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"Toshiba Excite Unpacking\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nToshiba Excite 10 LE Tablet\nThe 10-inch Excite 10 LE tablet runs stock Android (Version 4.0 \"Ice Cream Sandwich\") and is one of the thinnest and lightest tablets you can buy.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn Box\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nUnboxed\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWith Charger\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBack View\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPorts\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSide View\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nExcite 10 LE vs. iPad\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nToshiba\u2019s 10-inch Excite 10 LE tablet is definitely attractive. At 0.3 inches thick and 1.8 pounds, it\u2019s lighter and thinner than any other tablet on the market, and runs the tablet-friendly Android 4.0 \"Ice Cream Sandwich\" system software. So why don\u2019t I love it?\nThis $549 Android tablet has much of the sex appeal many other Android tablets lack. Plus, it\u2019s larger than the leading Android-based Kindle Fire, which might make it a better choice for those seeking an Apple iPad alternative.\nThe Excite has the power to please, though not always the performance. Inside its magnesium alloy and glass chassis is a TI OMAP 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and a full 1GB of RAM. Mostly, that makes it zippy, but for some apps, like Autodesk Sketchbook, there's a bit of lag.\nI really do like the Excite\u2019s looks, but also worry the company made a couple of poor decisions to make that svelte frame work. In an effort to keep the design as clean as possible, Toshiba has placed all three of the tablet\u2019s buttons (power, volume and rotation lock) along one outside edge of the device. They\u2019re all black, just like the black piping that wraps around the tablet. As a result, the buttons blend into the device. At a glance, I could never tell where they were.\nThese rather small buttons help maintain the Excite\u2019s sleek looks, but they don\u2019t all work that well. The volume button has to be pressed extra hard to lower the volume and power feels uncomfortable to push \u2014 it\u2019s so thin that the meat of your index finger wraps around it and presses into the surrounding edges of the tablet.\nSometimes the Excite\u2019s plusses turn to minuses. It\u2019s one of the few tablets with a built-in memory card slot (it also has micro USB and HDMI-out ports). As a result, the Excite ships with just 16GB of storage. You can update with a 32GB micro SD card, but who has one of those lying around? You can buy one for as little as $34, but once you install it, it\u2019s unlikely you\u2019ll ever take it out. So why didn\u2019t Toshiba simply build in more storage space?\nWhere It's Good\nToshiba chose to make the Excite a Wi-Fi-only device. Personally, I don't mind the lack of a 3G or 4G option. My iPad 1 has AT&amp;T 3G build in, but I\u2019ve never turned it on. Seems like I can always find Wi-Fi when I need it.\nWith two cameras (a 5-megapixel one on the back and 2MP facing you), the Excite matches the latest iPad's camera gear. The 5MP camera is quite capable of taking great shots \u2014 it even comes with a built-in panorama mode, which helps you quickly stitch together an 180-degree arc of photos into one incredibly wide shot. That feature works well, but the camera quality is only meh. Photos were grainy and featured too many inaccurate colors. 1080p video capture looked good, and if you have a mini-HDMI cable (the Excite does not ship with one \u2014 how many of you have mini-HDMI cables in your drawer?) you can play the video on your big-screen HDTV.\nThe 1,920 x 1,080 screen also features an odd pattern on it that\u2019s evident when using it with apps featuring dark backgrounds. It\u2019s not a big problem, but I\u2019ve never seen anything like it on other, competing tablets.\nBattery life is, more or less, on par with other 10.1-inch tablets and the iPad. On occasion, it seemed to drain faster on standby, but other times, it gave me nearly 8 hours (the iPad Retina is rated for 10 hours). I did run into one into one disconcerting issue, though. After draining the battery down to almost empty, I plugged the tablet in for an overnight charge. The next day, a small white light on the edge was shining brightly. However, when I pressed the power button, I could not turn on the tablet. Nothing I tried worked. Finally, I held power and volume down for 30 seconds or so to force a reset. The tablet came back to life. This only happened once, but that would be one time too many for any consumer who doesn\u2019t know how to force a reset.\nAndroid 4.0 Versus the Other Guys?\nThe most difficult thing about reviewing an Android tablet today, though, is that it has to be done in a world where the Apple iPad is already dominant. Using Android 4.0, even on a device as attractive as the Excite, I can\u2019t help but compare the platforms, and to be honest, I still prefer Apple\u2019s iOS.\nMost of this has little to do with the Toshiba Excite. Toshiba\u2019s decision to run stock Android, as opposed to the overlay you\u2019ll find on some Android tablets (including the Samsung Galaxy Tab which adds \u201CLive Panel\u201D and \u201Cmini Apps\u201D), is a good one. Ice Cream Sandwich is a good tablet OS. It doesn\u2019t fix all of Android\u2019s issues, but overall it makes for a far more cohesive experience than ever before (thank you, Google, for putting \"Settings\" right on my home screen). Adding e-mail and social accounts like Twitter is easy, though some of the screens still don't look as if they were designed for a tablet.\nAll that said, I eventually run into Android quirks that leave me longing for my iPad. I still, for example, prefer a physical home button to the graphical one that eats up a tad of lower-screen real estate. Android is also still not entirely consistent when it comes to common actions like copy and paste. Sometimes I can perform the action near whatever I\u2019m doing, but other times, copy and paste reside in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.\nAndroid is still apt to tell consumers too much about what's going on under the hood. In the \"Apps\" area under \"Settings\" there's a heading called \"Show Cached Processes.\" Likewise, each running app is listed with its number of \"Processes\" and \"Services.\" I and other tech nerds know what all this means, but consumers don't and likely don't care. There's even a \"Developer Options\" area under settings. Fun for us, but most people should ignore.\nAndroid is, by now, a relatively mature platform, with a lot of great apps, and some of them are even designed for a tablet interface. Netflix, for instance works as smoothly here as it does on every other platform (and sounded particularly good on the Excite\u2019s SRS Stereo Speakers). On the other hand, when is the Android Market...er...Google Play going to start organizing apps by device form factor? I still have a heck of a time finding any tablet-ready apps. It\u2019s tremendously frustrating to download what you think is going to be a tablet app and end up with a portrait-view-only piece of junk. \nOverall, the Excite is not a bad tablet. It\u2019s light, attractive and generally works well, but I would not trade in my iPad for it. It\u2019s hard to recommend a product that feels very much like Version One hardware. Perhaps more worrisome is the fact that Toshiba has chosen to put zero marketing muscle behind this product. I have yet to see a single ad, print, web or TV for \u201Cthe world\u2019s thinnest tablet.\u201D If Toshiba isn't willing to get behind its own product, why should you?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/06/25/toshiba-excite-10-le-review/>