Could three times be a charm for Toshiba? After striking out with its "Thrive" Android tablets and then coming up a bit short with the "Excite" line, the company is completely scrapping its tablet lineup and replacing it with three new models. These include the Excite Pure, Excite Pro and Excite Write, and while they share the same plastic design, 10-inch form factor, ports and Android 4.2 OS, they each offer something a little different on the inside. Starting with the Pure, it's a $300 tablet running with last year's specs -- namely, a Tegra 3 SoC, a 1,280 x 800 screen with Gorilla Glass 1 and no rear camera. Storage is capped at 16GB, but since all of these have a microSD slot, 16GB or 32GB isn't really a hard limit. Moving up the line, the Excite Pro steps up to a Tegra 4 chip, 32GB of storage, an 8MP rear camera, Harman Kardon sound and a 2,560 x 1,600, 300-ppi Gorilla Glass 2 screen to match the Nexus 10.
As you can see in our hands-on shots, it was meant to be used with an optional keyboard case, though you can technically use that dock with any of these tablets, since they all share the same hardware. That will arrive in early July for $500, putting it in line with the iPad and other premium tablets like the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity. Finally, the Excite Write is exactly what it sounds like: a tablet with pen support. Specifically, it has a Wacom digitizer with support for 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity. Accordingly, Toshiba is also pre-loading its own TruNote and TruCapture apps to assist with note-taking. That digitizer aside, the Write shares all the same specs as the Excite Pro: Tegra 4, 32GB of storage, an 8-megapixel camera and a 10.1-inch, 2,560 x 1,600 display. This, too, will be available next month, with an MSRP of $600. In the meantime, check out our hands-on photos after the break.
Filed under: Tablets