[Casey Cheung]

Last Saturday I spent 2 hours at a Best Buy store putting a Toshiba Thrive tablet through its paces. I came prepared with a USB cord for my Verizon Thunderbolt cell phone, USB stick, and SD card. I pretty much had my heart set on the Thrive with all its outlet ports, which swayed me over the Samsung Galaxy Tab with its non-existent ports.

First I stuck in a USB stick, and copied some files into the Thrive's hard drive. Picture files came out just fine. Video files were hit and miss. Some of my videos played, but others did not such as videos from my Canon pocket digital camera (AVI files) and some burned movie DIVX files. Bummer. I tried opening some Windows app files, but quickly got an error message that the Thrive could not recognize the Windows app files. Bummer again, but then again, I should have known better with Windows apps. Then I stuck in an SD card with pictures, and the Thrive recognized it instantly, so no problem there.

Next big test was to plug in my Verizon Thunderbolt cell phone into the Thrive via a USB cord. I tried, and tried and tried, but had no luck with the Thrive recognizing my Thunderbolt as an external drive. Major bummer! I really want a tablet that can synch with my Thunderbolt so I can copy and paste files, transfer and delete stuff, etc. I then plugged in my Thunderbolt to another Android tablet, which I think was an Acer tablet, and again had the same problem of not recognizing my cell phone as an external drive. I came to the conclusion this is a shortcoming of Android tablets.

My last test was to utilize my Thunderbolt Mobile Hotspot feature to provide 4G wireless tethering to the Thrive tablet to access the internet. This worked just fine. Internet speed was decently fast, certainly faster than the Best Buy Wifi internet speed.

After all this testing, I was no longer convinced the Thrive was for me, even though I originally thought so. Soooooo, I ended up going to Fry's Electronics to see what they had to offer. I immediately noticed something different about a few different tablets at Frys. A few different tablets were running Windows 7 professional operating system instead of Android! I didn't even know this existed! I thought all tablets either ran Android or Apple operating systems.

I ended up playing around with a Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 Slate PC Tablet (Link here: ). This Fujitsu 10.1" touch screen screen tablet immediately grabbed my attention. Everything the Toshiba Thrive could not do, this Fujitsu tablet could do no problem! The Fujitsu tablet played every single video file I threw at it, plus it fully recognized my Verizon Thunderbolt as an external hard drive. Yahooo! Of course, since it's a fully functional Windows 7 Pro operating system, the Fujitsu tablet could also install and run Windows apps that I loaded...too good! This Fujitsu tablet has every important outlet port built into it, such as full size USB outlet, full size SD card outlet, full size HDMI outlet, and even a fingerprint security reader too! Plus the Fujitsu comes with a stylus pen that can recognize handwriting, and do drawings. I ended up buying the 62GB hard drive model, and this model costs $850 plus tax. Pricey! I like the fact a user can also swap out a battery easily with another battery, so I will end up buying a second battery for this. My Thunderbolt was able to provide 4G wireless tethering for internet access with no problem. I believe this Fujitsu tablet weighs in at just slightly over 2 pounds. Certainly not super light as the Samsung Tab, but still light enough for my needs.

Okay, after playing around with this for the past few days, there is positively a downside to this Fujitsu tablet. Even though this is a touch screen tablet, pinching the screen for zooming in and out, plus automatic screen change orientation works, but not very well unfortunately. Certainly doesn't work as well as an Android or Apple tablet, and nowhere near as well as my Thunderbolt cell phone. Oh well, I can live with this, since it does everything else I want. I read in other reviews that sometime next year when Windows comes out with Version 8, my Fujitsu can convert to this new Version 8, which should give it much better screen touch capability. I can only hope!

Anyway, I didn't mean to gab on for so long about this Fujitsu tablet, but unfortunately, there is no forum here to chat about this tablet model. Just wanted to give other forum members here my recent tablet buying experience. If anyone has questions, feel free to ask.

Cheers, Casey

[illwood]

It's good that you found a tablet that suits your needs. Android tablets aren't for everyone. I must admit, I did cringe a bit at the price tag.

