Toshiba Thrive Tablet Sells Through Staples

Toshiba's Thrive may not have been the most punctual of tablets, but it is, nonetheless, one of the slates up for order online, with Staples now being found to have listed it for a lower price than before.

The Thrive tablet is, like so many other slates out there, powered by the ARM-based Tegra 2 platform from NVIDIA.

Before it finally became available for order through Best Buy and Future Shop, it suffered some delays, especially in Canada.

Oddly enough, the item has apparently disappeared from those stores, only to show up for order on Staples, for a lower price than before.

Originally, it sold in three storage options, 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB, whose prices were of $399.99 (297 Euro), $429.99 (319 Euro) and $499.99 (371 Euro), respectively.

Now, Staples lists those same three capacity options, only for prices that are about $20 lower than before.

Indeed, the 8 GB model sells for $379.99 (282 Euro), $399.99 (297 Euro) and $479.99 (356 Euro), respectively.

Prospective users that want to get reacquainted with the slate's specs should know that the dual-core Tegra 2 has 1 GB of RAM (random access memory) backing it up, plus the aforementioned NAND Flash storage.

The 10.1-inch display has a native resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels, while the operating system is the Android 3.1 OS, otherwise known as Honeycomb.

It should turn into a rival to the iPad and all the other Android-loaded tablets out there, provided Apple doesn't suddenly decide to sue Toshiba over patent infringement like it did with Samsung.

On another note, and quite ironically, there is such quite a chance that the Thrive won't match the rate and number of sales that the HP Touchpad scored after its official demise.

Then again, modders have been experimenting with getting Android (even multitouch) to run on this item, so comparisons are being drawn in the most unexpected of ways, even if there will never really be a competition between the two.