- Mar 7, 2011
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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: FUJITSU: Fujitsu America - LIFEBOOK Q550 Slate PC). 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
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: FUJITSU: Fujitsu America - LIFEBOOK Q550 Slate PC). 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
Last edited:
Forget which is correct! Just kidding! Actually I really do use this site for downloading windows based apps.
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