Other than the pinch to zoom problem, how is the rest of the tablet performance? How is the battery life?

[rsix]

Thanks for the review. It's nice to see what other tablets have to offer. Does Windows have a native store for purchasing apps? The lack of applications that utilize a tablet style input is what would worry me.

[rickhamilton620]

Thanks for the review. It's nice to see what other tablets have to offer. Does Windows have a native store for purchasing apps? The lack of applications that utilize a tablet style input is what would worry me.

Windows will have a on device app store in Windows 8.

That said, because your touch (and the stylus) represents a mouse cursor in Windows, one can use apps not necessarilly designed for touch input pretty easily. Some smaller icons like on toolbars might be tougher to hit at default settings though. Windows 7 auto detects the presence of touch support and sizes itself (title bar, window control buttons, scroll bar) accordingly.

[rsix]

So do you know if there will be an upgrade path to Windows 8 on your device? I have heard good rumblings about Windows 8. The current status of windows pads seems to be similar to the Windows 6.0 phones compared to the new Win 7 phones.

I'm interested to hear about the battery life on the pad, that would be a make or break proposition for a lot of people. The weight seems heavy, it doesn't sound like a lot but believe me 2 hours with an e-book makes 1/2lb of extra weight seem heavy.

I'm glad that you found something that worked for you. I just hope you can get upgraded to 8 when it hits you'll probably be a much happier camper!

[hummingbirdhill]

A few different tablets were running Windows 7 professional operating system instead of Android! I didn't even know this existed! I thought all tablets either ran Android or Apple operating systems.
Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 Slate PC Tablet (Link here: This Fujitsu 10.1" touch screen screen tablet immediately grabbed my attention. Of course, since it's a fully functional Windows 7 Pro operating system, the Fujitsu tablet could also install and run Windows apps that I loaded...too good!
there is positively a downside to this Fujitsu tablet. Even though this is a touch screen tablet, pinching the screen for zooming in and out, plus automatic screen change orientation works, but not very well unfortunately.

I didn't realize this device existed either. But I'm soooooo enthralled with my Thrive that I don't think Windows 7 could win me over. I am interested though in which Windows apps your Fujitsu can use . . . Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint???

[Casey Cheung]

It's good that you found a tablet that suits your needs. Android tablets aren't for everyone. I must admit, I did cringe a bit at the price tag.

Other than the pinch to zoom problem, how is the rest of the tablet performance? How is the battery life?

The battery that came with my 62gb model lasts a good long several hours or longer. Good stuff! But i can't figure out if I have the 2 cell or 4 cell battery which makes a difference.

[Casey Cheung]

Thanks for the review. It's nice to see what other tablets have to offer. Does Windows have a native store for purchasing apps? The lack of applications that utilize a tablet style input is what would worry me.

Yeah, it's called or . :-) Forget which is correct! Just kidding! Actually I really do use this site for downloading windows based apps.

[Casey Cheung]

So do you know if there will be an upgrade path to Windows 8 on your device? I have heard good rumblings about Windows 8. The current status of windows pads seems to be similar to the Windows 6.0 phones compared to the new Win 7 phones.

I'm interested to hear about the battery life on the pad, that would be a make or break proposition for a lot of people. The weight seems heavy, it doesn't sound like a lot but believe me 2 hours with an e-book makes 1/2lb of extra weight seem heavy.

I'm glad that you found something that worked for you. I just hope you can get upgraded to 8 when it hits you'll probably be a much happier camper!

I read reviews that say my Fujitsu tablet should be upgradable to Windows 8 which is suppose to be much more touch screen and tablet friendly using tiles design similar to Windows cell phones. So we shall see.

[Casey Cheung]

I didn't realize this device existed either. But I'm soooooo enthralled with my Thrive that I don't think Windows 7 could win me over. I am interested though in which Windows apps your Fujitsu can use . . . Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint???

I just finished installing the entire Windows 2003 Microsoft Office suite to my tablet. Since this tablet is fully Windows compatible, I can install any Windows apps. I will be installing Adobe Photoshop 7.0 next!

