back to article Toshiba ships Folio Android tablet

Toshiba isn't waiting for Honyecomb - it has begun selling its Android tablet, the Folio 100, with Froyo, it announced today. Toshiba Folio 100 The 10.1in tablet has a 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen, Nvidia Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip, 16GB of media storage, 2.4GHz 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1, front-facing 1.3Mp webcam, a memory …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Just wait for some proper reviews

    Having used this tablet, I can confirm this is a pretty obvious why this product is £100 less than the iPad.

    It's all down to design and build quality (which is fairly poor) and the display (which has limited viewing angles, particularly in the short dimension, rendering it unreadable when rested on one's lap).

    To this we can add the lack of a Google supported App Store, which severely limits the applications that will turn up; the Samsung Galaxy Tablet looks like a much better bet for app developers, and Samsung is providing loads of its own.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    App Store

    So does it have access to the Google App Store?

    Or not because it doesn't have 3G and so isn't a phone as Google requires for access?

    Sounds good otherwise. Seriously tempted - looking forward to the in-depth reviews

    1. Miek

      App Store

      No App Store due to the screen size I believe.

  3. Mark #255

    two things

    does it have an orientation sensor? All the shots show it used in landscape mode, but (having briefly fondled a Fondle Slab) being able to work in portrait mode will be useful. Vital, for e-book use.

    Will it be upgradeable to Android.next?

  4. Mikel

    Sweet!

    This looks like just the thing for under the tree. I was beginning to doubt these would ship.

  5. Lord Elpuss Silver badge
    Grenade

    Title

    "All that will set you back £329 - £100 less than the entry level, less functional 9.7in iPad."

    Fewer Features != Less Functional

    The iPad is tremendously successful precisely because it resists the temptation to fill its chassis with every feature going. The Tosh may have more *features*, but it remains to be seen if it will be more *functional* (my bet is it won't).

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      I'd sooner pay £100 more

      The biggest problem for me is the software. There's some pretty good software for the iPad that either won't be available for this tablet or won't take advantage of the screen size.

      For general Internet use it will be fine, but I think I'd sooner have the iPad. It has a pretty guaranteed level of software support and there's a lot of owners so there's a lot of developers of software.

      1. Tempest
        Unhappy

        "It has a pretty guaranteed level of software support (sic)"

        Sure, everyone wants FartApp or wobbly mammary gland simulations.

        iOS upgrades will cost you, too!

    2. Mystic Megabyte
      Troll

      @Lord Elpuss

      "The iPad is tremendously successful precisely because it resists the temptation to fill its chassis with every feature going."

      Coming soon the new iBucket!

      This beautifully designed bucket is strangely lacking a handle.

      Apple explained that the customer would much prefer using the iBucket indoors and not have to go out to the well.

      Apple also said that they would like to hang on to the handle themselves.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        @Mystic Megabyte

        Coming soon - the desktop fan without a blade, or the vacuum cleaner without bags... or a PC without a 3.5 inch disk drive...

        oh - hang on a minute...

    3. BingBong

      Exactly

      After years of buying and using cheaper gear and suffering from mediocre experiences as a result I now spend more on better quality kit. I'd rather use "limited" hardware but get the most out of it then spend more for extra hardware features which are badly implemented or have crap software support. I also find the more expensive stuff lasts longer and has a higher resale value (although I prefer to keep most kit for sentimental reasons 8-)

      Value for money is in the eye of the beholder and cheaper does not necessarily mean better - I would not bang on to people to only buy Apple or Sony kit etc but I would suggest that they have a play with the different kit and make up their own mind. Buy what you like but only if you will like what you buy.

    4. Tempest
      Jobs Horns

      If iTablets were fully featured ...

      Jobs' couldn't sell you another next year or proclaim NEW! IMPROVED!

      That's why everyone laughs at Apple people.

  6. ThomH

    "less functional"

    Should be "less featured", surely? You seem to be conflating how many ports a device has with how well it can do things. Forget the operating systems and the hardware vendors, the latter is primarily defined by available application software.

    What? It was for comical effect? What?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    wow

    Cheaper than my Dell Streak. The good thing about the streak though is it really is portable, it's a class of it's own :-)

  8. Tom7

    AGPS?

    Does it have?

