Toshiba Excite AT305T32 10.1-Inch 32 GB Tablet Computer - Wi-Fi - NVIDIA Tegra 3 1.20 GHz
Product Description
choose from a growing line of tablets. compromise elsewhere. these tablets provide the unchained entertainment and performance you crave-right out of the box, with a full, rich android experience, generous battery life rating, sharp styling, simple ways to share, connect and capture the moment, plenty of ports, along with support for full adobe flash-enabled web. no matter which one you choose, they're all one of a kind. general information - manufacturer - toshiba; manufacturer part number - gf6300a15?de; manufacturer website address - toshiba; brand name - toshiba; product line - excite; product series - at305; product model - at305-t32; product name - excite at305-t32 tablet computer; product type - tablet computer; miscellaneous - package contents - excite at305-t32 tablet computer ac adapter ; processor & chipset - processor manufacturer - nvidia; processor & chipset - processor type - tegra 3; processor & chipset - processor speed - 1.20 ghz; processor & chipset - processor core - quad-core (4 core); processor & chipset - cache - 1 mb; memory - standard memory - 1 gb; memory - memory technology - ddr3 sdram; storage - flash memory capacity - 32 gb; storage - optical drive type - no; display & graphics - screen size - 10.1"; display & graphics - display screen type - active matrix tft color lcd; display & graphics - aspect ratio - 16:10; display & graphics - screen mode - wxga; display & graphics - screen resolution - 1280 x 800; display & graphics - touchscreen - yes; display & graphics - graphics controller manufacturer - nvidia; display & graphics - graphics controller model - ulp geforce; display & graphics - graphics memory technology - ddr3 sdram; display & graphics - graphics memory accessibility - shared; network & communication - wi-fi - yes; network & communication - wi-fi standard - ieee 802.11b/g/n; network & communication - blueProduct Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #763 in Personal Computers
- Size: 32 GB
- Color: Black
- Brand: Toshiba
- Model: PDA08U-002001
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 11.70" h x 8.40" w x 1.90" l, 2.20 pounds
- CPU: Tegra 3.0 1.2 GHz
- Memory: 1GB SDRAM
- Hard Disk: 32GB
- Processors: 4
- Display size: 10.1
Features
- NVIDIA tegra_3_0 Processor 1.2GHz (1MB Cache)
- 1 GB SDRAM RAM
- 32GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
- 10.1-Inch Screen, NVIDIA ULP GeForce
- Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
> Similar Products ...
> Shop Now ...
Customer Reviews
I've been wanting to get a tablet since last year and have been holding out since they announced ICS and Quad-Core processors. I was going to get the Prime for christmas, but it was unavailable, so I decided to wait and see what came out in the spring. I've stayed away from the Prime due to the higher price and GPS issues, so it came down to 3 tablets while making my decision (Transformer Pad, Acer Iconia a510 and the Toshiba Excite 10). All 3 tablets are very similar and met my criteria for a tablet (ICS, Tegra 3, 1280x800 display, HDMI-out, etc.). I had originally ordered the Iconia a510, but it was back-ordered. Then I saw the Excite was available and in stock early on Amazon last week, so I cancelled my order for the Acer and immediately orderd the Toshiba. What ultimately sold me on the Toshiba model was the Gorilla Glass, the Stock ICS experience and the Full SD card slot. My wife takes a lot of pictures and will love being able to just pop the SD card out of the camera and into the tablet.
I received the device yesterday and it is very fast and slim. I used it for a good 3 hours straight last night with music playing in the background and experienced no lag at all and still had 70% battery remaining after the 3 hours. The Excite 10 is very well built and feels sturdy in the hands. Not too heavy, but just enough that it doesn't feel like you are going to break it. The WiFi signal was very strong and didn't have any issues there. The speakers sound pretty good considering how small they are. The setup took no time at all and with the Google Restore function, I had all of my phone apps (about 100) on my tablet within 20 minutes.
So far I haven't come up with too many Cons for this device. If I had to list some they would be the following:
1. There is a good amount of pre-installed junk on the device. Not that big of a deal since apps can be disabled in ICS.
2. The Charger is proprietary. It would be nice to charge over microUSB, but with the size of tablet batteries, it would take forever to fully charge, so it is understandable why it doesn't.
Overall, I am very pleased with this product and would recommend it.
