Today in tablets – Amazon Fire vs Toshiba AT1S0
Posted Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 6:53 pm by Jason Cartwright
Content giant Amazon this morning revealed their entry into the tablet market with the 7” Amazon Fire. Priced aggressively at $199, the Fire has received some very positive reactions only. The release date for the device is not until November 15th for the US, but is sadly US only. Existing Kindle models do sell in Australia, so let’s hope it does make the journey here.
The Amazon Fire features a 1GHz dual-core processor, and 7” multi-touch display, showing off 1024 x 600 pixels. Battery life is said to be around 7hrs or 3 short feature films while tipping the scales at just 400 grams. It’s WiFi only and there’s no camera on offer, but the aggressive price point is making people overlook any short comings.
Naturally Amazon are playing to their strengths with content being the focus. Interestingly, its not just books. Built on top of Android the Kindle Fire will feature applications in an Amazon Store. It doesn’t yet, but may receive the official stamp of approval, the Google Market if they implement the required DRM.
SlashGear has a great hands-on video of the Amazon Fire. The interface looks fast, responsive and visually inviting for book readers and/or kids. Amazon can afford to be aggressive with the hardware pricing and make profit on the content, however other tablet manufacturers aren’t so lucky.
Another 7” tablet was announced today, this time from Toshiba. Yep, they sure picked a great day for it. Drowned in the Amazon-dominated news cycle, the less sexier name Toshiba AT1S0. In stark contrast, the Toshiba tablet will be available in Australia at the end of October for an RRP of A$499.
![Toshiba AT1S0[8]](http://techau.tv/blog/images/Today-in-tabletsAmazon-Fire-Toshiba_FB42/Toshiba-AT1S08.jpg "Toshiba AT1S0[8]")
It does have a couple of nice features. 8GB storage, LED backlit multi-touch display (1280×800 resolution), NVIDIA Tegra 2 and 2 HD cameras. A 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash on the back, plus a two megapixel camera on the front for video chatting. It’s refreshing to see a front facing camera higher than VGA quality for a change.
Powered by Android 3.2, the Toshiba does have the official Google approval shipping with the Android Market. Any new Android tablet released now should be upgradable to Ice Cream Sandwich, but until Google or Toshiba confirms, don’t count on it.
Unfortunately this tablet got buried by bad timing, I suppose it could have been worse, Apple could have announced the iPhone 5.
Review: Toshiba R850 Laptop
Posted Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 10:49 pm by Jason Cartwright
The Toshiba R850 laptop is marketed as a thin, light desktop replacement, so how does it stack up in reality. The R850 weighs in at 2.40kg, impressive for a 15” laptop, while the chassis feels strong and high build quality. Performance wise, the 2.5 Ghz Core i5 feels snappy, but one can’t help but think an SSD would have tipped it over the edge.
While most review units go back after 2 weeks, I asked Toshiba to keep it longer, to seriously test battery life in the real world. They say you can get up to 10 hours battery life, impressive.. if only it was true. I took the R850 on the road to CeBit and Remix conferences, emulating what a business laptop may be used for. In my experience, the R850 averaged 5-6 hours between charges.
Toshiba provide a customised Windows 7 power mode called ‘Eco’ which turns off area glass effects and no doubt restricts hard drive and processor performance to save power. Don’t get me wrong, 5-6 hours is actually pretty decent for a laptop this size and powerful, much better than the 1-2 hours most of us are used to, but just understand you won’t get 10 hours with real use.
Being part of the Toshiba R800 range means the R850 comes with Intel’s AMT 7.0 technology which enable your IT departments to manage, diagnose, isolate and repair a notebook remotely, regardless of the power state. It also comes with a dock underneath so you can work during the day, then take it home at night and keep working. With Display Port and USB3.0 connectivity, you can connect multiple external displays, so yes, this could replace some desktop systems.
Security is catered for with a fingerprint reader positioned between the left and right trackpad buttons, as well as facial recognition using the in-built webcam. Using the fingerprint reader to logon to Windows works well and in crowded environments rather not type out my passwords in front of peering eyes. The facial recognition wasn’t anywhere near successful and I ended up turning it off.
Specs / Features
Processor: Intel® Core i5 Processor 2520M (2.5 GHz boost up to 3.2 GHz)
RAM: 4GB DDR3 (1333MHz)
Display: 15.6” widescreen, LED backlit (1366×768 res)
HDD: 320GB (5400rpm)
Ports: 1 x USB 2.0, + 1 x USB 3.0, eSATA, VGA, Display Port
Slots: 1x PCI Express Card, SD card reader
Networking: Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11 a/g/n, 1GB Ethernet.
Weight: 2.40kg
Gallery
Price
RRP $1,485-$3,300 inc GST
Overall
There’s no doubt the Toshiba R850 is a solid laptop that I’d have no trouble recommending. With great built quality, impressive lightness, good performance and reasonable pricing, it’s certainly worth considering for you next work/play/combination laptop. Personally travelling in planes semi-regular means that 15” is just too big and the relatively low resolution is certainly an issue. If your Dell or HP person, take a second to think before buying next time and consider the Toshiba R850.
More information @ Toshiba
Internet connected TV’s start supporting Win7 Play-to feature
Posted Friday, April 2, 2010 at 6:58 pm by Jason Cartwright
For what seems like an eternity, home users have had to search for ways to get content from their computers to their TV. Interim solutions have often been via set top boxes or game consoles, but ultimately this solution was only a workaround to what should have arrived years ago.
Toshiba will be the first manufacturer to ship a TV with a ‘Compatible with Windows 7’ logo. This means the network port in the back of their UX600 Cinema Series LED HDTVs will allow users to stream content directly from a Windows 7 PC to the TV. Making use of the ‘Play-to’ feature in Win7, getting content on your biggest screen in the house is finally a simply process.
Other TV manufacturers take note, this is the new benchmark, make this standard across all sets as soon as humanly possible.
More @ The Windows Experience Blog
