TOSHIBA'S AT330 TABLET REVIEW, SPECIFICATION & DETAILS

TOSHIBA’S NEW AT330 TABLET REVIEW AND CONCEPT

Hot on the heels of the recent release of Apple’s New Ipad 3, Toshiba have unveiled what consumers can expect from their latest addition to the growing tablet market. With tablets becoming extremely popular, a variety of computing and electronics companies are hastily coming up with new ideas for tablets, and putting them into production as soon as they can. At the moment tablets seems to have a few things in common, namely having a touchscreen display, having a high battery life, and being smaller than laptops and netbooks. With the release of Tohiba’s AT330, one of these constant similarities is blown completely out the water. Get a sneak preview by watching this video.

Staggering Screen

At first glance’s, the Toshiba AT330 looks far too big to be tablet, especially if you line it up with other tablets and compare. The AT300 blurs the line between tablet and laptop, especially when you consider that one of the MacBook Pro models come with a 13.3-inch screen, and the MacBook Air has a model with an even smaller screen. You may have guessed already, but now it can be confirmed that Toshiba’s newest tablet has a staggering 13.3-inch screen. Its size is comparable to that of a portable television set, which is ironic considering one of its features, which will be explained a little later.

There has been much discussion over whether the screen is just too big, and at the moment it seems that it’s the largest tablet produced so far. Apple’s latest release, the iPad 3, sports a 9.7-inch display, but as far as the rumours go the Toshiba can’t better it for resolution size. It seems that this 13.3-inch behemoth is has a screen resolution of 1600x900 or 1920x1200, but there has been no confirmation from Toshiba to confirm either of these sizes. Either way, it is apparent that Toshiba are not trying to out trump Apple when it comes to screen resolution, but are going one better in regards to screen size.

A Tablet First

Before going into exactly what other specifications the AT330 has, there is one other addition that draws a distinction from all other tablets out there to buy. In what seems to be a blast from the past, reminiscent of the days when hand-held television sets were a funky accessory to have, an antenna and TV tuner has been added to the new Toshiba tablet. It seems a strange move, especially when those old hand-held televisions were notorious for having pretty awful signal, and being difficult to watch at the best of times. This has no deterred Toshiba however, and when it was unveiled at Toshiba World 2012 in Germany, it was displayed on a stand which made it seem even more TV-like. At the moment it is not known if the tablet will come with a remote control, or if the TV tuner will really display a picture worthy of the extra-large 13.3-inch screen.

The antenna itself is pretty flimsy looking, although it does tuck neatly inside of the tablet when it’s not being used. Once it is pulled out and fully extended, users can manipulate its position to get the best signal. There are no reports on how well the antenna and TV tuner actually works, but Toshiba are offering something that no other tablet has got. It would be perfect for watching while on holiday in a motorhome, but could end up spiking up your motorcaravan insurance premium if you want it covered. Only time will tell if this addition will actually take off, or if other tablet manufactures will follow suit, but it seems unlikely. With the widespread use of video streaming services, the development of cloud storage, and easy downloading of television shows and films, the old-school antenna and TV tuner could be a flop.

A rundown of what else to expect

Despite the new additions the AT330 makes to the tablet market, it falls into line with other tablets in other areas. For example, it uses a powerful quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, so it will able to handle almost all tablet activities quickly, from watching videos to browsing the web. It is equipped with two cameras, like most other tablets, one on the front and one on the rear. The rear is thought to be a 5 megapixel camera, and the front is a 1.3 megapixel snapper, very similar to the latest iPad. It will run the latest in the series of Android operating systems, the Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich. To add to that, it has some great connectivity options. It comes with a HDMI port, along with a SD memory card port, a microUSB port, and a port for a SIM card. With all this to offer, there could be high demand for this rather big tablet yet, so watch this space.

Toshiba's AT330 Video Review