 1 full second and you can easily organize them. There are some apps pre-loaded which are quite useful. On top of the normal variety (Gmail, Gtalk, map, browser, youtube, camera, calender, Android Market, App Place (Toshiba I assume), Book Place, LogMeIn, etc.) I added some fun apps. I would suggest using Market over App Place for now because there are more reviews and apps available to choose from. You can also personalize your background with pre-loaded wallpapers or photos you have. If you use your own photo, they will let you select the area to crop so the photo can fit nicely on the screen. Since most devices on market now that run android os are pretty similar, and the fact that I am simply not an android genie, I won't go into anymore details about how android honeycomb runs. Outside: Power, volume, screen rotation lock (useful if you like to lay down sideways and read like me), and SD Card slot on the top. I hate it when people complain about not being able to save apps on sd card. It is like saving windows media or winamp on a flash drive while you use your PC. Why would anyone want to do that...? Back on topic! Mini USB, HDMI, and Micro USB ports are the only ones protected by a cover. If you ever break it, simply by a new back plate. I bought one for 19.99 on amazon for fun as well. There is a lock that can release the back cover. Guys, please don't give Thrive a minus star rating just because the cover is tight. It is NOT supposed to come out easily. If it does, you'll see more 1-star rating about how Thrive "is not so durable after all DO NOT BUY!!!!!" and I hate to see that reviwer get bashed afterwards. Below that are headphone and power port. Speakers can be found below, flanking the docking station connector in the middle. Thrive has both front and back camera also, if you like to take photos of yourself. Everything is pretty self explanatory. It's funny how whatever people seem to complain about Thrive, is what I love. I love that it has certain thickness, or "substance" to it. It feels durable. The back cover is rubbery, so it doesn't get scratched as easily as regular plastic cover. It is also replaceable, so I don't feel bad roughing it up. It is heavier than most tablets on the market, but your arms weigh more than this really, and I think essentially it would be the weight of your arms wearing you down, not a tablet that weighs several ounces more than others. If you don't like lifting objects at all then...why get a tablet... I can play with it all day (10+ hrs?) and it still has battery left. When I first got it, I had to play a movie overnight just to drain the battery. It recharges back to 100% after one hour or so, quite fast if you ask me. When you're low on battery, it buzzes and let you know you're down to, say, 14%. The right bottom corner tells you how much battery you have left, besides the time, and wireless/bluetooth connection icons. If you're downloading something, the icons will be there as well. The one improvement I wish for is louder stereo speaker. It's not very loud, but is it a deal breaker or star-rating wrecker? Not at all for me. Overall, Thrive is a very solid piece of electronic. It meets everything I want in a tablet: work and play whenever. My argument for Thrive: it's one of the cheaper ones with a 10" screen and NAME BRAND (I can foresee someone leaving a reply saying there are $100 ones), reliable, and the only tablet on market with USB, a pretty sensible move by Toshiba. Honestly, USB port was a big selling point for me. When I carry a flash drive or external hdd with me, that's the ultimate definition of easy accessibility. I've read many negative reviews on amazon and elsewhere. If you know statistic, and you have a little bit of common sense (don't want to sound mean but, sorry), you know that nothing is absolutely 100% by probability. I am well known by friends and family to be an electronic wrecker. I break everything, from phones and ipod to washing machine and TV--3 days before Wold Cup all because of my "magic touch" and/or bad luck. That being said, I am sorry Thrive didn't work out for specific persons, but it is definitely not trash, as some of them put it.

