Details
Price: $456
Manufacturer: Toshiba
Website: www.toshiba.com
Let's start with an aspect of the Toshiba
tablet that we absolutely hate. The AT300-101 is is a slender tablet that
measures a mere 9mm in thickness, which is very, very thin. On the bottom edge
of the AT300, there's a docking port that doubles up to serve as the connection
for charging and USB duties. We're not too impressed by proprietary connections
at the best of times and are left cold at the idea of a small docking station
that sets you back $80, but that's not our complaint here.
It's the proprietary Toshiba cable for
charging the battery and data transfer that causes us so much woe. It uses a
huge block connector, and the cable sticks out of a hulking great mains plug.
That may well sound like a trivial
complaint, but it looks like a lousy piece of design when you compare it to the
iPad, and the fact of the matter is that you do indeed have to compare the
Toshiba with an iPad.
It's a lovely looking piece of hardware
with an aluminium casing and a finely textured pattern on the back that helps
you to grip the widescreen chassis securely in your hands.
Held in landscape mode, the volume rocker is
on the left side, along with the power button and screen lock switch. On the
right side, there is a full-size SD card slot that is supplied with a blanking
card in place. Of course, you can use a micro-SD card in an adapter, but if you
happen to have an older memory card, you'll welcome the option of plugging it
in without using a USB card reader. Also on the right-hand side we have
micro-HDMI and USB ports along with a headphone jack.
We'd be stretching the point to claim that
the AT300-101 is an elegant piece of hardware, but it certainly looks like a
neat feat of engineering and it performs like a dream. The combination of
quad-core NVidia Tegra 3 processor, 1280x800 widescreen and Android 4.0 means
that you gets the best of pretty much every world. Added to the you get
802.11b/g/n wi-fi and Bluetooth.
It's not just the level of the
specification that impresses but also the quality of the hardware. The screen
looks superb, with excellent colour depth and very good viewing angles.
Toshiba has resisted the temptation to go
to town with tweaks to the Android OS and has limited itself to adding a Swype
keyboard, so you simply move your fingertip across the keyboard without lifting
it to tap individual buttons. The software manages to work out that you meant to
say 'net' or 'met' with a surprising degree of accuracy. The other noteworthy
piece of software is the ThinkFree Office suite, which uses Java and is
compatible with Microsoft Office.
In essence, the Toshiba AT300-101 matches
the hardware of the Acer Iconia A210, with the addition of a second camera, a
significantly sleeker chassis and with a 70g reduction in weight. And you only
pay an extra $16 for the privilege.
We like the Acer Iconia A210 but we were
bowled over by the Toshiba AT300-101, and were very sad to see it collected by
the courier at the end of this review.
Test setup
For this group test we tested using an Asus
Rampage Gene Z77 motherboard and an overclocked Core ¡7 3770K running at
4.6GHz. We used the Akasa Venom Voodoo Cooler and a GTX 670 EVGA OC edition
video card. To maintain a fair testing environment, the GPU fan was locked at
40% for the duration of each test. For fans with a built-in fan controller, a
medium fan speed was employed to provide, where possible, an equivalent setting
where we feel users would set their own fan speed for a given specification.
|
Make
And model
|
Acer
Iconia A110
|
Acer
Iconia A210
|
DisGo
9104
|
Samsung
Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 WiFi
|
Toshiba
AT300-101
|
|
Price Inc VAT
|
$288
|
$440
|
$280
|
$336
|
$456
|
|
Screen Size
|
7.0" 1024x600
|
10.1" 1280x800
|
9.7" 1024x768
|
7.0", 1024x600
|
10.1", 1280x800
|
|
Screen Technology
|
208cdm, 170ppi
|
Capacitive, multi- touch
|
IPS, capacitive, multi- touch
|
PLS, capacitive, multi- touch
|
20cdm, 500:1
|
|
Screen Type
|
17:10 widescreen 172mm diagonal
|
16:10 widescreen, 253mm diagonal
|
4:3 ratio, 243mm diagonal
|
17:10 widescreen 178mm diagonal
|
16:10 widescreen 257mm diagonal
|
|
Operating System
|
Android 4.1
|
Android 4.0
|
Android 4.0
|
Android 4.0
|
Android 4.0
|
|
Wireless Connections
|
802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0
|
802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1
|
802.11 b/g/n
|
802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0
|
802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0
|
|
CPU
|
1,2GHz quad-core NVidia Tegra 3
|
1,2GHz quad-core NVidia Tegra 3
|
1,2GHz single-core Cortex A8
|
1.0GHz dual-core
|
1,3GHz NVidia Tegra 3 quad-core
|
|
Memory
|
1GB
|
1GB
|
1GB DDR3
|
1GB
|
1GB DDR3-667MHZ
|
|
Storage
|
8GB
|
16GB
|
16GB
|
16GB
|
16GB
|
|
Memory Card Slot
|
Micro-SD up to 32GB
|
Micro-SD up to 32GB
|
Micro-SD up to 32GB
|
Micro-SD up to 32GB
|
SD up to 32GB
|
|
Ports
And Connectors
|
Micro-HDMI, micro-USB
|
Micro-HDMI, micro- USB
|
Mini HDMI, mini-USB
|
Micro-USB
|
Micro-HDMI, micro- USB
|
|
Main Camera
|
2MP
|
2MP
|
2MP, no flash
|
3.2MP, no flash
|
5MP with LED flash
|
|
Secondary Camera
|
None
|
None
|
0.3MP
|
0.3MP
|
2MP
|
|
Battery
|
3,240mAh
|
3,260mAh
|
7,000mAh
|
4,000mAh
|
Li-Ion 3,700mAh
|
|
Headphone Jack
|
3.5mm
|
3.5mm
|
3.5mm
|
3.5mm
|
3.5mm
|
|
Weight
|
383g
|
66 5g
|
630g
|
345g
|
595g
|
|
Dimensions
|
193 x 127 x 11.4mm
|
260 x 175 x 12.4mm
|
241 x 185 x 9.8mm
|
194x 122 x 10.5mm
|
261 x 179 x 9mm
|
|
Octant Overall
|
930
|
1,045
|
597
|
926
|
1,166
|
|
Octane Richards
|
1,476
|
1,876
|
606
|
1,696
|
1,887
|
|
Octane Deltablue
|
1,252
|
1,808
|
654
|
1,618
|
1,825
|
|
Octane Crypto
|
2,024
|
1,670
|
1,091
|
1,483
|
1,802
|
|
Octane Raytrace
|
1,006
|
1,210
|
744
|
1,347
|
1,488
|
