Toshiba's new tablet is thinnest yet, but does its price kill it?

LAS VEGAS--

Touting a thin product draws lots of

attention. Not to be outdone by the

Transformer Prime in the svelteness

department, on Sunday, Toshiba

introduced the thinnest tablet yet, its

Excite X10.

Compared with the now previous skinny

champion, the Transformer Prime, the

Excite X10 is a full 0.6mm thinner,

measuring 7.7mm, compared with the

Prime's 8.3mm profile. At 1.2 pounds,

it's also the lightest tablet to date,

coming in at 0.4 pound lighter than the

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Toshiba's Thrive 10 was lauded for its

support for full-size ports and its

removable battery. The Excite X10 flies

in the face of that tablet design

philosophy, however, yet it still makes

room for some micro connections:

Micro-HDMI, Micro-USB 2.0, and a

microSD card slot. You'll also find built-

in speakers, supporting Toshiba's SRS

sound enhancement technology, a 2-

megapixel front-facing camera, and an

LED backlight-supported 5-megapixel

back camera.

The Excite X10 sports a smooth

magnesium alloy backside and a glossy

1,280x800-pixel , 10.1- inch screen,

covered in Gorilla Glass. Bluetooth 2.1

+EDR and 802.11b/g /n Wi-Fi support

are of course included. Toshiba chose to

go with a Texas Instruments CPU,

instead of Nvidia, outfitting the X10 with

a dual-core OMAP 4430-1.2 GHz CPU.

It's interesting to see Toshiba go in the

opposite direction designwise than its

previous efforts. The X10 pretty much

retains none of the advantages the

Thrive had going for it (full-size ports;

removable battery); however, its high

level of portability and better (and

sexier) industrial design, attempt to

make up for it.

The Toshiba Excite X10 will be available

in "mid first quarter," with pricing

starting at $530 for the 16GB version

and $600 for the 32GB version. While

it's obvious Toshiba put a lot of effort

into the design of the X10, at those

prices I expect more given today's

iPad-dominated and post-Kindle Fire

tablet market.

For the same price or less , consumers

already have access to the quad-core

Transformer Prime, which, even given

recent problems , is still a great tablet.

The X10's pricing seems like Toshiba is

deliberately shooting itself in the foot

here. While you'd have a tough time

arguing the quality of the design, with

this pricing, the overall value has to be

questioned.

We'll determine that for sure, though,

once a release unit arrives at our offices

in a month or so.

Rudz