  9. dotdavid
    WTF?

    Is that...

    ...Opera Mobile I can see on the screenshot? Didn't think that was ready yet.

  10. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    Linux

    Saw one in PC World at lunchtime

    Wandered over to have a play, and found it was frozen, so I have no comment at all on how it is to use.

    The Galaxy Tab looks very much nicer, but is of course considerably more expensive. It's a shame none of the phone networks are subsidising it at all, but at the £499 price PC World have it at it looks like good value for money.

    GJC

  11. James Hughes 1

    Whether good or not (not used one, don't know)

    At last Toshiba have realised, unlike Samsung, that to sell against the incumbent iPad you need to sell cheaper.

    (and the lack of Google App store is Googles fault not Toshiba's, although Archos devices can access the google store so I see no reason why this cannot))

    1. Goat Jam
      FAIL

      AKA "Giving up"

      "At last Toshiba have realised, unlike Samsung, that to sell against the incumbent iPad you need to sell cheaper."

      When a business decide that this is their only option then they are effectively saying that they have nothing else to offer.

      I can't imagine that is a winning proposition in the long term.

  12. Phil Endecott

    Just tried one out

    Just tried one in the local Currys. Not great. In contrast to my AC100, the build quality seems relatively poor: nasty plastic flap over the ports, spongy power button. The LCD's viewing angle is the same as the AC100 and much worse than the iPad, and it is also much more fingerprint-prone than the iPad. At least it is not a resistive screen, and people should be satisfied with the processor and graphics performance thanks to the Tegra processor.

    Android works better on this than on the AC100, of course, but there's still no Google market and it's still far from easy to use - it took another customer to show me how to unlock the screen.

    After the Currys visit, though, I fear that the worst problem may be the sales channel. A few doors down there is an Apple store which is always full of teenagers poking their facebooks and playing silly games on the dozens of iPads, iPods and iPhones. Currys had precisely one of these tablets, without any sort of window display or supporting marketing material - and with no WiFi. So even if a potential customer were able to get beyond the screen lock, they'd not be able to do any facebook poking. "But if we had wifi, we'd have the shop full of teenagers poking their facebooks!" said the employee when I commented on this. "Precisely! They are called Customers!", I replied. He seemed to think that they were going to sell lots anyway. He might be right, but in the 1.5 days they have had these (and the Galaxy tab) in stock, they had sold NONE; the first was sold while I was there to an ARM employee.

    The Galaxy Tab, BTW, was a much better experience - mainly thanks to a much nicer screen - but you would hope so too, at that price.

  13. max allan

    Battery life

    "Folio will deliver up to seven hours' battery life, on the basis of a lot of web browsing, a little movie viewing and a quarter of the time in standby mode."

    Does that mean that it will only standby for a quarter of 7 hours?

    Or that they quote the battery life including some time as effectively switched off?

    Why don't they claim a life of 5 hours of real usage?

    Otherwise I can see this going like "unlimited" broadband <small print> with a cap</small print>

    "My tablet has 12 days battery life <small print> with 4 hours use</small print>"

    1. Alex Walsh

      7hrs

      of battery life, INCLUDING 25% of that (an hour and three quarters), in standby? Thats more than a little bonkers.

    2. 7mark7

      Sounds like ...

      ... a breakthrough in marketing technology to me.

  14. MaXimaN
    Stop

    But then there's the Advent Vega

    The PC World / Currys Advent-branded tablet that is the ostensibly the same specification (less internal storage) for 100 pounds less. There will be a 3G version early next year which will no doubt be a few extra notes, but I suspect still less than the Toshiba.

  15. ScissorHands
    Unhappy

    Not TOO bad...

    I tested it at a local MediaMarkt, and it works, but lacks polish. The menus and wordproofing can not be put in my local language, the screen is far from perfect (bad viewing angle in portrait, but it gets better after warming up the backlight), the screen is a bit reticent to register keypresses, it's a bit heavy to use one-handed, the Documents to Go PDF reader does not have a Page-up/Page-down gesture or button, the kerning is HORRIBLE in portrait, the e-book reader does not auto-rotate.

    Still, it's almost 200 Euro cheaper than an iPad, if I could buy an iPad, which I can't - Apple seems resolved to not sell the iPad for Christmas in Portugal.

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