Admittedly, I'm biased. Pre-ordered the Thrive June 13th, the first day it was eligible for pre-order. Also, I love Toshiba as a company. With that out of the way.. The Thrive is a fantastic device. I haven't read any of the other reviews, so I'm probably going to repeat what they've said, but oh well. Starting with the physical device: - The screen is very responsive and slick, although you will notice finger prints after minor-moderate use (I notice mine after a couple hours of playing games), but that's to be expected from any touch-based device. They wipe away cleanly and easily with a cloth. - While people seem to say that the device is heavy and bulky, I disagree. I think that the size is perfect, and I have had no problem with my arms getting tired after (literally) holding the device for hours without setting it down (side note: it is a great enough device to want to use it for hours at a time without setting it down.) - The standard hardware set (Tegra 2 processor, 10.1" screen, 1 GB RAM) works very well with Gingerbread (Android 3.1 OS). Everything is responsive and I've had no issues with the device being too slow or getting overloaded (and I have not overclocked the processor yet.) - One of my favorite features are the ports: full USB, mini USB, and full size HDMI. The USB supports keyboards, flash drives/external hard drives formatted under FAT (a future OS update will likely support NTFS, as well.) The HDMI port allows me to very easily hook the Thrive up to my HDTV, which I do every night to watch some shows online to fall asleep. - The contours on the back of the case make holding the tablet feel natural and easy. The extra grip keeps the Thrive from slipping from your hands (I've had mine since July 13th, and have not dropped it once.) - The battery lasts for approximately 7 hours of continuous use (roughly), although I haven't had any problems with the battery life. Even if I did, it charges to 90% in an hour. However, in order to do that, the Thrive (unlike, I assume, every other tablet on the market) charges with an AC adapter, like a laptop, rather than through a USB connection. So you need a power outlet or a car adapter to charge it, rather than just a USB connection, but in my opinion the super fast charging makes it worth it. - The 16 GB version I have, plus the 16 GB (full size) SD card means that I basically have as much space as I can possibly ever need. (Be careful with SD cards; some require a little hack to get them to work on the Thrive/PC, which requires taping over a small hole in the card. Google it if you have any problems; takes minutes to fix and causes no problems.) On the software side: - The android market has responded very well to Android 3.0/3.1, thanks to the Xoom and Tab leading the pack by a couple of months, putting many great games and apps out there to keep you entertained. - While there are many great apps that are compatible with the device, the reality is that this is not Apple and what works on one device won't necessarily work on another. You will have apps that (randomly) force close, and ones that you can't even install on the device because a company (see: HBO and Hulu) refuse to give you the option to get it to work yourself until they develop an app specifically for that OS and device. - Android 3.1 runs very smoothly with almost no hiccups. The setup of the home screens allows you to place hundreds of apps/widgets across the huge screen, although it does currently lack the ability to create folders. While there aren't really any reasons you need to create a folder since you have plenty of space on the home screens, I find it a bit odd that it doesn't even give you the option. - The included Toshiba File Manager is fantastic. I've used it to browse the internal HD as well as the SD card, and I find myself using it almost daily to clear up downloads and folders that like to stick around after an app is uninstalled (unfortunately, some apps still do that. Hoped that would end once you get off the PC, but what can you do.) - The Toshiba App Place is an interesting app to find some properly developed and supported applications, but it's still very sparse and almost everything has to be paid for. Additionally, the interface for it is fairly clunky, most apps don't have photos of the app in use (just a logo that is bannered across the top and an icon for the app), and they are oddly subscription based ($9.99/month) rather than a one-time fee. Problems/bugs/glitches: - One of the main problems (which, allegedly, is going to be fixed next week) is a sleeping bug. When you turn the device "off" (push the power button once to black the screen, or let it sit