The Toshiba Excite 10 SE is a reconfiguration of the earlier Excite 10. Compared to the original, it has a plastic shell, no HDMI port and switches from full-sized SD card to microSD. The other notable change is the price. With Android 4.1, a Tegra 3 quad-core chipset and 1280-by-800 IPS display, both the price and feature set of the 10 SE place it in the middle of the pack for performance and value. This leaves only one problem, as mentioned by Ben Kersey of The Verve, “Overall, this feels like Toshiba’s attempt to have a tablet for every price point, but it’s hard to see why you’d pick up the Excite 10 SE when the Nexus 10 can be had for just $50 more.”
The tablet offers your standard set of ports and features. MicroSD card support allows for easy memory expansion, microUSB provides quick and easy connectivity and charging and Bluetooth and GPS support provides access to a wide range of accessories and apps. There are no major flaws to the 10 SE. The chassis of the device, while plastic, feels sturdy and well made. Performance is decent for gaming, productivity, web browsing and media consumption. The IPS display offer great viewing angles. While the display resolution might leave a little to be desired, it allows the tablet to run smoothly across a wide variety of tasks and apps. There is even support for most major audio and video formats without the need to download additional codecs or apps.
Perhaps the biggest problem facing the 10 SE is that while there is nothing horrible about the device, there is nothing memorable either. PC Magazine’s Eugene Kim said “The Toshiba Excite 10 SE is a fine Android tablet, it just lacks the stand-out features or low price that set most top-notch competitors apart.” One possible annoyance is the inclusion of a large amount of bloatware in the stock installation. PC Magazine noted “Aside from some useful Toshiba branded apps, like the file manager and media player apps, there are useless and undeletable apps like eBay, a redundant Toshiba app store, and a slew of Wild Tangent linked games.” Fortunately, most of this is fixed easily with a few taps of the uninstall button.
The Good: Solid build quality, 8 hour battery life, smooth performance and support for microSD.
The Bad: Bulky design, weak cameras and aging chipset.
What the Critics Are Saying...
- Scott Stein, CnetThe older Excite 10 started at $450 for 16GB onboard storage, in May 2012. The Excite 10 SE's starting price of $349 doesn't seem like that much of a bargain almost a year later, especially since the older Excite 10 was overpriced for the Android tablet market. If you end up with an Excite 10 SE, it...
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