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Toshiba AT200 tablet coming to the US as the Excite X10, starting at $530 for 16GB
When Toshiba said its skinny AT200 tablet wouldn't be available until January, anyone with a casual interest in gadgets could have guessed that meant a splashy CES launch was in order. Sure enough, everyone's favorite trade show has rolled around, and the company is finally ready to talk pricing and availability, four months after it first announced the thing. As we've suspected for some time now, it'll go on sale in the US under the name "Excite" (Excite X10, to be exact), starting at $530 for the 16GB model, with a $600 32GB flavor also available. To recap, this is supposed to be the premium slate the Thrive wasn't, with a 1280 x 800 Gorilla Glass display, 178-degree viewing angles, TI OMAP 4430 chip, an anti-smudge coating and a 7.7mm-thick chassis, making it the thinnest 10-inch tablet on the market. It'll also ship with Android 3.2, though Toshiba says it's ICS-ready. And don't let that serious metal exterior fool you: for all its gravitas, the 1.2-pound tab is lighter than it looks. (We should know: we got hands-on ages ago.) So is a super slim design enough to make this Tegra 2 slate worth choosing over the Tegra 3-packing Transformer Prime which starts at $500 with 32GB of storage? To be honest, we suspect not, given that the Prime isn't much thicker and is also due for an upgrade to ICS. And besides, who knows what other Android tablets will surface at CES this week?
Toshiba Thrive 7" review
As 2011 draws to a close, it's fun to look back and think about how we began the year testing the first Honeycomb tablet, and are now ending it elbow-deep in me-too slates, many of them cut down to smaller sizes. So it should surprise no one, then, that Toshiba released the Thrive 7", a mini (and aptly named) version of the original Thrive, which went on sale last summer. But in Toshiba's case, shrinking a tablet and calling it a day is a dicey proposition. After all, the 10-inch Thrive had some baggage -- namely, middling battery life, a chunky, toy-like design and a bug that initially kept it from waking after recharging. Indeed, the Thrive 7" looks near-identical, and even packs the same Tegra 2 chip, 16GB of storage and vanilla take on Honeycomb. Still, it brings an LED flash, keeps its big brother's 1280 x 800 display and costs less than the original did when it first came out. So are these improvements enough to make this smaller Thrive stand out? And how does it stack up against all those other 7-inch slates we've been testing lately? Let's find out. %Gallery-141659%
Toshiba Thrive review
This isn't the first time Toshiba has showed up fashionably late to a party. Back in 2009, long after most every other consumer electronics maker big and small had jumped on the netbook bandwagon, the company belatedly released its first mini, the NB205. And it was fantastic. So we were optimistic when the outfit finally got around to releasing the Thrive, its first Android tablet for the US market. Surely, we thought, it's learned a thing or two from everybody else's mistakes. And in that regard, at least, this 10-inch tablet doesn't disappoint. It has full-sized USB and HDMI ports, an SD card slot, and a removable battery -- all features you'd sooner find on a laptop. It comes with a raft of practical apps already installed, so that you don't have to go hunting for them in Android Market. It's one of the first out of the gate with Android 3.1, an undeniably improved version of Honeycomb. Oh, and it starts at $429, undercutting many of its competitors. Right there, in less than a paragraph, we've laid out why you might want this over any of the other umpteen tabs crowding the market. But should you get one? Well, folks, we'll need more than a paragraph to tackle that. Join us after the break, won't you? %Gallery-128500%
Toshiba's REGZA 52XV545U reviewed: she's a beauty
Given that Toshiba's 46XV545U was harshed on pretty seriously by CNET a month ago, we weren't expecting much when going into Electronic House's review of the 52-inch Cinema Series REGZA 52XV545U. Contrary to popular belief, this set was said to be fairly awesome, with it producing "realistic color with precise picture detail and resolution free from visible artifacts." Critics even went so far as to say that its picture quality was "well above par," with both OTA HD broadcasts and DISH Network signals looking as sharp as ever. Potentially most unexpected was the praise given to the Super Resolution upscaling technology, which managed to produce "some of the best viewable images from regular cable fare" that reviewers had seen. Bottom line? You should probably give this one a look in person -- it's too tough to tell what your eyes will see.
Upscaling gets broken down and explained in layman's terms
Resolution+. Super Resolution Technology. Upscaling. Upconverting. You've heard it all, but what does it all really mean? Home Cinema Choice has taken the liberty of breaking down the art of upscaling to explain in-depth what's going on when pixels become slightly-more-detailed pixels. We'll leave the dirty work to the read link, but if you've been wondering just how good SD content could look (or if these upconverting technologies were simply sophisticated bottles of snake oil), you owe it to yourself to give this a look. As you could likely glean, the end-all statement is that upscaled material still can't match bona fide high-def, but it's still worth understanding the who's, what's and why's behind making your current DVD collection and SD shows look their best.
Toshiba's 1080p REGZA ZV series LCD HDTVs get priced and dated
Ready for some Resolution+ in your LCD HDTV? Yeah? Then get ready for Toshiba's REGZA ZV series, which is gearing up to take the UK by storm and completely change the way you see SD content. Okay, so maybe that's a touch overblown, but the upscaling sets are slated to launch in the UK on November 29th. The 42-inch 42ZV555D will sell for £899.99 ($1,419), while the 46-inch 46ZV555D will go for £1199.99 ($1,893), and both will make your collection of HD footage immensely envious.[Via Pocket-lint]
Toshiba's XD-E500 upconverting DVD player caught in stores
We'll apologize on our tipster's behalf for the quality of this shot, but evidently, he wasn't able to pass it through Toshiba's completely mind-boggling XDE upscaling technology before forwarding it onto us. Anyway, we reckon you can get the point -- the XD-E500 upconverting DVD player is filtering into stores, so those looking to make their current DVD collection look its best should probably take notice. Or not, whatever.[Thanks, Philip]
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Sony Japan unveils latest Blu-ray recorders with CREAS upscaling
Japan has only a few weeks to prepare for the latest Sony 6X Blu-ray recorders, ready to hit the streets in a wide array of sizes and features. All pack BD-Live support as well as the company's latest "CREAS" upscaling technology -- Resolution+ vs. CREAS, fight! -- promising 14-bit "HD Reality enhancement" and "Super Bit Mapping for video" with only high end X series models seen fit to include DRC-MFv3 image processing already seen in the latest BRAVIA LCDs, plus the ability to transcode and transfer video to PSP / phone / walkman. From the high end BDZ-X100 (1 TB, ¥280,000, $2,574 U.S., September 27, pictured) to the bottom BDZ-T55 (320GB, ¥110,000, $1,011 U.S., October 10) there's a DVR to fit your 15 h.264 HD channels in here somewhere. wondering about a U.S. release? Don't hold your breath.
