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The Android onslaught continues, with Toshiba now jumping into the fray wielding 3 all new Android tablets — the Toshiba Excite Pro, Toshiba Excite Pure and Toshiba Excite Write. All the tabs share the same plastic shell, along with HDMI and micro USB ports, micro SD card slot, and run on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. But that’s where the similarities end.
Both the Excite Pro and Excite Write are Toshiba’s high-end tabs, featuring 10-inch 2,560×1,600 resolution displays (300ppi) covered by Gorilla Glass 2, NVIDIA Tegra 4 CPUs, 32GB of internal storage, 8MP cameras, thumpin’ Harmon Kardon speakers, and proprietary charger. True to its name, the Write features a Wacom digitizer and handy stylus that supports 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity and will come pre-loaded with Toshiba’s TruNote and TruCapture apps to take full advantage of it.
The Toshiba Excite Pure is their affordable tablet, coming equipped without any sort of rear facing camera (still features a 1.2MP front facing cam) and an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core CPU, 1,280×800 resolution display, Gorilla Glass 1 and 16GB of internal storage. Essentially, this is a 2012 Toshiba in a sleek new package. The Pure gets its name because the tab offers a “pure” version of Android, sans UI skins of any kind.
If you’re worried about support and firmware updates, Toshiba didn’t beat around the bush. They told PCMag that all 3 tablets are guaranteed to receive Key Lime Pie in the future. You can expect the Toshiba Excite Pro to launch at $500, the Toshiba Excite Write for $600, and finally the Toshiba Excite Pure at $300. While the the Pro and Write are the only ones pictured with Toshiba’s optional keyboard case, apparently it will fit any of the 3 tablets, even the lower-end Pure.
[Image credit: UberGizmo | CNET]
Anyone else remember Excite: the free internet provider in the 90’s? :D free internet FTW!
Excite.com was my first stop every day followed by adding more midi files and gif banners to my geocities page. A page want truly under construction unless it had at least 15 animated construction gifs! Oh the glory days. Kids these days have it so easy.
PC OEMs: cancel Christmas. This is what you were supposed to be giving us.
can’t believe they didn’t mention the battery size
The time in the image is 4:20
Did Toshiba do that on purpose?
U would point that out….
I can’t believe no one else did
Learn to spell you.
Sorry. I had the Transformer 1 at one point and I’m now addicted to the mouse pad. I don’t think I can give that up. LoL!!
It’s another reason it’s going to be pricey to replace my laptop. It has a number pad on the side. How can I downgrade from that? =./
I want the excite pro…hopefully it is clocked at 2.0ghz…i dont need wacom technology…i got my handy,dandy,bluetooth keyboard!
Shouldn’t have bought that Note 10.1 with it’s low res screen… Damn….
All i can say is it looks like Toshiba has finally figured it out! This looks awesome.
Unfortunately this will probably have a locked bootloader and no ROMs if the original excite was any indication. That tablet had the potential to be one of the best on the market, but was extremely overpriced and therefore had no developer interest whatsoever. I enjoyed my excite to the point that I didn’t care that I couldn’t root it, until Toshiba released Jellybean and pretty much ruined it–no more split panel menus, constant sleep of death, and more lag than ICS. I was sad to get rid of it, but it literally just became a pretty paperweight post 4.1
Why a proprietary charger? And that stylus does not look like it is going in any slot on the tablet (confirmed in the pcmag article that it doesn’t dock) It is just waiting to be lost or mixed up with other stylii, and if you lose the charger, well, back to Toshiba you go for an overpriced replacement.
And Toshiba was so close this time. This is like a drop-dead beauty queen — wearing hair curlers and with a suspicious string hanging out her shorts.
Add in Toshiba walling off its garden with its own App Store (also mentioned in the linked PCMag article), sure to be ignored and wither away soon, and the busty beauty also has bandage edges protruding out from her tanktop.
Give me mirco-SD, hdmi, mirco-USB, a 2A micro-USB charger (call it what you will; they are sold 3rd party), enhanced apps (for the active stylus) being available in Google Play, and an unlocked bootloader and I’m game. Stop with this fooling around.
(Pardon me for the sexist imagery; it could have been a body builder with a steroid bottle in his shorts, unkempt toenails protruding out his crocs, and dog hair in his teeth…)
I was the same… I was SO excited until I read: “proprietary charger”.
I was ready to toss out $600 for the Excite Writer with pressure sensitive screen and these specs, but I cannot live with a proprietary charger. Hopefully they will learn not to screw with potential customers on their next iteration!
ASUS and Toshiba’s previous tablets have the same. I hate it, especially since my Transformer tab USB cable is falling apart -_-
Yup, the cables don’t last that long anyway! I go through a few of them over the lifespan of my devices. Besides I’ve got a charger in the bedroom, the living room and at work. I ain’t gonna buy 3 new chargers just for one device, because they refuse to adapt standards!
I’m sure it costs them more money to come up with a new proprietary charger and manufacture them than to buy “off-the-shelf” USB ports and chargers! This is madness!
Don’t you mean you Transformer’s non-USB power cable?
Hmmm…I may have to try the WACOM digitizer out on my Note 2 or Note 8.0, once it’s released. If it does end up working, I think I just might purchase one of those. I’m not completely sold on Toshiba in the Android tablet game just yet, but the specs are very nice looking on paper. I’ve loved the Toshiba tablets I’ve owned in the past, so after 2 years have passed with my Note 8.0, I’m hoping there are more choices like these.
The Toshiba Thrive (which is my current tablet) also features the Toshiba apps store, but they also give you full access to the Google play store, you’re not just stuck with the Tosh store, as for the proprietary charger, the Thrive has one too, mine broke recently and I was able to pick one up cheaply on ebay. Hopefully the new tablets have a different one as the Thrive’s is a laptop style power-block. The stylus in the Write definitely needs a dock of some kind, I would probably loose it within a week!Think I will probably upgrade to the Pro when its released.