[rsix]

The battery that came with my 62gb model lasts a good long several hours or longer. Good stuff! But i can't figure out if I have the 2 cell or 4 cell battery which makes a difference.

A few several hours longer than what?

I'm glad it seems they'll have an upgrade path to Windows 8 for you, 7 just isn't built with touchscreens in mind. The experience will probably be MUCH better once they shift to 8 so if you're enjoying it now I can only imagine how much you'll like Windows 8. Hopefully the upgrade doesn't cripple any Applications you have installed.

[rickhamilton620]

Windows 8 will have the same system requirements as windows 7, so chances are quite high that the OP's tablet will upgrade just fine.

[Casey Cheung]

I just now finished installing Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Windows...one of my favorite programs for all my digital photography retouching! I even installed a bunch of my favorite Photoshop filters like NIK Efex, iCorrect, Dfine. Today I used the stylus pen, which works very well in giving precision navigation to the touchscreen. My tablet is now set up to accept both finger pointing navigation and stylus pen navigation simultaneously. Too cool ! I even installed Breezebrowser, one of my favorite image browsers, plus my Nikon image browser too. This tablet just takes every Windows app I throw its way and happily installs it ! In a year's time, I will have so many apps installed that I probably don't want to upgrade to Windows 8, because that always means wiping out my hard drive and having to spend days and days to reinstall everything all over again, such a pain! Plus I'm worried that Windows 8 might make my existing Windows apps incompatible for installation to my tablet...maybe I'm just paranoid !

[rickhamilton620]

I just now finished installing Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Windows...one of my favorite programs for all my digital photography retouching! I even installed a bunch of my favorite Photoshop filters like NIK Efex, iCorrect, Dfine. Today I used the stylus pen, which works very well in giving precision navigation to the touchscreen. My tablet is now set up to accept both finger pointing navigation and stylus pen navigation simultaneously. Too cool ! I even installed Breezebrowser, one of my favorite image browsers, plus my Nikon image browser too. This tablet just takes every Windows app I throw its way and happily installs it ! In a year's time, I will have so many apps installed that I probably don't want to upgrade to Windows 8, because that always means wiping out my hard drive and having to spend days and days to reinstall everything all over again, such a pain! Plus I'm worried that Windows 8 might make my existing Windows apps incompatible for installation to my tablet...maybe I'm just paranoid !

While windows 8 will have that touch layer, you can easily flip into a windows 7 style ui for things that wont work quite right within the overlay.

Great to hear that things are working out for you.

[superbat85]

Thats amazing, I wasnt aware that windows had a tablet either. I loved the thrive and the way it is but what really bought me was the ability to use the usb and the other cards. If I would have known that windows has a tablet, I would of wanted to check that out. Thanks so much for your information, hope you keep us updated on your tab.

[ryaxnb]

I am really happy with my Thrive. It plays all the 480p and 360p videos i toss at it, using either the hardware accelerated player for h.264/MP4, h.264/M4V, MPEG4/MP4, x264/AVI, DIVX/AVI & XVID/AVI or a little app called MX Video Player that relies on brute force of the Tegra 2's Cortex A9's to decode the video for such files as MJPEG, MOV, WMV and FLV. It can play some 720p videos too, but some cause problems - not a huge deal since 720p files are massive. Mostly the ones that work use x264 Baseline video & AAC audio @ a bitrate of 1-5mbps.

It plays all my photos and audios, too, and works great with SDXC 64GB cards and even with HDDs that use FAT32. It works fine with mice & keyboards & game controllers, even wireless RF ones, and with USB hubs, including those on keyboards.

It is fast, and smooth, and unlike a Windows tablet is specifically designed for touch.
Overall i would recommend it anyday. Android 3.2 is of course available for it now, and it makes it all the more pleasant to use.

For me, the key was the effortless playback of 480p video files. Any file i threw at it from any FAT32 source, be it microSD, SD, CF card USB reader, HDD, flash stick, etc, worked great so long as it was <=480p. For me, that meant no transcoding as almost all of my files are 480p or less.

YMMV of course but i found the Thrive to be the perfect video playback tablet.