Toshiba REGZA AT501 tablet with Android 4.1 revealed
Toshiba haven’t had much luck with their tablet devices so far. Their first attempt with the Android Honeycomb running ANT line proved as buggy as the name suggested it would be, and they’ve only had middling successes with each successive tablet they’ve put out since that 2011 first roll of the dice.
Today sees the unveiling of the REGZA AT501, the successor to the AT500. It’s looking marginally better, but with such strong competition in the cheap-as-chips 7-inch category, populated by the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD, can this 10.1-inch tablet stand a chance?
Running Android 4.1, it looks to be off to a good start thanks it its 1280×800 IPS display, running off a 1.3GHz Tegra 3 quad-core processor, backed by 1GB of RAM. It’s roughly the same weight as a full size iPad at 625 grams, but a fair bit thicker at 10.5mm.
A battery good for 10 hours of continuous video playback is included, while a lowly 3MP camera sits on the rear. 32GB of storage is onboard, as is Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi, microSD expansion and a USB 2.0 port.
The biggest hurdle then will probably be the price – at 40,000 YEN (roughly £272) it’s a fair whack more expensive than the universally lauded Google Nexus 7, and not that far off older iPad generation prices. It looks like this could be an uphill battle for Toshiba, even if they’ve pulled together a more polished experience this time around.
