Toshiba Excite 13 review: a big-screened tablet with a price to match

Well, this lede pretty much wrote itself. A 13-inch tablet, seriously? Toshiba is pushing the form factor limits with the Excite 13, and while its dimensions make it stand out in a sea of 7- and 10-inch devices, that isn't necessarily what tablet buyers are looking for.

There's no shortage of skepticism about such a large slate -- "slab" seems appropriate here -- so the Toshiba Excite 13 needs to provide an exceptional experience, with a brilliant display and smooth graphics, to make 2.2 pounds seem more palatable. On paper, its specs are promising: there's a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU under the hood, a 1600 x 900 display at 138 ppi and a clean build of Android 4.0. The company already has the Excite 7.7 and Excite 10 in its arsenal, and their good performance and bright displays make for compelling tablets. But how does a 13-inch tablet that starts at $650 round out that trio? Read on for our full impressions.

As we took this tablet on a trip around the office to snap some photos, several strangers remarked that it's "way too big." And truly, it's only appropriate that we take a moment to note how huge the Excite 13 is. Dimension-wise, we're looking at 13.5 x 8.5 x 0.40 inches. Add in a weight of 2.2 pounds, and you can see how the Excite 13's extreme width and considerable heft could become burdensome. Toshiba thoughtfully includes a stand for propping up the slate at a viewing-friendly angle, which will come in handy if you plan on using the tablet for any extended period of time.

Like its smaller siblings, the Excite 13 has a much more polished design than Toshiba's earlier Thrive tablets. That chunky, chintzy build is replaced by a thinner silhouette and an aluminum casing that's elegant but still textured enough to provide a good grip. Though the tablet feels sturdy, it bends slightly when you apply significant pressure. That's not to stay this isn't a solid device; it feels tough enough to take a beating (read: one or two falls off the kitchen counter), and the display is coated in Corning Gorilla Glass for protection against scuffs and scratches.

Taking a journey around the tablet starting from the top edge, we have the volume rocker and multi-function toggle (it locks screen orientation, locks hardware buttons or mutes sound, according to your specification under Settings), along with the 2-megapixel front-facing camera. A headphone jack, SD card slot, micro-USB port, micro-HDMI connector and the charging port lien the right side. The bottom edge is bare save for two large external speakers, and the left side hosts the power button. Around back is the 5-megapixel shooter with LED Flash. We can't move on without a word about the Excite 13's power cord: it could easily be mistaken for that of a laptop. Just another reminder that this device is truly huge.

The 1600 x 900 panel is a great canvas for surfing the web, thanks to its ample size and bright, accurate colors.

Now, onto that display. The 1600 x 900 LCD is a great canvas for surfing the web, thanks to its ample size and bright, accurate colors. We loved watching full-screen videos on YouTube and scrolling through Tumblr -- everything showed up in full, crisp detail. However, as with many other tablets, glare can be a huge issue, so you'll want to avoid sitting near heavy lighting while watching clips on the tablet. It's also worth noting that plenty of lower-cost tablets (ASUS' whole Transformer lineup, for example) come with easily viewable IPS screens in tow.

Like the smaller Excite tablets, the Excite 13 ships with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3, to be precise). We appreciate that Toshiba doesn't deviate much from the standard ICS experience. Yes, there are some pre-loaded apps (more on those below) but the standard Back, Home and Recent Apps buttons in the system bar, along with five home screens to fill, are sure signs that this is a vanilla build of ICS.

Toshiba's generous selection of pre-loaded apps includes Adobe Reader, Amazon Kindle, Amazon MP3, Crackle, Hardwood card games, LogMeIn, Netflix and Rdio. Of course, the standard suite of Google apps -- the Play store, YouTube, Search, Gmail and so on -- is here too. In addition to the stock Android keyboard, Toshiba includes Swype. There's also SRS audio enhancement on board, which, when toggled on, can boost volume and voice clarity.

Think taking photos with a 10-inch tablet looks ridiculous? Try shooting with the Excite 13. Even if the two cameras were high-quality, the device's size is enough to dissuade most users from bringing it along on a family picnic -- and it's certainly not coming with you for a night on the town. You won't be tempted to stuff it into your bag either, because its 5-megapixel camera and 2-megapixel front-facing shooter are similar to what you'll find on the Excite 7.7 and 10 -- that is to say, quite bad.

Photos show washed-out colors, and we found that both auto and manual focus were unreliable in helping us achieve crisp shots. Worse still, pictures are extremely pixelated, and most of our samples have a reddish cast to them.

