Laptop Thoughts: Toshiba's Thrive Tablet Detailed

I had the pleasure of sitting in on a conference call today that covered the Toshiba Thrive, a tablet that I initially saw at CES back in January. The official wraps came off today, and I got the full breakdown along with a bunch of photos. The specs for this tablet are impressive, though I'm not sure if Toshiba is going to be able to justify this price premium - with the 32 GB Asus Transformers coming in at $499 USD, Toshiba wanting to charge $579 for the same thing is going to be a hard sell. Here's how things look...

• 8 GB ($429.99), 16 GB ($479.99), 32 GB ($579.99) - it's unusual (in a good way) to see a mere $50 give you double the storage at the 8 GB to 16 GB jump
• I asked, but no explanation was given as to why there's no 64 GB version - I'd guess it comes down to price. Toshiba probably didn't feel they could be price competitive at the 64 GB mark
• The Thrive is 0.6 inches thick and 1.6 pounds
• They didn't tell us what powered it, but other sites are reporting a 1 Ghz Tegra 2 with 1 GB of RAM
• When I asked about why they were starting at 8 GB, they said it was for users who were interested at a low price point - users who use Web surfing and simple tasks and 8 GB is enough for them. With the full-sized SD card slot, it's easy for users to expand storage easily.
• Battery life is rated at 7 hours of continuous HD video playback at an unknown brightness
• The battery will charge to 90% capacity in 90 minutes
• It has WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, accelerometer
• Android 3.1, 10.1 inch display, 1280 x 800 resolution IPS screen, stereo speakers with SRS audio, 2 MP front camera, 5 MP rear camera

• It has removable covers; the default is black, but there are five other covers that people can chose from ($19.99 each)
• A removable, replaceable battery is a side effect of having this removable cover - that could be a core advantage for some users
• Comes with Adobe Flash, Android Marketplace, etc. - the usual top-tier Android software package
• Rotation lock button
• Toshiba has been in the business of making PCs and laptops for 25 years, so they have a lot of experience they can leverage
• Full-sized USB port, full-sized HDMI port, full-sized SD card slot - things that people are familiar with on their current laptops
• Other sites are reporting a microSD card slot for storage expansion - that's cool considering there's also an SD card slot on there
• There's also a docking port - Toshiba will have two docks. The first is a simple charging stand with an audio out port ($39.99), then the second is a multi-dock ($59.99) that also has two full-sized USB ports along with an HDMI port and the audio out and charging port that the basic stand has
• Toshiba created their own file manager to make it easier to move files to and from external sources
• Toshiba implemented an enhancement called "Resolution Plus" - in real time, video is analyzed resulting in a sharper image, better contrast and colour
• There's a Toshiba-made media player that handles basic media playback and photo editing
• Included software: QuickOffice, Need For Speed, LogMeIn, printer sharing software (third party software)