CES 2011: Toshiba launches the Toshiba Tablet

In advance of CES, Toshiba has announced its entry in the Android tablet market, known as the Toshiba Tablet. It will be quite some time before it will go on sale in the U.S.: Release is slated for the first half of this year, which means the Toshiba Tablet may not be available until as late as June.

Most tablets we've seen thus far have been encased in glossy metals or hard plastic. But Toshiba takes a different approach with a slip-resistant, rubberized back cover for its Toshiba Tablet to provide a good grip.

The 10.1-inch (screen diagonal) Tablet, available in different colors, emphasizes multimedia, with a 1280-by-800 (720p), 16:10 widescreen and two stereo speakers instead of the single one found on other tablets. The display is adaptive, so that contrast and brightness will automatically adjust to fit the lighting environment.

The Tablet also features a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for videoconferencing and a 5-megapixel rear camera. And the Tablet addresses other features missing from the iPad with an SD Card slot, USB port, miniUSB port, HDMI port (with support up to 1080p) and support for Flash video.

The Toshiba Tablet will run the new version of Google's Android operating system, called Honeycomb, which has been designed specifically for tablets. Movies, music, and other content will be available from the Toshiba Places market. Books can be purchased from the Toshiba BookPlace market.

In its announcement, Toshiba was unclear about whether the Tablet will have full access to the Android Market for apps, a feature we consider very important to an Android tablet. When I meet with Toshiba at CES later this week, I'll try to fill in this important missing piece of information.

Toshiba says the "targeted" starting weight for the Tablet will be less than 1.7 pounds. That's roughly the same as the Apple iPad, but quite a bit heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Amazon Kindle e-book reader. The battery is user-replaceable, an advantage over the iPad and Galaxy Tab.

—Donna Tapellini

—Carol Mangis