Toshiba Excite 10 review: Toshiba Excite 10

Not two months after its release of the "thinnest and lightest" tablet, the Toshiba 10 LE, Toshiba is back with a new 10-inch tablet: the Toshiba Excite 10.

6.7

Toshiba Excite 10

The Good

The <b>Toshiba Excite 10</b> supports a huge 128GB expandable memory slot, has fast Tegra 3-induced performance, a comfortable design, and Android 4.0 capabilities.

The Bad

Backlight bleeding is obvious when viewing black screens on the tablet. Also, its data connection cable is unwieldy, camera performance is unimpressive, and the price is a bit too expensive compared with what's available on the market.

The Bottom Line

The Toshiba Excite 10 provides Tegra 3 performance and huge expandable memory potential, but is priced a bit too high compared with other tablets.

It's not thinner or lighter than the LE, but the Excite 10 does bring Android 4.0, a Tegra 3 CPU, and an 128GB expandable storage option to the table. That may be enough to outclass the LE, but what about tablets that offer more than just a thin profile?

Design
As the second 10-inch tablet released by Toshiba in the last two months, it feels only natural to compare it with the Excite 10 LE. The LE is both thinner and lighter than the 10, but the 10 feels like more care was put into the tablet's actual construction as it has none of the exposed edges the LE produced. In addition, the Excite 10's smooth, wide, rounded corners and textured metal backside make it comfortable to hold in my hands.

The tablet is quite bendy though. Not a deal breaker, but also not something I appreciate in a tablet. Also, the edge casing feels like it could be stripped off if I pulled hard enough. Granted, I'd need to pull really hard for that to happen. To be clear, these are more nitpicks that I noticed than serious design flaws.

Final thoughts
The Extcite 10 comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions, starting at $450. That's the same price as the 32GB Acer Iconia Tab A510 and $70 more than the Asus Transformer Pad TF300 with 16GB. Releasing the Excite 10 at $450 with only 16GB of storage, clearly puts it at a price disadvantage compared to the other Tegra 3 tablets.

While it sports overall sound design and fast performance that matches the aforementioned tablets, its one standout feature is the high, 128GB expandable storage option. If storage is important to you, the Excite 10 is one of the best (and one of the most portable) options out there; however, with 128GB SD cards starting at about $150, the costs will begin to pile up. You'll have to decide for yourself whether those costs are worth it.

Whether having potentially monstrous levels of storage is worth the extra money is up to you.