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Toshiba AT200 review

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Verdict

A super-slim, super-light tablet that doesn’t do enough to stand out

Review Date: 16 Apr 2012

Reviewed By: Jonathan Bray

Price when reviewed: 16GB, £274 (£329 inc VAT); 32GB, £315 (£379 inc VAT) (£329 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
4 stars out of 6

Value for Money
5 stars out of 6

Performance
4 stars out of 6

The tablet market is maturing nicely, with Apple’s mighty iPad secure at the top of the hill, and a host of more affordable, but perfectly competent Android tablets gathered on the lower slopes. The latest addition to that growing crowd is the Toshiba AT200 – a tablet running Android 3.2 (with an update to 4 promised in the near future) – with a 10.1in 1,280 x 800 display and 16GB or 32GB of storage.

If those specifications make it sound so-so, it’s anything but in the flesh. In fact, the marketing and sales photos we saw before laying our hands on one just don’t do it justice. This tablet looks great: the rear is tastefully finished in a grey, brushed-aluminium, and a thin smoked-chrome inlay around the edge lends it a sophisticated look.

And it’s as slim and light as they come, measuring 7.8mm from front to back and weighing 508g. That’s lighter than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (565g), the iPad (652g) and the Motorola Xoom 2 (599g). Toshiba claims it’s the world’s thinnest tablet and we wouldn’t disagree.

In terms of specification, it’s a little less cutting-edge. Under the screen lives a dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor – which is slower than the Archos 101 G9 – and this is complemented by 1GB of RAM and PowerVR SGX540 graphics. There’s a decent supply of ports and sockets, with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the left edge next to a micro-HDMI output, microSD slot and micro-USB connection, but no SIM slot for 3G connection.

Despite the slightly slower specification, performance during testing was fine. Angry Birds Space stuttered a little, but the demanding Shadowgun and Reckless Racing played with hardly a hitch. The AT200 completed the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark in 2,108ms – behind the likes of the quad-core Asus Transformer Prime, but still acceptable.

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Comments

User comments

@ Jonathon Bray

Still on the lookout for a tablet and this looks ok although slightly over-priced (I suspect that market forces will drive the price down soon though) - personally, I'm waiting to see what the Transformer 300 costs. One question about this and Android tablets in general though:

Can you use bluetooth audio while also displaying to a monitor via HDMI? The reason I ask is that I can't do so on my Samsung Galaxy S2 (rendering my HDMI dongle all but useless).

Streaming .VOBs from my WHS is entirely another matter but one I'm sure I can crack.

By bioreit on 16 Apr 2012

Pedantic much?

I have a Galaxy Tab 10.1, am perfectly happy with it save perhaps for periods of unexplainable sluggishness which will hopefuly be fixed with ICS.
0.8 of a millimetre thickness and 57 grams. Thats the difference, roughly the weight of a double decker chocolate bar (I have on my desk!).
Are we now comparing the miniscule differences akin to those presented by Graphics Card manufacturers in Frames Per Second performance differences between flagship models.
People may pay attention when reading reviews and so forth, but I'd argue that nobody notices in practise.

By Heliosphan on 17 Apr 2012

i still think that the moto xoom wifi i got for a steal over the easter weekend is beating these newer tablets. it's already unlocked and got ICS on it. the problem with buying a new model is you have to wait while the geniuses at xda work out how to pimp them :-)

By sihaz2 on 18 Apr 2012

cheaper alternative if you dont mind smaller form factor

For anyone thinking about buying one of these, I suggest you check out the galaxy tab 7 plus - similar specs (ram, processor) but on a 7inch display (more portable), great reviews and available for less than £200 (EU import from expansys).

By spideryman on 18 May 2012

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