Toshiba Thrive 7 inch review: Toshiba Thrive 7 inch

6.5

Toshiba Thrive 7 inch

The Good

The <b>Toshiba Thrive</b> 7-inch has a Mini-HDMI port and a very responsive screen, and includes a built-in file manager.

The Bad

Unlike the 10-inch version, there's no support for full ports or a swappable battery. Also, the camera placement is ill-conceived, the shutter speed is painfully slow, and the tablet is expensive, given what it offers.

The Bottom Line

The Toshiba Thrive 7-inch is a decent tablet, but there are simply better options out there for the price.

Photo gallery:
Toshiba Thrive 7-inch

The original Toshiba Thrive 10-inch impressed us with its support for full-size ports and the fact that we could remove its battery and swap in a new one--features that are still unmatched in mainstream tablets.

The 7-inch version is here now, but with its smaller form factor can it possibly offer the same experience?

Design
Given a quick once-over, the Toshiba Thrive 7-inch seems like an exact, albeit shrunken-down, replica of the Toshiba Thrive 10-inch, released in July. And while the tablets share a few obvious aesthetic similarities--ostensibly designed to evoke a feeling of familiarity in potential buyers--upon closer examination you'll find some key differences between the two.

However, if your eyes are on the Thrive 7-inch, then you've probably already decided that a smaller tablet works better for your needs, so I won't waste time comparing it with the Thrive 10-inch. Instead, whenever appropriate, I'll match the Thrive 7-inch up against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, one of the highest-rated 7-inch tablets on CNET.

Though they look quite similar, there's quite a bit of design difference between the 10-inch and 7-inch versions. In addition to size, of course.

Compared with the Tab 7.0 Plus' sloped back and sleeker look, the Thrive 7-inch looks boxier and, well, kind of dull. And though it's fatter-looking than the Tab 7.0 Plus, in actuality it's not that much thicker than the Samsung and honestly, unless we're looking for it, it's difficult to notice that size difference at all. The weight disparity is negligible.