The Excite 13's rear-facing camera is also capable of capturing video in 720p. Much like our experience with still photos, sample clips appear blown out and a little fuzzy. On the upside, we didn't notice any motion blur or jerkiness when moving the camera to follow moving cars.

Toshiba Excite 13 ($650)VZW Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 ($450)ASUS Transformer Prime ($499, pending price cuts)ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 ($499)GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps)SunSpider: lower scores are better

On the benchmark front, the Toshiba Excite 13 delivers performance that's on par or slightly duller than other Tegra 3-powered slates. In AnTuTu, for example, it notched 10,873 compared with 12,027 for the new for the new ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700. Predictably, too, the Excite 13 leaves tablets without quad-core NVIDIA insides in the dust: its Quadrant score of 4,016 bests Samsung's dual-core Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, which managed a score of 2,602.

More anecdotally, the Excite 13 is powerful enough to support several apps running simultaneously, along with several tabs open in the browser. We browsed and scrolled through websites with nary a glitch, though occasionally the tablet took a moment to load content on image-heavy sites such as Tumblr.

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700

The Excite 13's large size allows for a 37.2Wh battery, which provides enough juice to get you through a full work day and then some. On our battery rundown test, the tablet lasted nine hours and 51 minutes. We've seen several smaller tablets hold out longer, including the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 (12:01), the new iPad (9:52), the Transformer Pad Infinity (9:25), the Transformer Prime (10:17) and the Acer Iconia Tab A510 (10:23). The Toshiba Excite 7.7, with its smaller 15Wh battery, managed an even longer 10 hours and 34 minutes. Still, with everyday web surfing and light gaming, you'll get at least a day out of this puppy before needing to find an outlet.

The Excite 13 doesn't have any direct competition. We mean, how many other 13-inch slates do you see on store shelves? Still, there's a handful of other Tegra 3 tablets to choose from, and this is hardly the only device offering a good viewing experience. So although the 13-incher is in some ways a category unto itself (for the time being, at least), we can break down your other options based on those two classifications.

We've seen quite a few Tegra 3-powered slates that offer top-notch performance. The ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 ($379) is a strong option, with good graphics performance, an IPS display and an optional keyboard dock that allows for more laptop-like productivity. (The Transformer Pad Infinity, priced at $500 and up, is similar, except it has a higher-res 1920 x 1200 screen, a slimmer design and longer battery life.) Then there's the $450 Acer Iconia Tab A700, which also has a Tegra 3 chip and a 1920 x 1200 panel.

The Excite 13 is a capable tablet, but we imagine many people won't be able to get past its size and give it a whirl.

Processing power and a good viewing experience go hand in hand, but all the Tegra 3 power in the world won't make up for a dull display. The Excite 13's 1600 x 900 panel has a natural rival in the new iPad, which packs a whopping 2048 x 1536 pixels into its 9.7-inch Retina display. But if you're considering the Excite, you're probably looking to stick to the Android side of things, in which case we submit the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 ($500) as a formidable alternative. Its Super AMOLED Plus (1280 x 800) display delivers beautiful, rich colors that make movie watcing and web surfing a pleasure. Still, that tablet comes in a smaller 7.7-inch form factor, so you don't get the expansive screen real estate offered by Toshiba's device.

Put simply, the Toshiba Excite 13 is a huge tablet. It's a capable tablet, too, with a quad-core Tegra 3 processor that handles Ice Cream Sandwich well, but we imagine there are many people who won't get past its size and give it a whirl. In that regard, the Excite 13 reminds us of the Galaxy Note, a super-sized phone that never fails to produce a love-it or hate-it reaction.

Sizeism aside, Toshiba's 13-incher is prohibitive in another way: cost. Shelling out $650 ($750, if you want the 64GB version) for a tablet that pretty much defies mobility is a bit ... impractical. We also couldn't bring ourselves to pay a premium for a device with such forgettable specs: a Tegra 3 CPU and a garden-variety LCD display. Why, you could easily find a similarly equippped tablet for $500 -- or less, even. Now it's true, Toshiba bundles a stand with this product, which is a big indicator of its unique place in the market: it could live on your desk, ready and able to cater to your gaming and Netflix-watching whims. If that setup suits your fancy, the Excite 13's has the capacious screen and solid performance to cut it. While you're at it, though, you might want to look into getting a wall mount.

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ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 review: meet the company's new top-of-the-line tablet

When ASUS first teased the Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 back at CES, many customers looked on, simmering with rage. You see, only several weeks earlier the company started selling the Transformer Prime, a top-tier tablet priced at a not-so-cheap $500. It was a state-of-the-art product...until ASUS unveiled the TF700, a tablet that was similar, only better. It, too, has a Tegra 3 chip and 8-megapixel camera, but it adds a higher-res, 1920 x 1200 display and promises improved signal reception, a pain point for the Prime.