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
So far I've owned the ASUS Transformer Prime (TF201), Acer Iconia Tab A510, and now the Toshiba AT305. The TF201 had build quality and wireless/GPS issues and the A510 had a "grid effect" to the LCD and some bad heat issues (106+ degrees). And now the AT305, which has light bleed issues. The sad part is that despite this annoying "issue," it's still the best Tegra 3 tablet out there.
As with the Acer and Asus, I've already gone through two AT305's just to make sure these issues were consistent. But let's go into a bit more of a detailed review first on the AT305 that I've been using for a few days now.
DESIGN:
Out of the box, initial impressions are very good. The tablet has a great solid feel to it, it's comfortable to hold, thin, and yes, even light weight. The back has a hard, smooth, plastic feel to it - although I hear its aluminum. If so, it probably has some type of coating on it. Basically, it's one nice looking tablet.
I won't go into details regarding where everything is or what feature it has, as you can easily see this from the pictures. Although the one item I must point out is the SD Card Slot, which is on the right side. There is a blank filler card that must be removed when you want to use your own SD card. While the addition of a full-size SD slot is very welcome, there is nothing to cover the slot once your card is in there.
So your hand will frequently rub against the sharp inside edges of the plastic casing. I'm normally not a big fan of plastic covers, but in this instance, it would have been very nice to have. If you're planning on getting a case, this won't likely be an issue.
WIRELESS:
I've tested both wireless and GPS extensively and found them to both perform very well. I'm able to maintain a solid WiFi connection even at the furthest reaches of my Access Point. And GPS can actually pick up a few satellite in-doors, which is always impressive. Outside I can get accuracy down to less than 18ft, within 1-2 minutes. This of course was verified with the GPS Test application.
PERFORMANCE:
Overall the device is very snappy and I haven't had any issues that I didn't run into with the other Tegra3 devices on Android 4.0.3. There are still a few occasional bugs or glitches with ICS, which I hope they'll resolve soon. Otherwise, nothing specific to the AT305.
Antutu scored a 10,313 and Quadrant is right at 4,000. I've seen slightly higher Antutu scores on the A510, which was closer to 11k. Although as I recall, this is the highest Quadrant score I've seen to date. Keeping in mind that both devices I had scored nearly identical. And in either case, the scores are subjective and personally don't put a whole lot of faith in them.
Until they have some new benchmarks that really take advange of the quad core CPU and Tegra3, they're just something to give you interesting numbers to look at. :) Real world tests are where it's at. Speaking of which, playing Tegra 3 games is smooth and they all run expectedly nice. Surfing the web, running apps, and other such tasks are all as expected. Quite good.
After watching movies and playing games, I got temps as high as 93 degrees on the back, right side. This was determined by my infrared thermometer. It's not as cool as the 85 degree TF201 but also nowhere near the 106+ degree A510. So I consider that to be on the warm side, but not uncomfortably so. I think the material on the back Toshiba uses helps to dissipate the heat so it doesn't "feel" hot or uncomfortable.
While surfing or running normal apps, the temps were staying in the 80's where it should be.
DISPLAY:
Starting positive here, the LCD does look very nice. In fact, of the TF201 and A510, it's the nicest I've seen. Even though it's not IPS (it's TFT as I recall), it looks great. The images are very crisp, colors are vibrant, and it has surprisingly good contrast ratio. The best part is that they've found a very nice color temperature balance.
While the A510 was very cool and the TF201 was on the warm side, I found the AT305 to quite neutral. This makes it very pleasing to use whether you are reading, surfing, playing games, or watching a movie.
But of course we can't ignore the negative part of this. There is light bleed, and it just makes me very sad. You won't notice this on any normal colorful image. But if you're watching a movie or looking at a picture that has a black background at the edges, you'll see a very uneven amount of light emitting from the sides. And the more you turn up the brightness, the worse it is.
In fact, just powering on the tablet, you'll see this on the Toshiba logo as it has a black background. It was exactly the same with both AT305's I got. And it's not something I ever experienced with any other tablet I've owned or used. Normally, this is considered a defect and swapping it out would resolve the issue. But based on my experience and countless other reviews/posts on-line, this is quite common with the AT305.
Whether you call it a defect, poor build quality, or a cheap display, it's not desirable.
BATTERY:
Just in general, when you make something smaller, you tend to make some sacrifices. In this case, it was the battery life. To test it out, I started with a fully charged battery. Then basically used it non-stop until I got down to 20% remaining, at which point we were right at 6 hours of usage. This isn't very good. Although keeping mind this is "heavy" usage. I was downloading a bunch of apps, playing games, watching movies, and even ran a benchmark or two during that time.
