Toshiba's Excite 10 LE tablet, billed by the company as "the world's thinnest and lightest 10-inch tablet," will be available in the U.S. starting March 6. The Wi-Fi-only tablet will cost $529.99 for the 16GB model, and $599.99 for the 32GB version.
Keen observers would notice that the starting price is about $30 higher than the similarly configured 16 GB iPad 2.
Toshiba appears to be betting on its specs: The Excite is 0.30 inches thin, compared to the iPad 2's 0.34 inches. The Toshiba weighs 1.18 pounds, compared to 1.33 pounds for the iPad 2.
The Excite 10 LE -- shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in January as the Excite X10 -- received early props from msnbc.com's Rosa Golijan, who described it then as "an eye-catching 10-inch beauty."
Like its competition, the tablet's 10.1-inch diagonal LED backlit widescreen has a tough Corning Gorilla Glass display with IPS technology and multi-touch support.
The bad news for Android fans is that Excite will arrive running Android 3.2 (Honeycomb). Toshiba says it will be upgradable to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) "later this spring," but vague upgrade plans announced by Android's partners are known to change.
Here are some other specs for the Excite 10 LE:
- Dimensions: 10.1 inches (W) x 6.9 inches (D) x 0.3 inch (H)
- Built-in 25 watt-hour rechargeable lithium ion battery
- 1,280 x 800 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio
- Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 multicore processor; 1.2GHz with 1GB LPDDR2 RAM
- 16GB and 32GB configurations
- 2 megapixel front-facing camera
- 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash
- Micro USB, Micro HDMI ports
- Micro SD card slot
- Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- Gyroscope, Accelerometer, GPS, eCompass and Ambient Light Sensor
- Stereo speakers with sound enhancements by Toshiba and SRS Labs
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