Little did those disgruntled Prime owners know it would actually be a long time before the TF700 ever became available. Now, we're finally hearing it will go on sale in the US in mid-July, at which point the Prime is expected to drop in price before it gets discontinued. But is the TF700 all that much of an improvement over the original? And how does it stack up against comparably priced tablets, such as the new iPad, Acer Iconia Tab A700 and Toshiba Excite 10? Check out our early review to find out.

You've seen this tablet before -- and no, we're not referring to the time we handled it at Mobile World Congress. Everything about the TF700 -- the thin shape, that spun metal lid, the gold and purple color options -- is reminiscent of the original Transformer Prime. With the device powered off, the only noticeable difference is that the back cover now has a thin strip of plastic stretching across the top, presumably to improve signal reception. Otherwise, it's as sturdy and well-built as any other Transformer tablet, though it's slightly chubbier at 1.3 pounds / 0.33 inches thick (versus 1.28 pounds / 0.32 inches for the Prime). Does that extra hundredth of an inch make a difference? Not for us, anyway.

Taking a tour around the device, the selection of ports hasn't changed either. On the bottom, there's a trio of connectors allowing the tablet to fit snugly in the optional keyboard dock. The left landscape side is home to a micro-HDMI socket, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack and uncovered microSD slot. On the top edge, meanwhile, you'll find a volume rocker and the all-important power / lock button. Flip the tablet around and you'll find the same 8-megapixel, f/2.2 camera used on the lower-end TF300, along with an LED flash. As with other Transformer tablets, there's also a 2-megapixel webcam tucked into the front bezel.

So what has changed? The display, for starters. Yes, this has a 10-inch, FHD IPS (make that Super IPS+) screen, just like the Prime, but this time it trades a 1280 x 800 pixel count for 1920 x 1200 resolution. Yes, it's crisp, even if it is not quite as stunning as the 2048 x 1536 Retina display. The viewing angles are wide -- so wide, in fact, that you can easily watch a movie with the tablet placed face-up on a table in front of you (not that you'd need to do this with the keyboard dock).

Still, with the default settings enabled, the screen glare sometimes overpowers whatever's on screen. In situations like that, you'll want to flip on Super IPS+ mode, which bumps the brightness to a staggering 600 nits. Once we did that, we had no problem framing still shots while standing in direct sunlight. And hey, even if you don't plan on taking this outside the home, you might find that the Super IPS+ feature makes it a bit easier to use the tablet near a window, or in an office with harsh overhead lights.

We did find one flaw with the display: it's bonded in such a way that if you press down on the screen you'll see air pockets form beneath your fingers. This isn't the first time we've seen this on a tablet, but it's also not the sort of thing we'd expect to find on a premium $500 product.

Like ASUS' other tablets, the TF700 comes endowed with SonicMaster audio, which makes for some loud, though not exceptionally rich sound. Just keep in mind that the speaker is located on the back side, which means if you set the tablet down on a table any songs or movie dialogue will sound muffled. Then again, if you plan on watching movies with the tablet propped up in its dock, this is a moot point.

The optional dock offers the same features it always has, but for any first-time Transformer buyers who might be reading this, here's a quick primer: in addition to being an external keyboard, the dock is home to an SD card slot, a full-size USB 2.0 port and a built-in 16.5Wh battery, allowing you to go longer without charging your tablet. As you see in our photo gallery, the tablet is roughly the same size and thickness of a netbook when combined with the keyboard dock, and we never felt like the slate was about to tumble out of its cradle.

The whole setup is actually rather sturdy, but we've always felt the dock is a little too scratch-prone; it tends to scuff more easily than the tablet itself. We'd also caution you that when the tablet is docked inside the keyboard the weight distribution becomes lopsided -- so much so that unless you angle the display just so the whole thing might tumble backward off your lap. Thankfully, this should be less of an issue if you place the dock on an airplane tray, or some other flat surface.

And by the way, we're using that flight scenario quite deliberately. As cramped and flimsy as this keyboard is, it feels like an improvement over the touchscreen when it comes to pecking out short web searches and answering emails on the go. But we would never suggest a student use this to bang out 10-page term papers -- heck, we're loathe to even write 3,000-word reviews on it. Keys this shallow and this crowded simply can't take the place of a standalone laptop, but they're at least convenient when you find yourself with no other options. So go ahead and splurge on the keyboard, but think of it as a travel accessory and not the missing ingredient for some magical, low-cost laptop replacement.

