Toshiba announces its 7in Thrive tablet

JAPANESE ELECTRONICS FIRM Toshiba has announced the latest addition to its tablet range, the Thrive 7in, which will be available in the US in time for Christmas.

The tablet will feature a 7in high definition LED backlit display capable of 1280x800 resolution. It employs Toshiba's Adaptive Display and Resolution+3 video enhancement technology, along with sound enhancement technology from Toshiba and SRS Labs.

It will be powered by a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor providing high quality graphics as well. It will also feature two cameras, a 5MP one on the back and a 2MP one on the front. There will be two models available offering 16GB or 32GB of hard drive space, respectively.

Users can expect all of the usual connectivity options, such as miniUSB, microHDMI, a microSD card slot, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. It will also support Adobe Flash and employ Toshiba's File Manager system.

The device will come with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, a step up from the Android Honeycomb offering on its predecessor, the Thrive 10in, which launched in July.

One thing we can say about this tablet is that while it has the usual form factor we would expect for such a device, it has a very different look from the Ipad and its various clones on the market, which is very refreshing.

Toshiba will launch the 7in Thrive tablet in December at major retailers, online stores, and via Toshiba itself. A European release will most likely follow within the first half of 2012. µ