for a few minutes and it does it itself) it actually enters a low-power sleep state. Sometimes, randomly, when you go to wake it up, it just doesn't wake up. The LED lights up like it's on, but the screen stays black and requires a hard restart to be operational again. - To my surprise, Toshiba has locked down the device a fair amount. For most users, this isn't likely a problem. However, I would like to uninstall some of the bloatware (included software that does nothing but take up space and annoy you, usually running in the background) and to run a custom version of Flash so that I can watch Hulu videos (one of the most important uses for a tablet, in my opinion), but Toshiba does not permit the user to uninstall the application, and it can't just be overridden. Although, many of the folders are hidden as they are considered "system" folders, which disallows you from editing some of the files for certain applications (if the app wasn't made to run on 3.1 and needs a little tweak, why can't I just edit a config file and do it myself?). - To continue with the above, rooting the Thrive is still in its infancy. The above wouldn't be much of a big deal if I could just root my device, get superuser access, and just do what I want on the device, but that is currently not an option (well, not unless you want to run the risk of soft-bricking your device (someone had said that since all the editing is done from the boot manager, it can't actually be fully bricked, but you can end up wiping the stock ROM, making it unable to be used for anything until you install a new one or recover the old one.) It might sound like that are a fair amount of negatives with the device, but it's much easier to point out what doesn't work than what does work. And overall, the Thrive works amazingly. It's by far been my best purchase in the past 12 months, if not longer. If you're looking for an android tablet that works great and has one of the best companies behind it, the Thrive is for you. I have a roll up USB keyboard that I can just pack with me wherever I go. Set the Thrive up on a stand, plug in the keyboard, and I basically have an ultra-portable computer/gaming device/web browser/movie and TV show viewer. All in all, I would give the Thrive a 4.8 if I could, but because of some current issues am forced to round it down to a 4. That being said, if you purchase the Thrive, you will not be disappointed.

In today's tablet market, there are a lot of choices. If price is no object, you could easily be drawn to a 64 gb Ipad 2, which would give you a reliable, user-friendly package with plenty of onboard storage. Ios 5 has also brought wireless syncing with Itunes and cloud storage. With a great selection of apps, and strict quality control on the hardware and software, Apple is really tough to beat. So why buy an Android tablet? Maybe you hate Apple. Maybe you love native Flash support in your browser. Maybe you like more flexibility from your desktop layout, to storage and peripherals. A lot of people go straight to the Samsung Galaxy Tab instead of the Ipad 2, seeing the Samsung as an Android Ipad, and why not - it is thin and light, has flashy aluminum on the back, and has a great display like the Ipad. For me, the Ipad was both expensive and restrictive, so I went looking for the Anti-Ipad. I wanted expandible memory, the ability to plug in a flash drive, independence from Itunes, and I wanted it to be rugged. It also needed a great display, needed to be comfortable to hold, and needed to be reliable. That left me with the Toshiba Thrive and Acer Iconia A500 to choose between. I initally bought the Acer, as it had good reviews and the price was right under $400. Three days with the A500 left me disappointed. It would go into a coma instead of going to sleep. The battery would drain, and it wasn't comfortable for me to hold, just like my wife's Ipad, because it was too thin. For me, there is a point when something is so thin it becomes hard to hold, which is why screwdrivers all have handles of a certain size, and why coffee mug handles do too, as well as why the handles on pliers flare out instead of closing to the point where they would meet- it's about comfort. I returned the Acer (I still have an A100 that I use when I want something smaller) and ordered the 16 gb Thrive from Amazon. I knew it was among the heaviest, and most likely the thickest tablet there is, but I had a feeling it was what I was looking for. As a bonus, it had a full-sized HDMI out, takes up to 128 gb SDXC cards, has a removable battery (who else offers this?) and a rubberized back for easier grip. Like just about every other tablet, phone, mp3 player, and