Toshiba’s Thrive tablets were certainly not crowd favorites, and the company, after listening to customer complaints, has introduced a new line of tablets in the Excite line. It’s a good thing that they are changing their designs and bringing out pretty looking devices: the 7.7″ tablet which has the same AMOLED display on the Galaxy Tab 7.7 and the 10″ Excite with a resolution of 1280 x 800. But why in the world have they decided to include an unnecessarily large 13″ model in the list?

The new Android ICS powered Excites feature an extremely thin chassis (good that they are moving away from the bulky, port-heavy body designs) and will pack NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 SoC. The 10″ and 13″ models both come with a full-sized SD card slot, but no USB and HDMI ports.

About the 13-Inch device, Toshiba says that it will be good for indoor use, particularly in the kitchen if you want to look at recipes or the weather forecast. But we can do those things with a $400 iPad 2 or some other mid-range tablet, and this fact becomes important when we take a look at the Excite 13’s price tag: $650 for the 32GB model and the 64GB model costs $750.

And we don’t think that the company thought about portability while designing it. 10 inch tablets can be handled without problems, but anything larger and heavier will certainly be uncomfortable to use and may also lead to shoulder and neck strain. But if you still want to check out the device, it’s coming on June 10^th, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.

And the price tags of the other two devices:

Excite 7.7″ – June 10th Release Date

• 16GB model – $500
• 32GB model – $580

Excite 10″ – May 6th Release Date

• 16GB model – $450
• 32GB model – $530
• 64GB model – $650

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CES officially kicks off tomorrow, but there’s no lack of news coming out of the desert at all.  Toshiba has their new Excite X10 tablet (Regza over seas) which is now claiming the title of “the world’s thinnest 10-inch tablet,” impressive.

As you might not have forgotten, the company’s last 10-inch tablet was the Thrive. That tablet was definitely not a head turner when considering its design. But the Excite X10 is beautifully designed.

The Android-powered Excite X10, which features a TI OMAP 4420 1.2GHz dual-core processor along with 1GB of RAM, is 7.7 mm thin. That’s over 1mm less than the Apple iPad 2 which measures in at 8.8 mm. And the X10 weighs only 1.2 pounds, 11% less than the Apple tablet. It’s thin alright, but we can’t say for sure about how long it will retain its title, as the iPad 3 will arrive sometime in the not so distant future, among other Android slates destined to be unveiled this week as well.

A high-quality magnesium alloy surface on the back of the Excite X10 makes it durable and light. If you believe in their marketing, the so called “scratch-resistant” Corning Gorilla Glass comes equipped with it, alongside an anti-smudge coating that is supposed to help a lot. But we’ll have to see once a production model is actually released.

The display has a resolution of 1280 x 800, a 5.0MP rear-facing camera with LED flash, and a 2.0MP front-facing shooter to satisfy all your video chatting needs. The physical buttons have been beautifully crafted on the sides and are almost invisible. With this slate, you will have access to micro USB, mini HDMI out, and micro SD card slot.

Toshiba is saying we’ll see a mid Q1 release with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, or a bit later with Ice Cream Sandwich. A little bit of waiting won’t kill anyone and also by that time we will have a lot of tablets to choose from.

They have included very little of their own software which includes the DLNA compatible Toshiba Media Player, their File Manager, Netflix, and QuickOffice, so you can expect a relatively unmodified Android experience.

The 16GB Excite X10 will retail for $529.99 and the 32GB model for $599.99, not bad for the thinnest 10-inch tablet in the world. And yeah, that Regza brand name won’t be there on US units.

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A friend of mine recently expressed a great deal of interest in the Toshiba Thrive tablet. I took a look at the spec sheet and I didn’t see a heck of a lot that made it better (or worse) than the competition. Then, I saw the initial pricing of $599 and got turned off. As it turns out, the Thrive can be cheaper.

Powered by Android 3.1 Honeycomb, the Toshiba Thrive is currently being offered for pre-order through Future Shop. If you go all the way down to the 8GB model, this Android tablet can be yours for $429. The 16GB and 32GB variants are being pegged at $479 and $579, respectively. All of them are expected to ship starting August 12th.

Yes, that’s cheaper than the price points that were originally rumored, but it still doesn’t beat the Asus Eee Pad Transformer for value. That’s still selling at $399 for the 16GB model and Asus really didn’t cheap out on build quality or materials. For now, that’s the benchmark, seeing how just about all these tablets are doing 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra2 and dual cameras. The one selling point that differentiates the Thrive from the rest? You can swap the back cover for different colors, including Blue Moon, Raspberry Fusion, Lavender Bliss, Silvery Sky and Green Apple. Tasty? Personally, I’m more interested in the SD Card slot, plus Mini-USB, USB, and HDMI ports.

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While Toshiba’s late change of plans might be frowned upon, Google’s update on the Android software might just make it worthwhile. The Android 3.1 Honeycomb has both increased performance as well as added new features. For example, Android 3.1 tablets with USB ports will offer support for USB connected joysticks and game-pads, possibly attracting more users who are interested in gaming with their tablet. Also, Android 3.1 added Google Movie access for renting new and old movies, buy-bye Netflix.

Unfortunately, except for the update in Android software versions, the Regza AT300/24C is the same as the AT300/23C. The two tablets both feature 10.1-inch 1280 × 800 capacitive touchscreens, dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processing chips, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of built-in storage, not to mention the fact that the Japan exclusive Regza tablets are similar to the global Toshiba Thrive tablets which should still ship this July.

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