TOSHIBA THRIVE 7

The Toshiba Thrive 7” tablet is essentially a scaled-down version of the electronics giant’s 10” version; however, while the bigger version impresses with high functionality and perhaps the world’s most convenient battery-changing system, the Thrive 7” isn’t quite as groundbreaking as its brother product but still stacks up well against its similarly-sized competition.

One of the nicer features of the Toshiba Thrive 7” is the handy single port door on one edge of the tablet. When opened, this reveals micro SD card slot, mini-USB port and mini-HDMI port – Toshiba seeks to turn on tablet users to the multifunctionality their other products may provide the device, and this is one great excuse to do so. Toshiba again shows off their audio technology with two stereo speakers for better sound.

Also distinguishing the Thrive 7” in look from most of its competition is the distinctive multi-groove back, which helps gripping when held in-hand. The dimensions of 7.44” x 5.04” make this Toshiba look a little squarer than the standard format, but the 0.83-pound weight keeps the tablet totable.

In terms of specs, well, this model was first released in 2011, meaning the once-notable technology has downshifted into middle-of-the-pack status as other tablet manufacturers catch up. The nice-looking 1280 x 800-pixel touchscreen still impresses against lines which inexplicably stand by cheap, lower-resolution features, though the 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor won’t impress many nowadays. The 16 GB storage space won’t make headlines today, but again, the Thrive 7 is pretty much par for this size of tablet.

All in all, the Toshiba Thrive 7 is a reasonable choice among the 7” tablet lot – just be sure to catch it while it’s still competitive specs-wise. Recent markdowns in suggest retail price will certainly make this tablet even more enticing.