14 DAY TRIAL // Toshiba has just begun shipping the Thrive tablet in official capacity, for a price that may or may not be appealing, given the size of the item.
With 10.1-inch tablets selling for about $500 themselves, the price of $379.99 (286.48 Euro) might not seem so entrancing.
Then again, this might be consumers' wish for smaller prices talking.
Also, Toshiba may not have chosen the date of launch very well, seeing as how HP sold some of its last TouchPads yesterday (December 11, 2011).
This wouldn't be much of a problem, not after HP's whole supply was exhausted, leaving the company with nothing to offer on the slate segment from now on (or until 2013 at least).
Nonetheless, the TouchPads did, in the end, sell for $99 a piece, which puts some gloom over Toshiba's chosen tag, even if it is more or less standard issue for 7-inch slates.
The Thrive is nothing if not equipped for action, though, with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC (system-on-chip) platform, based on ARM, and everything else that prospective buyers could want form a tablet.
The display has a native resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels, while two cameras adorn the back and front of the item, respectively.
The former webcam is of 5 megapixels, while the one on the front settles for a quality of 2 megapixels.
Meanwhile, a microSD card slot lets owners add memory cards if the 16 GB included aren't enough (there is a 32 GB version as well, for $429.99 / 324.17 Euro).
Other specifications include Bluetooth, DLNA support, USB, a Micro HDMI connector, a built-in GPS and the Android 3.2 operating system, otherwise known as Honeycomb.
All things considered, more than the HP TouchPad, Thrive will have to contend with the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is already much cheaper and number 2 in popularity (or 1, depending on who you ask), WiFi issues or not.