Toshiba has just officially announced its new tablet line-up featuring several models, including the Toshiba Excite 13, an amazing 13.3″ tablet powered by the quad-core Tegra 3 chip from NVIDIA. I’ve played with the Excite 13, and I can tell you that it is obviously the most interesting one, not only because a thin 13.3″ (1600×900 pixels, 16:9 ratio) tablet is rather unique, but also because the user experience is formidable.
The sheer size of the tablet makes reading a full page of information much more comfortable than on any 10″ tablet, including the ones with very high-resolution displays… For the first time, I could view “desktop” content as comfortably as I would on my Samsung Series 9 13.3″ laptop, without the need to zoom in. It also has a four-speaker sound system that should make the sound has good as the image, but I haven’t had a chance to try this… yet.
Additionally, the tablet is thin (0.4″, just 0.03″ thicker than the new iPad) and no bigger (in width and height) than a 13″ laptop, so it should be an acceptable form-factor for most people. Finally, Toshiba has been using the extra space to accommodate a battery is that rated for 13 hours of usage – just think about how cool this would be to have the Excite 10 during a long international flight.
Despite using Gorilla Glass and an aluminum construction, the tablet feels relatively light for its size (2.2lbs) and Toshiba has done an excellent job with the structural integrity of that 0.4″-thick tablet. Of course, it ships with Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich), and should retail for $650 (32GB) to $750 (64GB). If you get a chance, I highly recommend holding one in your hand.
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