toothbrush these days, it has 2 cameras. So with about 3 weeks of daily use, this has been everything I wanted. I ordered a 64gb sdxc card, dropped my favorite music and movies onto it, and have room for tons of storage left. Around the house, wifi reception is great, and I get good reception anywhere, whereas I sometimes had poor reception with the A500. Like all Android tablets, there are seemingly endless apps in any imagineable category, and Netflix streaming now works without having to fiddle with various workarounds. SIZE/WEIGHT The device is comfortable to hold in either portrait or landscape mode, and the border around the display lets my finger/thumbs rest without accidentally taping on something. Does it weigh a lot? I don't think so. The difference between my wife's Ipad and the Thrive are negligible, and the Thrive is more comfortable to hold, and the same is true vs. the HP Touchpad, which weighs about the same, but is as big (or small) as an Ipad 1. Its weight is hidden in how comfortable it is to hold. As for size, a tablet just needs to fit in a suitcase, small bag, or backpack, which the Thrive does with ease. It is thick, but never seems too big, or behind the tech curve. Toshiba isn't hiding vacuum tubes inside, they made it bigger because it is easier to work with. If it was a cell phone, this would have been a mistake, but full-sized tablets don't fit in your pocket, no matter what brand. ON THE GO This is where battery life, storage capacity, and connectivity either help or hurt you. Go somewhere without wifi, and there's no cloud access, no downloading, no streaming. Having your music and movies onboard makes this a non-issue. I can easily get 7 hours out of the battery if I turn off the wifi and just watch movies. An extra battery doubles that. If I need to plug in, I am not teathered to a 3-foot cord, like many tablets have. I can be several feet away from an outlet and not have to hold it awkwardly because the cord is too short. Charging seems to be reasonably fast, which is another plus. THE SCREEN This is what the user looks at all the time. The screen looks great. Colors are good, brightness is enough to use outside, and the screen responds well, too. SOUND The speakers are not huge, and won't blow you away. HP's touchpad has better speakers, maybe it's just that the slots are bigger and let more sound out. They are adequate. PORTS The USB port works as a host. I have used it to charge my Ipod. It sometimes wants a reboot before it will recognize some flash drives, but it has not had any serious problems, and is a real plus. HDMI out works immediately, and gives you the ability to stream Netflix to a hotel TV in a snap. Full sized SD card is very flexible, but I sometimes have trouble with micro SD cards reading. It could be the adapter itself, but i can plug the micro SD into a USB card reader and there is no trouble reading that way. NEGATIVES 1) No charging through USB. It would be nice, but even the Ipad requires a wall charger. The Thrive's charger is just like a netbook charger with a small brick. This has not been a problem, but it would be nice if it was smaller. 2) Android 3.1 isn't always stable. Probably not Toshiba's fault, but apps crash sometimes, which is a rarity with Ios stuff. I hope 4.0 will be better. 3) The power button is hard to find sometimes. You won't accidentally hit it, unless you're going for the volume rocker right next to it. I also like the home button to be a real, bonafide button, rather than the one on the screen. Only Apple and HP have a real button on their hardware for this. I like a real button because hitting it is always intentional, and an accidental sweep of it doesn't send you home. 4) No flash for the rear camera. I think it's absurd to hold up a tablet and start taking photos, as I can't believe anyone would use a tablet primarily for this, but since they have a camera, why not put a flash in with it, like others have? I do have a device that is made for this, and will always do a better job, though. It's called a camera. Also, Acer did it right by offsetting the cameras so landscape mode doesn't cause you to inadvertently cover the camera. CONCLUSION My advice to people who don't want an Ipad for whatever reason is to seriously consider the Thrive. Everything else has compromises and limitations, and nothing else is as rugged. You will need to buy a protector to prevent the plastic or aluminum from being scratched on everything else. Asus has the transformer, which I have not tried, but I didn't want to spend an extra $150 for a keyboard and USB (it's really a matter of what each person values). The Thrive is unique, and in a good way.

