Toshiba Excite Write
Writing
on the Toshiba Excite Write's screen feels fluid and smooth, and I love the useful
eraser button. It also boasts an incredibly sharp screen and includes storage
expansion via microSD.It weighs in (without the keyboard) at 630g - exactly the
same as the HP Slatebook x2. Not exactly heavy, but the iPad Air (479g) has
moved the goalposts in terms of what we call easy on the arms in the tablet
space now. At 10.5mm thick, it’s not horribly chunky but the iPad Air’s
incredible 7.5mm thickness trumps it again.The Toshiba Excite Write is an
absolute beast. Its quad-core Tegra 4 processor is the fastest we've seen, its
2,560-by-1,600-pixel display is tack sharp, and it even packs in a stylus with
an active digitizer for good measure.The Toshiba Excite Write's harman/kardon
dual stereo speakers produce crisp and powerful sound. When we listened to
"On the Radio" by Regina Spektor, the singer's soft voice and
floating piano melody sounded clean and defined.In terms of software, Toshiba
has loaded the tablet with the Android 4.2 operating system, which comes as
close to stock Android as you could hope for on a non-Nexus tablet. Swiping through
menus was easy and the tablet allowed us to navigate the OS without any hint of
slowdown.Connectivity-wise, the Excite conceals a row of ports behind a thin
strip of plastic that we managed to prise open without too much difficulty.
Opening it reveals a microSD card slot, HDMI and micro-USB charging port, which
are positioned next to a headphone port. The device also features harman/kardon
stereo speakers and offers up 16GB or 32GB of internal storage.Battery life is
rated for 10.5 hours of video playback. With heavy mixed usage and the
brightness turned all the way up, the Excite Write battery lasted over 14 hours
without a charge. Employing any battery saving measures will make it possible
to go a day or two without having to charge it with on and off usage.
But, There are few useful stylus
features and no built-in pocket for the pen. The screen at times becomes
completely unresponsive.
The bottom line: Though it doesn't
have any glaring problems, $600 is way too much for a tablet that fails to
stand out in any significant way. Specifications
Display type10 in
OSAndroid 4.2.2
ProcessorTegra 4
Price:$600 VS Apple iPad Air
The
Air is a tangible upgrade over the previous, fourth-generation iPad, no longer
in production and so banished to the annals of history. The new iPad slots
right in where its predecessor left off, priced at $499 for a lowly 16GB, $599
for 32GB, $699 for 64GB, and $799 for the maximum 128GB configuration. The iPad
Air delivers more performance and comparable battery life in an attractive and
impossibly thin-and-light package. An improved front-facing camera makes
FaceTiming look better, and the Retina Display still looks great.
But, The Touch ID fingerprint
scanner, introduced on the iPhone 5S, is sadly absent here, meaning you’ll
still have to type in a passcode with every unlock and a password with every
purchase. Starting at $499 for 16GB, it’s still expensive compared with the
competition.
Performance: The
iPad Air shares the same processor with Apple’s flagship phone, albeit with a
slight bump in clock speed. While the 5S runs at 1.3GHz the Air runs at
1.39GHz. It can achieve this because of the increased space and improved heat
dissipation of the Air compared to the much smaller iPhone 5S.
Indeed, before we go into the detail
about performance it’s worth noting that the iPad Air manages to keep its cool
with consummate ease. Even when running intensive 3D games and apps for hours
it barely breaks a sweat and, therefore, neither do your hands.
In practice, the iPad Air is
blisteringly fast. Apps open instantly and games like Infinity Blade 3 look
sumptuous and run smoothly. The benefits of having a SoC means that the GPU can
be used to tackle compute tasks, which makes video editing and compute
intensive apps, like AutoCAD, show no hint of slowdown.
The iPad Air performs 59% faster
than the iPad 4 in the 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited CPU and GPU test and 91%
faster in Geekbench 3 tests. The Peacekeeper browser test, which assesses web
browsing performance, shows that the Air trounces its predecessor by being more
than twice as fast. It's also faster than the stonking Snapdragon 800 processor
on the likes of the Sony Xperia Z Ultra and Google Nexus 5. We're talking
matter of degrees here, but the difference is there all the same.
Battery life:
Battery life on the iPad Air is quoted at "Up to 10
hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music".
We would say that's actually not a bad estimate, although the drain was closer
to 2% every 10 minutes in general use, which equates to around nine hours' use.
Standby time is much, much better
though. We found that we could stick the iPad Air in a bag, taking it out for
the commute and messing about with on the sofa at home, for at least three days
before it began to get low on battery.
In fact, the only real task that
killed it was connecting to our amplifier via Wi-Fi while simultaneously
streaming music to the same device through Bluetooth. It's doing things like
this that make you realise that this is the kind of thing that we envisaged at
the turn of the century, a tablet that has the brains and connectivity to do
all the tasks we could want.In terms of connectivity, we've already mentioned
the excellent Wi-Fi performance (in terms of distance from router, rather than
improved speed) through the Multiple In, Multiple Out (MIMO) technology.
4G bands are now covered throughout
the globe, and low power Bluetooth is also on board as well, making it an
incredibly well-connected device.
The bottom line: Functionally, the
iPad Air is nearly identical to last year’s model, offering only faster
performance and better video chatting. But factor in design and aesthetics, and
the iPad Air is on another planet. It’s the best full-size consumer tablet on
the market. Specifications
Release date11/1/13
Display type9.7 in
OSApple iOS
ProcessorApple
Wireless connectivityWi-Fi
Dimensions (WxDxH)6.6 in x 0.29 in x
9.4 in
Weight1 lbs Price:$479.00
No comments:
Post a Comment