Toshiba officially entered the world of Android this morning, opening pre-orders on their new Thrive tablet. In many ways, the Thrive is typical of Android tablets we’ve seen in recent months. 10.1″ HD display, Android 3.1 Honeycomb, NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, front- and rear-facing cameras.
But Toshiba has found a few ways to stand out from the crowd. Most visible are the interchangeable rubber backplates, available in a variety of colors, that give a solid grip on the device while allowing a unique level of personalization among tablets. The tablet also sports HDMI, mini-USB, and even a full-sized USB port (taking advantage of Honeycomb’s new USB Host feature) hidden behind a cover on the device’s right side. The full sized SD card slot leaves room for plenty of expanded storage, even if you go for the basic model.
What some users will find the most interesting is the Thrive’s user-replaceable battery. Long one of Android’s key advantages against the iPhone, it’s been an oddly absent feature among early Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Motorola XOOM. Toshiba’s customers will be the first Android tablet owners who can pop in a spare battery and keep their entertainment up and running through a long flight.
Charging those batteries is handled via an included power dock, and Toshiba will offer a HUB dock that sports an HDMI port and 4 USB ports for those who want a keyboard, mouse, and other desktop peripherals for their tablets.
On the software side, the Thrive will host 2 separate markets, the standard Google Android Market, and Toshiba’s own curated Toshiba App Place, which will provide users with apps ranked by quality and popularity and screened for compatibility with the Thrive. Hopefully it will include a large enough app selection to balance out the confusion in finding apps from the Market.
Toshiba has elected to enter the market with a WiFi-only series of models, rather than launching with the help of cellular carriers. That means no 3G option, but it also means the Thrive is fairly inexpensive even for those who don’t feel like entering into a contract at this early stage of the tablet era. The Thrive starts at $429.99 for the 8 GB model, $479.99 for the 16 GB version, and the 32 GB version costs $579.99 (all models are cheaper than their iPad equivalents, which presumably is not a coincidence). If you choose to pre-order one now, you can expect it at your doorstep in mid-July.
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