Toshiba readies feature-pruned, profit-boosting Jelly Bean tablet
Lesser spec, unchanged price for AT300 Special Edition
Toshiba has announced a new member of its AT300 Android tablet range, this one running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
Bizarrely, punters will pay for the software upgrade by foregoing the existing, Ice Cream Sandwich-based AT300’s 5MP and 2Mp front- and rear-facing cameras in favour of 3Mp and 1.2Mp jobs. You can read our AT300 review here. The new tablet also lacks its predecessor’s micro HDMI port.
Yet it costs the same: £300 for the 16GB version.
In all other respects, the new AT300SE’s specifications match those of the AT300: five-core Nvidia Tegra 3 chip, 1GB of DDR 3 memory, 16-64GB of Flash storage, 10.1in 1280 x 800 IPC LCD screen, 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, micro USB and Micro SD ports.
To be fair, we’re not sure many folk care about a tablet’s photography abilities. The lack of a rear-facing camera doesn’t appear to have hindered sales of the Google Nexus 7, for instance. And in practice, a 1.2Mp webcam is just as good as 2Mp for Skype video calls.
How many buyers will feel pain when they discover the lack of HDMI output?
Those who might will best avoid the Toshiba’s profit margin-lifting AT300SE when it goes on sale shortly. ®
COMMENTS
That noise in the distance
Is the sounds on Apples lawyers racing to file.....it has rounded corners.
Does it have a service manual?
The post is required, and must contain letters - but I would prefer parcels.
Seems to be
Par for the course with Apple, so why won't everyone else follow? :(
