Toshiba is the latest company to throw its hat into the tablet ring, as its Android-based Thrive slate has been given a release date and pricing.
As with many, many others, the Thrive is powered by the new 3.1 version of Android, a.k.a. Honeycomb, and will ship in the U.S. starting July 10. The 10.1-inch tablet is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chip, has a front-facing Webcam and rear-facing 5-megapixel camera, and sports USB, mini-USB, and HDMI ports, along with an SD memory card slot. But its Internet connectivity is Wi-Fi only, which means your mobile access to the Web is limited to hotspots.
You’ll be able to pre-order the Thrive starting on June 13. At $429, the base model is $70 cheaper than the iPad 2, but you only get 8GB of storage for the price. For 16GB, the Thrive still costs $20 less than the base iPad 2 at $479, and the 32GB version is similarly cheaper at $579. There is no 64GB flavor of the Thrive, however. (Pricing via eWeek.)
With so many Honeycomb tablets set to enter the market, it will be hard for consumers to differentiate between them. Toshiba is apparently banking on its price point (about $20 less than the 16GB Acer Iconia Tab A500, but $30 more than the 16GB Asus Eee Pad Transformer) and name recognition to get some traction in what will be a highly competitive field of Android slates.
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