Toshiba is finally out with the pricing and release date for its tablet 'Thrive'. The Japanese company has priced its base model at
$429, undercutting iPad2 price. The pricing has come as a bit of relief. After a slew of outrageously priced 'iPad killers', the companies are getting their marketing chops back and are coming out with reasonably priced tablets. Recently Asus released a series of tablets with sub-$500 pricing and met with good response.
The tablet is being placed as the one for 'laptop people'. It comes packed with all sorts of ports including USB, SD card reader and HDMI. However, for accommodating all these ports, Toshiba had to compromise on the thickness of the tablet, which is a bit chunky at 0.6 inch. This 10.1 inch tablet will come with Honeycomb 3.1 and thus will directly compete with Samsung's upcoming Galaxy 10.1. There are two cameras with 2.1 MP and 5 MP strength and the usual bells and whistle such as rotation lock and a gyroscope. The battery life is a bit disappointing at claimed length of 7 to 8 hours.
The company executives came out with some interesting explanations for explaining the thickness and weight of their new baby. Jeff Barney of Toshiba America said, "There are two approaches you can take to a tablet. One approach is as a smartphone with more functionality and a bigger screen. Or more from a laptop down to a tablet. We’re laptop people, so we took that approach.” Now, that 'bigger smartphone' quip was clearly a jab at Apple, whose iconic iPad was ridiculed as supersized iPhone.
The tablet is slated to hit the market shelves on July 10, with pre-orders starting on June 13. This means that we have to wait for some time to assess the actual working of the tablet, which on papers, sounds lovely. Toshiba seems to have worked hard for differentiating its tablet. Another feature which sets it apart from the crowd is that it comes with a removable battery. Toshiba also decided to forego 3G versions and has come out with Wi-Fi only models, thus keeping the prices on the lower side. It would be interesting to see how this gamble pays off.
One thought on “Toshiba Enters Tablet Market with 'Thrive': Would this End Apple's Reign?”
Apple can make good products at a good price because they have millions made so they get bulk discount. Other companies competing against Apple would be mad to have millions of their tablets made as they’re unlikely to sell more than 100,000 units.
That’s why competing products are more expensive.
If they are cheaper, they’ll have a lot of cost cutting and it’ll show.
Android isn’t competent enough to seriously compete with iOS.