As for the keyboard dock's built-in trackpad, it responds surprisingly well to two-finger scrolls, but the pad's tiny size means you won't actually have much space to pull off those kinds of gestures.

As we hinted at earlier, the best thing about the TF700's keyboard dock is that, well... you don't necessarily need it. Back when we reviewed the mid-range Transformer Pad TF300, many readers were upset to learn that they couldn't re-use their OG Transformer dock, meaning if they wanted to upgrade they'd have to buy a new tablet and a new keyboard, to boot. Here, there are no such compatibility issues: the TF700 will work with the dock belonging to the original Prime. That's good news for fed-up Prime owners who've had enough of the GPS issues but don't have a reason to trade in the dock, per se.

ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 ($499)Toshiba Excite 10 ($450)ASUS Transformer Prime ($499, pending price cuts)GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps)SunSpider: lower scores are better

Like last year's Prime, the TF700 packs a quad-core Tegra 3 chip, though this time the clock speeds reach 1.7GHz with single-core performance and 1.6GHz when two to four cores are in use. (Compare that with 1.4GHz and 1.3GHz, respectively, for the Prime.) This tablet, too, has 1GB of RAM, but the memory is now of the DDR3 variety.

So what does that mean in terms of actual performance? Well, if benchmarks are to be believed, the TF700 is faster than the Transformer Prime and Tegra 3-packing Toshiba Excite 10, but only slightly. Heck, on Vellamo, it beat the Excite 10 by a mere four points, and actually lost to it in SunSpider by about 50. Unarmed with raw numbers, it's near-impossible to tell the difference.

As we've said in previous reviews, Tegra 3 shines most in gaming. When we played titles like Temple Run, Big Top THD and Zen Pinball, we enjoyed smooth graphics, though more than once the screen failed to respond to our swipes (so much for sliding under a tree trunk to escape those monkeys). In fact, finger input sometimes didn't register when we were simply navigating the OS (fortunately, this wasn't too frequent). We also observed a few other hiccups: apps were sometimes sluggish in opening and closing, and the camera application downright halted when we tapped the home button to exit.

Power SavingBalancedPerformanceGLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps)SunSpider: lower scores are better

Like every other Transformer tablet ASUS has produced, the TF700 has not one, but three battery modes: Power Saving, Balanced and Performance. For the purpose of making comparisons with other devices, we used the default Balanced setting, but we were also curious to see how each of these three power management profiles had an impact on overall performance. Running the same benchmarks in each mode, we found that there's not much of a benefit to using the Performance settings: the battery will drain faster, and the difference in scores between this and Balanced mode is actually quite modest. On the other hand, if you flip to Power Saving mode you can expect your scores to plummet, sometimes by more than half compared to what you'd otherwise get in Balanced mode.

ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF7009:25 (test with keyboard dock in progress) ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime

The TF700 packs a 19Wh battery rated for up to nine and a half hours of runtime. Indeed, it lasted nine hours and 25 in our battery rundown test, which involves looping a video with WiFi on and the brightness fixed at 50 percent. That's still not as impressive a showing as the Prime, whose 25Wh cell lasted 10-plus hours in the same test. It also doesn't match the Acer Iconia Tab A510, new iPad or last year's iPad 2. That said, 9.5 hours should be plenty for most users, and it's longer than many other 10-inch tablets are capable of.

Meanwhile, the 16.5Wh battery inside the keyboard dock promises to add an extra five hours or so of runtime. We're in the process of running our battery test with the dock and will update our review once the results are in. In the meantime, remember that if you choose to use the OG Prime's dock you should enjoy even longer runtime, as the battery there is rated at 22Wh, compared with 16.5.

A quick note on charging: though you can use the included cable to charge the tablet over USB, that convenience doesn't apply to the keyboard dock. To charge that piece of equipment, you'll need to find yourself a power outlet.

As we mentioned back in the hardware walk-through, the TF700 has the same 8-megapixel, f/2.2 camera module as the TF300, except this guy also includes an LED flash for slightly better low-light shots. As you'll see in that gallery down there, the image quality is hardly perfect, but it's certainly better than what you'll get from most tablets. Though the camera struggles in harshly backlit situations, it does a better job of capturing close-ups than pretty much any other tablet we've tested. The autofocusing camera is also quick to lock in on subjects, and though we had the option of tapping to focus, we found we rarely needed this feature; the camera usually identified the most salient aspect of the shot on its own. Predictably, the auto-focusing sensor was most likely to stumble in dimmer conditions, though our low-light samples weren't actually that grainy. As it turns out, this wasn't just us being optimistic: ASUS has indeed tweaked the flash since releasing the original Transformer Prime.

