Toshiba Thrive Tablet Makes Early Debut At Best Buy
One forum poster using the handle 'dandroid' claims to have seen a 16GB Thrive on sale for $479.99 on Monday at their local Best Buy store in Austin, Texas. "When I asked the salesman if they were available now, he said he had 14 in stock ready to go," 'dandroid' wrote.
CRN contacted one Best Buy store in Austin, Texas Thursday that confirmed that it's now selling the Thrive. But a San Francisco Best Buy location told CRN it won't start selling the tablet until July 10.
Toshiba lists the Thrive tablet as available through its Web site but indicates a shipping timeframe of one to two weeks, while Best Buy is currently only taking pre-orders for the Thrive online.
The Thrive is the latest Android tablet to launch with the Honeycomb 3.1 operating system and Nvidia dual-core Tegra 2 processor. The 10.1 inch 1280 x 800 display can support HD video, a selling point it shares with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
The Thrive boasts more ports than many of its rivals, including HDMI, mini and full-size USB 2.0 and SD Card, as well as a standard headphone jack and docking connector. The resulting form factor is heavier, at 1.6 pounds, than Apple's 1.33 pound iPad 2, but it is also .4 inches larger measured on the diagonal.
The entry level Thrive costs $429 and has 8 GB of memory, the 16 GB Thrive costs $479, and the the 32 GB Thrive is $579.99. In comparison, Apple's entry level iPad comes with 16GB of storage and is priced at $499, while the 32 GB iPad 2 is $599 and the 64GB model is $699.
The market is crowded with tablets trying to take down Apple's iPad, and lower prices are one way companies like Toshiba are trying to compete.
Competitive pricing is also a way for Toshiba to stand out from the crowd of Android tablets. While Apple and Hewlett Packard own the software and the hardware for their respective tablets, Toshiba uses Google's Android operating system.