I ordered my 16gb Thrive and some accessories on 7-14-2011 and had all the items in hand 7-15-2011...thanks to Amazon and Nu Image! I own the Iconia A500 32gb and the Samsung Galaxy Tab and extensive use of the Dell Strek so I have a point of reference. The first issue I had was not being able to get the wireless to connect or allow manual configuration for about an half hour when all of a sudden after several reboots it allowed me to manually configure networking without DHCP and it started working (I'm an electronics technician and a network engineer). It seems that startup takes a lot longer than my other tablets as Toshiba has you to view some neat graphic while waiting. Even though most users don't buy the tablets to take a bunch of high quality pictures but you should be able to get some descent pictures from either front or rear cameras. Not the case with the Thrive, as the photos and video are very grainy and washed out unless you're using abnormally bright lighting of your subject. I don't know why Toshiba decided to leave off the led flash which helps a bit on very close subjects though not perfect but better than what is offered on this tablet. I played Angry Birds and found that at the end of each round the music would freeze and sometimes the playing action would pause breifly in the beginning. It seems that the app's don't always fully close. Other than the above I absolutely love this tablets with replaceable battery and the full size USB/HDMI ports and the available accessories. I like the fact that it's a little thicker than most tables with a wider bezel which allow give the feeling of a well made and sturdy product that will easily accomodate people with big hands. The screen could be more sensitive to touch as sometimes I have to press several times to get it to respond to the onscreen buttons. To really get the brilliant color display I'd suggest turning off the autodisplay feature which make the screen a bit dimmer than is necessary and adjust to your preference which if brighter will affect battery life. I'm not trashing this tablet as I know it is new on the market and will surely have a few updates to firmware/software to tweak it to the best it can be. PROs: Sturdy build and full size ports that don't require you to purchase a bunch of unique cables to connect to your PC or HDTV. User changeable battery and a wider bezel to easier handle the unit without pressing on the screen surface. The rubber ridged back makes it comfortable to grip and feel secure when handling without portfolio. Has a file manager to further manipulate your files on the the SD or internal memory storage. It uses a 19Volt powersupply very simular to your average Laptop powersupply! Good battery runtime. CONS: No camera Flash, poor quality pictures and videos, slower startup, some audio freezing in games and sometimes when changing applications. Initially cumbersome WiFi setup which I'm finding is more related to HoneyComb OS rather than the hardware itself. Still a bit too pricey. I would suggest it to my friends and family if they don't care about the photo quality as I feel confident that Toshiba will be issuing firmware/software updates pretty soon to stay competitive with the other Tab's. UPDATE: I reloaded a few applications and they sound and execute much better :-) Still experiencing the stutter in starting programs or booting up. Right now the Acer A500 Iconia is a better buy at Costco for $4429.00 as of this writing and that's the 32gig model with portfolio case.

I have a company issued ipad 2 but I wanted an android tablet for myself since I am not an apple person so I got this since it's got removable battery, usb, hdmi, and sd. I actually bought the acer w500 and like it as a win 7 pc with touch. First impression is, it's thick, but holding it in hand isn't so bad--slightly heavier than ipad but bearable. ipad's size & weight has reached a point that it's really comfortable to hold by one or two hands; it feels nimble. The OS is very nice, definitely got a better and more usable UI than ipad. However this is subjective and depends on who is using it. Setup is easy and wifi works well. The integration with all of google is very nice. Cameras are better than ipad. On its own, the thrive looks ok, nothing exciting, but next to ipad, without considering anything else, I could imagine people would pick the ipad, which has a more polished look. While the thrive's plastic back isn't nice looking, the texture actually feels better, but the texture also makes it harder to clean. The cover & battery are easy to remove. So -1 for size & weight but +1 for expand options & removable battery. I am indifferent about the look. However, while it's ok to skim on the look, toshiba really failed to pay attention to some details. For a tablet this thick, they really should have larger power and volume buttons, especially since that power button is also for waking it up. You have to feel a bit to find the power button, and sometimes you could hit the power while going for the volume since they are so close. I would really like a large wake up button in the front. These buttons on ipad 2 are way better as far as usability goes. When you also consider the screen that is a finger print magnet, I think toshiba has some improvements to work on. -1 here. There have been a few wtf moments since I got this. The first about 30 minutes after I got it. Set it down, got a drink, picked it back up, fumbled for the tiny power button, and nothing. It's not waking up, so had to hold it to power cycle, and this would turn out to be a recurring chore. -1 here. More surprises are to come though. Set it down for longer, and I witnessed its first self power cycling, and the many more after. Are they joking? -1 here. Battery life is ok, definitely not as long as ipad 2. However my next wtf moment is the next morning after I set it down with more than 50% battery left. It ended up with 5%. So it lost 40% battery in 9 hours? I tested it again. Left it with 100% and found it at 55% later. This may have something to do with the sleeping problem but no way to find out. -1 here. So as it stands, this is a 1 star product. Overall, if not for the wake up and power cycle issue, this is a nice tablet and a keeper. Some details could be improved, especially the tiny power/wake up button, which was almost a deal breaker for me, so it's probably a 3 or 3.5. However the power cycling was just too much. I know they are working on a software fix, if it's problem with that, but I was not going to risk keeping a defective product, so it went back to amazon.