So I'd say heavy usage, you're looking at 7+ hours. Personally I don't like allowing the battery get much lower than 20%, so that's normally about the time I'm looking for a power cord. And yes, the power adapter is straight out of the 90's. There's no reason it needs to be that big; but it is, and I got over it.
For me, with "normal usage," I'm easily lasting the entire day on a single charge. This is mostly because I don't use it non-stop and spend most of the time checking e-mail or surfing the web. And overall, it's a fair compromise for its light weight and thinness.
SPEAKERS:
As with the A510, the AT305 has down-firing speakers at the bottom, and there are in fact two of them (unlike the TF201). They are backed by Toshiba and SRS enhancements, which are definitely needed. If these sound enhancements are turned off, the sound is horrible. But with them on, the speakers actually sound pretty descent.
I do suggest turning on the "boost" function if it's not loud enough. Surprisingly even with that turned on and volume maxed out, there is no distortion. The A510's speakers still sound noticeably better as there is most detail and they have a fuller sound. The TF305 has a tendency to sound a bit muffled at times, depending on how you're holding it.
I still wish they'd put them forward facing. Otherwise, I find them perfectly acceptable and wouldn't mind watching a few shows or demoing the device to friends.
So let's wrap this one up.
Pros:
+ Looks very nice
+ Light weight and thin
+ Tegra 3 Performance
+ Full-size SD Card Slot
+ USB functionality
+ Descent stereo speakers
+ Gorilla Glass
Cons:
- LCD Light Bleed
- Only "OK" battery life
- No SD Card Slot Cover (when in use)
- Considering specs (16GB model), could be a bit cheaper
CONCLUSION:
So how bad is the light bleed? It's annoying enough that this is getting returned. I've been in the IT field for nearly 2 decades and have repaired so many computers and electronics (including many LCD's), I wouldn't even want to guess as to how many. In other words, I know a defect when I see one. :) However, my lovely wife did play with this for a while and she did "volunteer" to take it off my hands - even after showing her the light bleed. It didn't bother her one bit, which I'm sure will be the case for many other folks out there.
So my search for a solid Android tablet continues. On the plus side, I think we're getting closer! Just give me all of the good features from Asus, Acer, and Toshiba, and we'll have one killer tablet on our hands. Come on folks, it can't be that hard to spend $400-$500 on a tablet without making compromises.
> More Customer Reviews ...
Editorial Reviews
Delivering more performance, sleek durability
and more essential ports and features than the average Android tablet,
the Toshiba Excite 10 Tablet is an all-around tablet designed for home
and on-the-go use. It features a bright, high definition 10.1-inch LED
backlit display with 10-finger multi-touch support, making it an ideal
choice for web browsing, reading, games and apps. And it's powered by a
quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor with GeForce graphics and 1 GB of
RAM, opening up the possibilities for both everyday computing and mobile gaming.
Ultra-powerful with 10.1-inch multi-touch display and quad-core processer (view larger).
Ultra-thin, ultra-light computing power (view larger).
The
Excite 10 runs the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system,
which builds on the things people love most about Android--a simplified
UI, easy multitasking, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and
a full suite of familiar Google mobile services.
View larger.
Sporting
an elegant yet durable premium design, the Excite 10 measures less than
a third-of-an-inch thin and weighs 1.32 pounds. It also offers stereo
speakers with Toshiba and SRS sound enhancements, dual cameras for
capturing on-the-go photos and videoconferencing, and an array of
built-in ports to help you easily connect and share--plus Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth connectivity.
This model (AT305-T32) comes with 32 GB of onboard storage, and you'll get up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge.
Quad-Core Performance
From
scrolling and swiping the web to the fast action of the latest games,
the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor delivers amazing multitasking, web, gaming,
and video. This innovative mobile processor features the world's only
4-PLUS-1 mobile quad-core CPU, providing outstanding performance for
even the most demanding applications. Plus, it features a unique fifth
low-power core that handles your everyday apps while saving energy, then
kicks into full quad-core mode for demanding apps like video editing
and gaming.
Bright and Brilliant 10.1-Inch Display
With
the Excite 10 Tablet, the view is always great wherever you go. Its
10.1-inch AutoBrite multi-touch, LED-backlit display makes reading
ebooks and blogs a pleasure. It has a 1280 x 800-pixel resolution for
native HD 720p viewing, and its 16:10 aspect ratio is great for
widescreen movies. Plus, its 10-finger multi-touch design lets you
navigate and control your visual experience with ease.
