Andrew Nimick Point Concept twitter.com/andrewnim

My thanks this week to Noel Leeming in Tauranga for the loan of the new Toshiba At100 Tablet .

First I will make a comparison to the Acer Tablet I used a few weeks ago. What I noticed was one of those strange anomalies of the PC world. The Toshiba had the same internal set up as the Acer with the same Nvidia processor and graphics. Yet it was a better user experience, transitions where smoother when changing rotation or changing apps. I also found the touch interface to be much better with less misses than I had experienced on the Acer.

The Toshiba is heavier than the Acer and far heavier than an ipad. But there is a simple reason for this; Toshiba decided it would be useful to let the consumer replace the battery. To allow this means a removable (and swappable) back cover and more internal parts. I can see use for this feature with groups such as emergency services. The tablet would be great for Police and Ambulance staff.

One thing about the back cover, it has a lot of grip, like holding a tyre, there is little chance of dropping the thing.

The Toshiba came with the standard USB and SD card ports whereas the Acer had only the USB I connected was seen by the Toshiba unlike the Acer. There is a HDMI port which we connected to a Panasonic television but could not get it to show us anything. That may be the television so it would be unfair to say it failed as I did not have time to try it on others.

Like the Acer the Toshiba was set to go to sleep very quickly and like the Acer the power button to bring it back to life was not well thought out and was hard to press. One annoying aspect was that the light for power was not next to the power button which meant you ended up feeling around for the button or tilting the tablet to see it first.

I found the Toshiba had very little tolerance for a low battery and would freeze up when started until the battery was charged enough. This means it needed constant topping up and a shorter real use time than the Acer.

As with the Acer I question the price of the Toshiba when compared to the ipad. I actually expect these prices to drop a small amount.

If you asked me to choose between the Acer and the Toshiba I would take the Toshiba. However at present there is no 3G it is only Wifi.

I was going to do a review of the HP Touchpad next and my thanks to Noel lemming for the kind offer. But as Hp have pulled it from production there is little point. A great shame. But I don't see this as the end of HP's WebOS which they ran on the Touchpad. In deed I expect to see it appear on Tablets from companies such as Samsung and Toshiba in the future. But not Acer. Their CEO seems to think Tablets are a fad. Any teachers want to comment on that one?