OK, so I won't rehash here all the stuff you can read in the other reviews, I'll just give you my impressions after my hands on with my new Thrive. Note that I also own an iPad (32 GB 3G/Wifi) and several other smaller android devices and e-readers, netbooks, etc.; so I have some comparisons to judge by. Let's cut to the chase, I love the Thrive. Up and running in 5 minutes flat (or less). And after about 5 hours of fooling with it, it's everything I hoped it would be and meets my expectations in full. Now time will tell, but at this point, I am thrilled. It's comparable in size and weight to my iPad, I notice little difference as far as weight or thickness, indeed, I like the Thrive's grippy rubber backing. No need to buy one (rubber backing/case) like I had to do with my iPad. In comparing the screens, I also see little difference as far as sharpness, color, viewing angles, and so on. I do like the iPad's format better. For a tablet, the added width in the vertical orientation seems like a plus to me. That said, I did not notice any issues while using the Thrive, though I do prefer using it in landscape orientation for most things. Some apps make vertical a better choice, of course. So, to me, the Thrive is every bit in the same league as the iPad. Personally, I prefer the thicker, sturdy format, that's why I bought my iPad when iPad 2 came out. I wanted the iPad, not the iPad 2. For same reason, I did not like the Galaxy. Just personal preference, of course. Why did I get a Thrive then? Because I chafe under the "Apple Prison" and restrictions of the iPad. While having control does have some advantages, for someone like me who likes flexibility, it's a losing proposition. No standard ports? No easy way to load and play all my various video formats, iTunes is fine, but irks me sometimes. So when I saw the Thrive with Bluetooth (a must for me), 2 full USB ports, full SD card, and a full HDMI port, plus the File Manager and easy ways to share and deal with files (i.e. like every other darn device does except the iPad!), it caught my attention. A lot of research and a shot at a discount off an already good price and -- sold! Out of the box, everything has worked fine and it's even better than I had hoped. The screen seems great, decent black levels (important to me), and it is extremely easy to use. With limited previous Android experience, I find 3.1 to be a great OS, very intuitive. I have been able to figure out everything and personally feel it is easier to use than the iPad in many ways. Very happy with it. The speakers have very good stereo separation, thought they are definitely treble oriented (like every other tablet). What do you expect from tiny speakers? Still, I had no trouble watching YouTube vids. For better sound, I fired up one of my portable bluetooth stereo speakers and they paired easily and worked great. Much better bass and mid-range. Headphones sound great as well. As does my ZVOX audio system via my Bluetooth receiver there. So good sound is not an issue. (Tried it this with Creative Labs blutooth speaker system and it works well and sounds fantastic: Creative ZiiSound D3x Modular Wireless Speaker System (51MF8120AA002) ) As I said, even using the auto-brightness, I find the screen quite good and see no issues with it. The buttons all work great. I had no problems locating and using the power button as some have mentioned. Heck, it's right between the battery and WiFi LEDs, so not hard to locate. Much easier to use than the power button on the ipad in my opinion. Having the orientation lock is a nice feature. Just ask all the ipad users when Apple messed with that on the iPad. ;) So, absolutely great design. This is the power user's tablet, yet so easy to use, I think anyone would like it. Very snappy performance...as good or better than iPad. Battery life seems fine to me. No trouble getting 7-8 hours or more without trying. Good enough for me. I'm sure with a little effort I could get 10 or better. Basically, you can use this all day long under normal circumstances. Charges very quickly as many have noted. Swappable batteries, so no issues there. The ipad is awesome with 12-14 hours easily.) I can run my Amazon Cloud player on it, as well as Pandora and many other music apps. Nice! Covers that. Mobo app will play about any video. Included YouTube app plays