My Thrive Review

[sneakyllama]

I have now had my Thrive (32GB WiFi) for two days and I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. Everything about this is what I thought my Notion Ink Adam would be, but failed to fit the bill. There are a couple of annoyances, but overall I would buy it again. Without my portfolio it is essentially the same size and weight as the Notion Ink Adam, but with the beveled edges. It feels very robust in my hands.

PROS

• Beautiful Screen

• Camera (5MP)

• Exceptional responsiveness

• SD Card Slot

• Full and mini USB, and HDMI (not tested yet)

• Sound Enhancer - SRS boost plus ambient noise cancellation (with headphones it is amazing)

• User Replaceable Battery

• Works exceptionally well with the WACOM Bamboo Stylus

• It does not have a PixelQi screen, but it works surprisingly well in sunlight.

• Video playback is excellent

• The ability to print with PrinterShare

CONS

• A little heavy with the portfolio

• Additional CRAPPS that I cannot uninstall (crappy card games and trial software)

• Mediocre battery life (so far 4 hours when I actually use it for more than just a music player or book reader)...but I could always carry a second battery (user replaceable battery)

• Occasional freezing

• Will not wake up if it has been asleep for three plus hours, but I might be missing some special key press

• Placement of the power and volume seem off to me. I think Notion Ink has by far the best overall placement of buttons and ports for a tablet (hate their bezel switches)

Apps that work and look great include SketchBook Mobile, Thinking Space Pro, Conqu, ThumbKeyboard (initialization was a problem), News360, Pulse, MusicalPro (reminds me of the original iPAD advert), Kindle, Aldiko, SugarSync, Documents to Go, Opera, and more.

Good or bad these apps are preinstalled:

Normal Google Apps
Backgammon
File Manager
5 HW Card Games (don't like them)
Kaspersky Tablet Security (Trial)
NFS Shift (Trial)
Media Player (nice)
Movie Studio (very nice)
QuickOffice
LogMeIn
PrinterShare (very nice)
ServiceStation (update manager)
Toshiba Start Place (News Reader)
Toshiba Book Place (book store)
Toshiba App Place (app store)


All in all, as a piece of hardware, this is a great competitor for the iPAD, plus all the external ports, SD card slot, and removable battery. Unfortunately, like all Android tablets, it suffers from a lack of beautiful and useful apps that the iPAD has available.

UPDATE -- One more update concerning the USB that will frustrate people (trust me) if they are not aware. When you connect the Thrive to your computer you will not get the normal Android phone message to connect as a drive. In Windows (running Win 7) it shows up as a device (NOT A DRIVE) and you can access the primary memory through Windows Explorer.

[Vector66]

Thanks for putting this up, I really want to get one of the Thrives. Only 4 hours? They are claiming 10...hmmm another user on here said he was getting good battery life.

[drum747]

I got my 16gb Thrive 12 days ago and love it. I noticed the battery life has improved a lot. Right now I am sitting at 12hrs and 12min with 36% remaining. Moderate use today solid use for the last almost 3 hours with the screen set at 50%. I am very pleased with this tablet. The interoperability with other devices is amazing. I hope to see some development for this tablet. It really is a standout product.

Nice review Sneakyllama!

[twospirits]

thanks for the review

[sneakyllama]

My battery life of 4 hours was based on playing movies and a couple of memory intensive games and represented worse case. I will use it today without any video or games and let you know what I get.

[zerofeel]

Great review can I publish it on the front of the site?

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

[sneakyllama]

Great review can I publish it on the front of the site?

Certainly.

Update to my battery life. I did not have a chance to use it most of the day, but after 15 hours of minor use and standby (but searching for a WiFi signal) I still have 71% battery life. Another positive note, it woke up immediately. I really do like this device.

[twospirits]

Nice to know about the battery life.

[sneakyllama]

Just downloaded the free app of the day "FolderOrganizer" from Amazon. Highly recommend it. I may never have to open the app drawer again. Tried to lower the light so there is a little vibration in the photo. thrive.jpg

[dexterpicard]

On xda forums its discussed and said, that models in shops are pulled, just like folio100 was in the early beginning for android tabs from toshiba, they once again found out they "sleep of death" bug is there, and tabs from toshiba cannot awake from standby..

is that not really,really cool.. toshiba folio100 is followed by a new model, and it has the exact same bugs and suffer same consequences..

why would anyone buy anything from toshiba? 2x mess up , is that not proof of toshiba concept, "we cannot do it"