When I sat down with Toshiba executives about a month ago, they promised that the Toshiba Thrive (once known as the Toshiba Tablet) would hit shelves in mid-July. So imagine my surprise when I found that the Thrive was already for sale at a Best Buy in Austin, TX. We’re not exactly sure why Best Buy gets a head start with the Thrive, but in any case, we’re glad to see Toshiba’s tablet venture make its way into the hands of consumers.
Originally, we had our money on a July 10 release, and we still think that other retailers will get the Thrive around that time. Reports suggest that the 16GB and 32GB versions are the only models currently available at Best Buy, for $479.99 and $579.99 respectively. We’re not sure why the little guy (8GB model) got left behind, but we’re way more curious to find out why Best Buy jumped the gun in the first place.
If you’re unfamiliar, the Android 3.1 Honeycomb-powered tablet sports a 10-inch LED backlit display with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels, an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz processor, and 1GB of RAM. If you’d like a full specs run-down, check out our hands-on impressions with the Toshiba Thrive.
[via Unwired View]