YouTube HD videos well and they look super. Built-in apps good enough for most things, especially audio. Maps app works very well. Looks superb on this nice screen. Again, as good as iPad in my opinion. Web browsing works very well, superior to iPad in all respects. Performance, plus flash, and ease of use. Not a huge deal, but nice since that's a major use for me. And just so well designed and easy to use. I keep coming back to that because that's what kept jumping out to me as I explored the Thrive. I have yet to do any updates and everything is working great. I might not even update for awhile as I'm not sure I need to at this point. It's working fine for everything and I have not had any issues so far (of course, I have only used it for 5 or 6 hours, so need more time really. I may just wait for 3.2 to be released. (2011-11-19 Have now done one update, no major changes, everything still works fine. Just some minor tweaks.) Having the full size SD card was another big feature for me. I just popped in a 32 GB SDHC card with a ton of my mp3's on it and everything works as expected. Being able to back up data to your Google account and the SD card, a USB stick, or hard drive is a definite plus as well. I've had good luck with Toshiba products over the years and this will, hopefully, be no exception. Well designed and well built. As I get more time with it, I will come back and update this review if anything significant develops. (2011-11-19 -- 3 months and still loving it.) I like the iPad a lot, but feel the Thrive is every bit the equal, and is even better in many respects. Much greater connectivity and flexibility and that's very important as it means there's a lot more things you'll be able to do with your Thrive. By the way, the included NFS Shift game demo worked great and looked good. This baby has the right mix of features for me and is a great value. So, kudos Toshiba! The Thrive is a winner! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** 2011-11-04 update: This wireless touchpad/keyboard device works with the Thrive: Wireless Ultra-mini Touchpad Keyboard (VP6364) -- I have both and this unit was truly "plug and play" (see my review on the prod page) and everything worked as expected, touchpad, mouse buttons, keyboard, media keys, etc. all worked fine. Not something most people will need, but thought a few might benefit from knowing this. If you are a fearsome thumber, you might like it. I like it mainly for the media controls (play/pause., vol up/down, prev/next song, and so on). *** 2011-11-19 Have had my Thrive about 3 months now and I remain very satisfied with it. No issues, works well, using it more all the time. Gmail works great, better than on my laptop. GPS, maps and navigation work very well. Battery holds its charge and lasts a long time. Video, Music, Browsing are all fine, so I would still recommend this as a good choice if you like the feature mix (which I do). I got this leather case with flap/stand which works well for me and is cheap: Poetic Slimbook Leather Case for Toshiba Thrive 10.1-Inch Android Tablet, Black **** 2012-03-10 update: Many tablets come, many go. I remain very happy with my thrive. ;) ---- P.S. Haven't mentioned the cameras. That's because I see no real use for them and have not bothered to play with them. They could leave them off and cut the price as far as I am concerned. I have really good cameras and video cams if I need video or photos. Don't need my tablet for that. (OK, the cams work fine for occasional use.) But I do need the GPS! That's a nice plus I didn't mention above. (GPS works great!) P.P.S. About the apps advantage iPad has. Yes, many hundreds of thousands more apps. But I only need about 12 or so. Feel sure Android apps will continue to grow and I'll have what I need. iPad has almost too many choices. ;)

