Toshiba Excite Pure: A Tablet for a lot less money

Posted: 06 Jan 2014 12:23 PM PST

In the summer of last year (2013) Toshiba introduced three new Android tablets, all under the name Excite. In terms of display size for both the offer Excite Pure , Excite Pro and Excite Write all 10.1 inches, but the biggest differentiator is the price, because the Excite Pure is already selling for just under $250 (≈ $250) and thus offers a lot of Tablet at an affordable price. However, how does the Toshiba perform in everyday life?

toshiba excite pure display

Toshiba Excite Pure Technical Details

10.1 inch display with 1280 × 800 pixels
Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad Core 1.3GHz
1GB of RAM
16 GB memory (MicroSD)
6600 mAh battery
Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean
Wi-Fi 802.11 n (no 3G)
261 x 179 x 10.5 mm
630GB hard disk
1.2 MP front camera
3 MP main camera
Sale includes: Pure Excite, charging adapter, USB cable

Appearance / quality / haptics

The clean appearance will certainly not win the Toshiba Excite Pure any design awards, the tablet is completely encased in plastic. However, the $250 (≈ $250) tablet sits very well in the hand thanks to the rigid plastic back, even if the weight of more than 630 grams seems more with just one hand. The weight of the Excite tablet places the 10.1-inch device in the midfield class. As for general quality, the excite does not fall short, because the tablet is really produced very good for the low price. Only the back can be described as minimal, the cover for the Micro HDMI and MicroSD cards feeling cheap as it is removed. In contrast, the volume rocker and power button sit firmly and easily accessibly within the chassis.

toshiba excite pure back

Due to the rounded sides, the Excite Pure is very comfortable to hold, however, one of the speakers is often obscured in the normal holding position and this is sometimes disturbingly noticable when watching videos.

Display

When addressing the display of the Toshiba Excite Pure one is immediately faced with the most obvious weak point of the tablet, with a resolution of only WXGA (1280 × 800 pixels), a pixel density of 149 ppi below the competition. Especially when reading dense text or viewing websites one quickly notices that the resolution is only sufficient for consuming HD videos. Even those who prefer bright colours and good black levels will be disappointed, the colours look washed out and some black parts of the image very grayish. The brightness is sufficient for normal living room conditions, but for outdoor use the display is not suitable. Viewing angles are fine, so you can show off content to friends. The Toshiba delivers come with a video improvement function, which causes some videos to get an ugly yellow tinge, fortunately, the function can be disabled.

toshiba excite pure resolution

Performance

Unfortunately, Toshiba’s display failings also apply to performance, since it relies on an Nvidia Tegra 3 chip the current Tegra 4. Nevertheless, the four cores clocked at 1.3 GHz provide a reasonably comfortable pace. The tight 1GB of RAM, however, slow down the multitasking capabilities of the tablet significantly, so that only a few applications can be kept simultaneously in memory. The software runs quite smoothly, with perhaps the occasional stuttering. Current games like Temple Run 2 or Iron Man 3 can be rendered by the Tegra 3 chip quite easily. In Antutu Benchmark the $250 (≈ $250) tablet reaches 13954 points, which is well behind other Android Tablets.

Battery

Depending on usage, the permanently installed 6600 mAh battery has a life of about 7 hours, so you should get well over 3 days of ordinary usage. I could never achieve the promised 9.5 hours of battery life in the test, but if you want to operate the tablet on its lowest brightness you may well reach over the 10 hour mark. To get a little more out of the battery, Toshiba also offers a power management app that can be configured as desired, but this can also clearly suck at performance. Once the tablet battery is exhausted, the device is requires 4-5 hours to get back to 100%.

toshiba excite pure configuration

Software and Multimedia

As usual, the Japanese company has chosen Android (4.2.1 Jelly Bean) for the Excite series. The surface corresponds largely to the Vanilla Android UI with only a few additional apps and features added, such as the power management and the audio and video enhancement. Unfortunately, Toshiba supplies quite a few unnecessary apps that fortunately can be uninstalled.

toshiba excite pure navigation

If you consume a lot of multimedia content, the Excite Pure has some future-proofing because it can easily expanded via a MicroSD card to create additional space for media to be sent directly over Micro HDMI to the home TV, even if it requires a cable that is not included. The two speakers of this cheap device are not convincing and the sound is very flat. If you have a lot to write with the tablet, for a few extra bucks will get you a Bluetooth Keyboard Dock Bundle.

Camera

With the resolution of only 3-megapixels the Toshiba Excite Pure would have been better of without the main camera and instead had the money invested in the front camera. The images are only useful under very good lighting conditions. The 1.2 megapixel front camera is for video calling, and images or snapshots should generally be avoided.

toshiba excite pure camera

Conclusion

All in all, the Toshiba Excite Pure a good tablet at an affordable price, but harbours many small weaknesses mainly in terms of display and performance. Unfortunately, the display’s resolution and pale color reproduction both disappointed. The Tegra 3 chip makes for a reasonably pleasant performance and decent site representation.

toshiba excite pure keyboard

Currently, the Excite Pure has a starting price of just under $250 (≈ $250), but before buying you should definitely think carefully about whether you prefer not to spend $70 (≈ $70) extra for the much better Excite Pro which comes with the current Tegra 4, and a very high resolution display. The Toshiba Excite Pure is a cheap tablet for occasional surfing in the living room or for consuming video content.