The screen
is made of lightweight Corning Gorilla Glass, which offers exceptional
resistance to the scratches, drops, and bumps of everyday life. It's
cool to the touch and easy to clean, yet sensitive enough to enable
today's most sophisticated touch applications. And because it’s equipped
with Toshiba AutoBrite technology, the Excite 10 automatically tunes
the screen to the ambient lighting environment, so you always get
perfect contrast and rich color saturation.
Powered by Android 4.0
Spend
less time learning new software and apps, and more on what matters with
the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system. In addition to
easy multitasking and rich notifications, you also get powerful new ways
of communicating and sharing. The Excite 10 includes a full suite of
familiar Google Mobile Service applications, including YouTube, Gmail,
and Google Maps. And Google Play is a new digital content experience
that lets you find and enjoy your favorite music, movies, books, and
Android apps and games.
Additionally, the Excite 10 comes
pre-loaded with a useful mix of Toshiba software and third-party
applications, including TOSHIBA Book Place (offering more than 3 million
ebooks), the TOSHIBA Media Player that supports content sharing,
TOSHIBA File Manager, as well as Netflix and Zinio--the ultimate app for
magazine lovers and more.
Dual Front and Back Cameras
Videoconference
with clarity using the front-facing 2-megapixel camera with integrated
microphone. Additionally, the Excite 10 Tablet offers a 5-megapixel
auto-focus rear camera as well, so you can shoot high-quality photos and
videos in Full HD 1080p resolution. It's also great for augmented
reality apps, which enhance what you're seeing through the viewfinder
(and experiencing firsthand) by overlaying sound, graphics and relevant
text.
Excellent Expansion and Connectivity
The
Excite 10 is the only tablet in its class with an array of built-in
ports to make moving media content to and from other devices and screens
so simple. You get micro HDMI and USB 2.0 ports along with a full-sized
SD memory card slot for swapping files, and it has a docking connector
for using Toshiba's optional Standard Dock accessory. It also has
Bluetooth for connecting wireless headphones and a keyboard, plus
ultra-fast Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking for connecting to home, business,
and on-the-go hotspots.
Packed with Sensors
Upside-down,
sideways, even miles from nowhere... Wherever you take it, the Excite
10 Tablet knows where it is, and which way is up, thanks to an onboard
suite of sensors, including a gyroscope, accelerometer, e-compass, and
GPS. Tilt it into a portrait or landscape format--through a full 360
degrees of rotation--for the very best viewing. Experience a whole new
way to play games, note your location most anywhere on Earth, and take
advantage of today's popular map applications, photo tagging, and more.
View larger.
Specifications
| Display 10.1-inch
LED-backlit display (1280 x 800 pixels; 16:10 aspect ratio) with
capacitive 10-finger multi-touch capabilities and scratch-resistant
Corning Gorilla Glass Operating System Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Processor & Graphics NVIDIA Tegra 3 mobile processor with Super 4-PLUS-1 quad-core with 5th battery-saver core Storage 32 GB internal flash memory Memory 1 GB internal DDR3L-1333 memory Wireless Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g/n) plus Bluetooth 3.0 Audio Built-in stereo speakers with SRS Premium Voice Pro Suite and Toshiba Sound Enhancements Sensors & Location GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, ambient light sensor, digital compass | Cameras
Weight and Dimensions 1.32 pounds; 10.3 x 7.0 x 0.35 inches (WxDxH) Warranty 1 year |
View larger.
View larger.
What's in the Box
Toshiba Excite 10 tablet; charger; operating instructions
Included Software
Google and Android Apps
Google
Maps, Google Maps Street View, Google Maps Navigation, Google Movie
Studio, Google Places, Google Play, Google Latitude, Google Search,
Google Sound Recorder, Google Calendar/Calendar Sync, Google
Contacts/Contact Sync, Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Videos, Google
Voice Search, YouTube
Third-Party Apps
Amazon Kindle,
Amazon MP3, Adobe Reader, Crackle, Kaspersky Tablet Security, LogMeIn,
Netflix SD Player, Rdio for Android, Quickoffice, SilverCreek Games
(Hardwood Backgammon, Hardwood Euchre, Hardwood Solitaire IV, Hardwood
Hearts, Hardwood Spades), Zinio
Toshiba Apps
TOSHIBA App Place, TOSHIBA Book Place, TOSHIBA Media Player, TOSHIBA News Place, TOSHIBA Service Station, TOSHIBA File Manager