This is my first tablet (had it about two weeks), but I work in IT and have configured upwards of 40 iPads for employees to use at my job. I liked the iPads, don't get me wrong, and while configuring them for our employees, I came to see the real benefit of having a tablet. I'm a big fan of the Android OS, so I decided I'd go with an Android tablet since it offers superior customization and streamlining. I went with the Toshiba Thrive and couldn't be happier. It's fast, responsive, and the Honeycomb OS is very, very slick. I can see a lot of potential in the OS and am looking forward to Ice Cream Sandwich (the next update that will integrate phone and tablet operating systems into one) later this year. PROS * Stable - I never experienced the sleep issue at all, but installed the fix yesterday anyway, since it offered some additional performance improvements. No issues out of the performance at all. Everything is fast and responsive. A joy to use. * Responsive - Honeycomb OS is very fast, clean, and customizable. Very intuitive to use (at least for me). Adding widgets, etc. is fun and easy to layout. * Video/graphics - Videos look great in all formats, but really snap in HD. All the graphics look great, and the text in the Kindle App looks amazing. Visually stunning. Everyone that has seen it has been impressed. * Customization - You can set up the five screens any way you want. Widgets are wonderful things! Also plugged it into my laptop and it loaded up without any problems, allowing me to copy some pictures, etc. quickly. * Multi-task management - The third button along the bottom left allows you to easily switch from application to application quickly. It's amazing how quickly you can get to something once you get used to using that button! * Size - to me, this is a pro, because you feel like you're holding something and it's very easy to hold on to. You don't get the sense it's going to slip out of your hands, like you sometimes do with the iPad2. It doesn't feel cheap or cheesy, but very solid. * Battery life - I've read some mixed reviews on this, but I get a good 7-8 hours of serious use out of it before it gets below 20%. Over nights, when sleeping, it uses 2%-4% battery life. And it does charge fast, they aren't kidding about that! CONS * The charger - Not a big deal, true, but it's a small laptop power supply, which I just find annoying to have to lug around. They should have a simple adapter you can use with the provided mini-USB to USB cable. * Sound - Not really a big issue (and I may be missing something), but even with the volume all the way up on the device, it still sounds a little low to me using headphones. Maybe just a preference here, but I thought I should mention it. It does sound much better without the headphones on, though, but can be a little clinky and suffer from reverb on heavier tracks of music. * Storage - not really a "con", but more of a heads-up. You won't have the full storage amount available to use. For example, if you buy the 8 GB version, you won't have 8 GB of storage to use. Honeycomb and other things (drivers, etc) take up part of that amount. Same with the 16 and 32 GB versions. Not a big deal, but I know some people are wondering why they only have 5 GB free when they bought the 8 GB version, for example. OVERALL A wonderful tablet, performs great, looks great, and has impressed a couple of co-workers enough that they are going to buy one. The full USB port was the big selling point for both. This tablet has been everything I'd hoped for and more. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a tablet. This is a great first step into the tablet pool by Toshiba, I must say. If you're wondering if this tablet will do what you want, I'm pretty sure it will :) I give the Thrive 5 Stars. NOTES * There were a couple of image/OS updates ready to be installed right out of the box using Toshiba's SERVICE STATION app. I recommend immediately installing those updates before you do anything else. As with any new laptop, PC, phone, or tab, you should update it first before jumping into other apps, etc. * I use ADVANCED TASK MANAGER to kill open apps that don't come with a native procedure for closing them. It integrates into Honeycomb very nicely, and all you need to do is tap the icon along the bottom right of the screen to open it from anywhere. Very slick and easy. * I recommend that after updating the Operating System and Tablet image through the SERVICE STATION app, you set the LOCK SCREEN PIN (founds in SETTINGS >> LOCATION & SECURITY >> LOCK SCREEN). Also fill out the owner information (it will appear on the lock screen with the keypad). You can never be too careful, and if you do lose it, at least when someone tries to activate it, you'll have it PIN protected with your contact info right there for them to see. Thanks for reading. I hope this was helpful.