That 8-megapixel camera is also capable of recording 1080p video, and we were similarly pleased with the level of detail in slower-moving clips. Unfortunately, though, you're likely to notice some ghosting once you start recording more high-octane scenes, like bicyclists riding by at a fast clip. As for audio quality, we appreciated that the dual mics picked up on background noise such as conversations and street music, but unfortunately they don't do nearly as good a job canceling wind noise (or, in our case, the sound of a mild breeze).

As you'd expect of any mid-2012 tablet, the TF700 ships with Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4.0.3, to be exact). But whereas Samsung has been known to TouchWiz a tablet or five, ASUS' tabs are among the few tablets we've seen lately that run vanilla Android. Boot up the Transformer for the first time and you'll see a weather widget waiting for you, but rest assured that you can chuck it in the trash if you find it really offensive. Ditto for the raft of pre-installed apps, which include Amazon Kindle, App Backup, App Locker, separate download and file managers, Glowball, Movie Studio, MyCloud, MyLibrary, MyNet, Netflix, a so-called People hub, Polaris Office, Press Reader, TegraZone Games and Zinio's magazine reader. A heavy load, but at least everything here is uninstallable. And hey, you could do much worse than bloatware: ASUS at least didn't muck with key UI elements, such as the clock or settings tray.

Also, as a nice added bonus, you get 8 gigs of complimentary lifetime ASUS WebStorage (the company used to offer unlimited space, but it was only free for the first year.)

With a 1920 x 1200 screen and a $499 starting price to match, there's little question that the TF700 was intended as a top-shelf device. By now, most tablet makers have lowered the price of their goods, leaving the Infinity with only a handful of competitors in the five-hundred-dollar range. Starting with the obvious, there's the new iPad, whose 2048 x 1536 Retina display is the densest you'll find on any mobile device. Spec watchers will note the entry-level iPad comes with 16GB of storage, not 32GB, and that it wasn't designed to be used with a keyboard dock, per se (not that there's any shortage of third-party options). Still, the iPad's screen is definitively the nicer of the two, and the iPad also delivers smoother performance; it just doesn't stumble the way the TF700 sometimes does.

Prefer an Android device, after all? The new Acer Iconia Tab A700 also has a 10-inch, 1920 x 1200 screen, along with a Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM. All told, these are similar specs, except Acer's model costs $50 less and runs a slightly more skinned version of Android. As it happens, we're in the process of testing one now, but aren't quite ready to post our impressions and benchmarks results. In the meantime, then, it's at least safe to say that the A700 sits in the same class as the Infinity TF700 and is definitely worth your consideration.

You know who hasn't given up on $500 tablets either? Toshiba, of all companies. After striking out with its Thrive lineup, the company has mostly found its way with the Excite 10, a $450 tablet that offers longer battery life and a slimmer design. Without question, it's the best tablet Toshiba has made to date, but is it the best Ice Cream Sandwich tablet at this price? Not really -- not when you take into account the Excite's performance hiccups and lackluster camera.

It's also worth noting that the TF700 could face competition from within the Transformer line: the original Prime is likely to see price drops, and we still recommend it on account of its epic battery life and similarly strong camera. (Cons: it has a lower-res display and has been known to have unreliable reception, not that that has ever been an issue for us.) Meanwhile, the TF300 costs $120 less than the entry-level TF700, and its performance and battery life aren't so far off what you'll get from this new top-shelf model.

Gosh, it would have been nice if the TF700 were around last fall. Compared to the Prime, the TF700 is an upgrade on most counts: it's slightly faster, the screen is sharper and there's now a plastic strip on the cover designed to give the underlying antennas more breathing room. As it is, though, the TF700 doesn't offer many reasons for Prime owners to upgrade, given that the battery life is actually longer on the original, and given the similar camera performance. Unless your Prime has signal reception issues, or you just have to have that higher-quality screen, you're better off sticking with what you already own.

If it is a crisp display you're after, you'd be foolish not to at least consider the new iPad: for the same money, it offers a lifelike 2048 x 1536 panel -- and it doesn't suffer from performance hiccups like the TF700 either. And you could easily find a third-party keyboard if the typing experience is so important to you. Still, if you're in the market for a new Android tablet, specifically, the TF700 should definitely be on your shortlist: it's not perfect, but it's among the best Ice Cream Sandwich tablets you'll find at any price.

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