With Motorola's upcoming Android Honeycomb-based tablet stealing the spotlight—those "tablet evolution" ads dissing the iPad and the Galaxy Tab are attention grabbers—Toshiba has pulled off a bit of a coup. The refreshingly simply-named Toshiba Tablet is officially the first Honeycomb tablet announced during the Consumer Electronics Show season.
It's true, Motorola's tablet has been hyped for weeks now, but we have yet to officially see it, only hear about it. PCMag had some hands-on time with Toshiba's tablet (see the slideshow below), but there was one major drawback: it wasn't powered up. And there is some question remaining about whether the Toshiba Tablet will be shown off at CES loaded with Android Honeycomb (the Google OS version designed for tablets) or whether the Toshiba will instead demo it with Android 2.3.
Here's what we know so far:
- The operating system will be Android Honeycomb from Google.
- Honeycomb means support for Adobe Flash content, so there's an immediate advantage over the iPad.
- The processor is Nvidia's Tegra 2. So, a dual-core processor and integrated Nvidia graphics mean quicker multi-taksing and better video and game playback.
- It's armed with a 1280-by-800 (720p), 10.1-inch multi-touch screen with "Toshiba Adaptive Display technology"—meaning it adjusts color and brightness according to your lighting conditions.
- It has 1080p video playback and an HDMI output for watching 1080p (or any video) content on a television.
- Two cameras—a 2-megapixel, front-facing camera for video chats and a 5-megapixel rear camera for photos and video recording.
- The keyboard will provide haptic feedback—great news for those of you who want to feel something buzz or vibrate when you type.
- You can swap out the back cover of the tablet for a different color, which is cool, but leads to an even color fact: the prismatic lithium ion battery is user replaceable. Nice.
- The tablet comes preloaded with Toshiba Places and Toshiba BookPlace eReader and marketplac. Strangely, there's no mention of the Android Market despite the insistence that the tablet comes with Honeycomb.
- Connectivity includes USB 2.0, mini USB, and SD card ports.
- It supports 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and has built-in GPS.
- Its dimensions: 10.7 by 6.9 by 0.6-inches and 1.7 pounds, which is on the heavy side for a tablet.
- No pricing information is available—other than Toshiba reps stating that it will be "competitive" with the iPad's price.
- No internal storage figures to report yet.
Toshiba said the tablet will be available in the "first half" of 2011; it seems as if Toshiba is waiting to release the tablet in order to ensure it ships with Honeycomb installed. It's a smart business move, but some of you will scoff at the announcement of the Honeycomb device before it is ready to be shown off. Only visits to Toshiba's booth at CES will prove whether the device currently is running Honeycomb, or if the Toshiba is merely promising that it will ship with Honeycomb.