The good: The Toshiba Excite Pure has a Micro-HDMI port and a microSD slot, so you can add up to 64GB of additional storage space. It’s also one of the cheapest 10-inch tablets on the market at $299.
The bad: The tablet's physical display has an outdated resolution, limited viewing angles, and washed-out colors. The older Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM make the Excite Pure sluggish.
The bottom line: The Toshiba Excite Pure is one of the cheapest 10-inch tablets out there at $300, but even at that price, it's too expensive for the experience it offers.
The Toshiba Excite Pure is a forgettable 10-inch tablet that has a hard time challenging its competition. Even with a $300 price tag, the tablet isn't a good value thanks to its dated specs and poor screen resolution. In fact, it would be better to forgo the tablet altogether and either pay more for a higher-end 10-inch tablet, or size down to something smaller to get a better device.
Released in June, the Excite Pure is the lowest-priced in Toshiba's trio of new tablets in its refreshed Excite product line, with the Excite Pro and the Excite Write. While the Pro and the Write have high-end specs and the prices to match, Toshiba is hoping to lure in budget tablet shoppers with the lower-end and less costly $300 10-inch Excite Pure.
nside, the Excite Pure tablet has a 1.2GHz Tegra 3 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 1,280x800-pixel-resolution LCD glass capacitive touch-screen display and is running pure Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1. Those outdated specs hold the Pure back when competing against both other 10-inch tablets and tablets in a lower price range, since both categories have many devices with better screens and better guts.
The Excite Pure has similar specs to the Toshiba Excite 10 (not to be confused with theToshiba Excite 10 LE), the Pure's 2012 10.1-inch predecessor.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)
Design and external features
The Excite Pure has a champagne-colored polycarbonate back that wraps around the edges of the tablet. The back has a raised texture that feels more slippery than it looks. There's also a shiny Toshiba logo on the back. The edges of the tablet are curved, which makes the tablet easier to hold than the iPad, which has a sharper edge.
The Excite Pure has a champagne-colored polycarbonate back that wraps around the edges of the tablet. The back has a raised texture that feels more slippery than it looks. There's also a shiny Toshiba logo on the back. The edges of the tablet are curved, which makes the tablet easier to hold than the iPad, which has a sharper edge.
The front has a glass capacitive touch screen with a thick bezel. The screen is not always responsive to normal pressure, and I constantly found myself tapping the screen twice or three times to make a selection.
Looking at the tablet in landscape mode, the volume rocker, Micro-USB charging port, headphone jack, microSD slot, and Micro-HDMI port are on the left edge. On the top left of the tablet, there are two microphones on either side of the power/wake/sleep button. For left-handers this is probably great, but righties might find it awkward to use the controls.
Left and right speakers are at the bottom sides of the tablet in landscape mode, right where it feels natural to hold the device with one or both hands. Unless you awkwardly hold the tablet by the top edges, you're bound to cover one or both of the tiny speaker grilles.
A thick plastic cover folds back to reveal the microSD and Micro-HDMI ports on the left side. It sits flush with the tablet when closed. The microSD port gives the tablet up to 64GB in expandable memory, on top of the tablet's internal 16GB of storage space.
Hidden microSD slot and Micro-HDMI port
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)
At the middle top of the front bezel there's a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera. The camera quality is poor, and the images captured with it have a lot of noise. Still, it will get the job done if you need to video chat.
Given the tablet's wide screen and button placement, it's clear that Toshiba intends you use it to watch videos and play games in landscape mode. However, the wide screen also makes reading Web pages in portrait mode quite satisfying, since you can read a lot of text at a time. It's even easier to hold the tablet with one hand in portrait mode, though more about that in a minute.
Size and weight
The Excite Pure is just 0.4 inch thick, which makes it easy to hold in one hand. The tablet measures 10.3 inches wide and 7 inches high.
The Excite Pure is just 0.4 inch thick, which makes it easy to hold in one hand. The tablet measures 10.3 inches wide and 7 inches high.
The Toshiba Excite Pure has a thin profile, but is still sturdy.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)
The tablet weighs 1.39 pounds -- close in weight to the 1.44-pound iPad 4 -- making it heavy enough that it's uncomfortable to hold in one hand for more than a minute. You'll want to either hold the Excite Pure flat against your lap or lay it on a surface to watch movies or play games.
| Toshiba Excite Pure | Toshiba Excite 10 | Google Nexus 10 | Apple iPad 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight in pounds | 1.39 | 1.28 | 1.33 | 1.44 |
| Width in inches (landscape) | 10.3 | 10.3 | 10.4 | 9.5 |
| Height in inches | 7 | 7.1 | 6.9 | 7.3 |
| Depth in inches | 0.4 | 0.35 | 0.35 | 0.37 |
| Side bezel width in inches (landscape) | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.8 |
Operating system
The Excite Pure is so named because it ships with a "pure" version of Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1, meaning it's nearly the same Android experience that you'd find on a Nexus device with very few modifications from Toshiba. There are no overlays that change the look of Android, like we've seen on previous Toshiba tablets.
The Excite Pure is so named because it ships with a "pure" version of Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1, meaning it's nearly the same Android experience that you'd find on a Nexus device with very few modifications from Toshiba. There are no overlays that change the look of Android, like we've seen on previous Toshiba tablets.
Though Toshiba didn't change the look of the operating system, it couldn't help but include a few Toshiba system apps, such as a media player and a file system, and additional volume controls that emphasize music or voice. The Toshiba File Manager is easy to navigate and actually handy if you want to dig into system files, since Android doesn't come with a file manager.
Android 4.2.1
(Credit: Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET)
Toshiba also included proprietary news and book apps, an update center, a user guide, and an app store, all of which are just OK. The Excite Pure also comes preloaded with several popular Android apps, including Evernote, Amazon Kindle, and Netflix.
Whatever you do, stay away from the preinstalled Wild Tangent gaming center, listed as Games in the app drawer, which lets you play free games or rent them without ads. It's slow, clunky, and confusing to use -- you're much better off just downloading games, and apps in general, from Google Play.
Performance and speed
The Excite Pure doesn't win any points with its 1.2GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, which is outdated compared with newer and faster processors such as the Nvidia Tegra 4 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro, which are found in the Excite Pro and the 2013 Nexus 7, respectively.
The Excite Pure doesn't win any points with its 1.2GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, which is outdated compared with newer and faster processors such as the Nvidia Tegra 4 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro, which are found in the Excite Pro and the 2013 Nexus 7, respectively.
Scrolling through menus or home screens on the tablet is snappy. However, once I launched an app, I noticed the tablet slow down. Particularly, when I navigated around the tablet while an app downloaded in the background, I found the tablet would hang after I made a selection, meaning I would tap the back button and the tablet wouldn't respond for around 5 to 10 seconds.
For gaming and video streaming, the Excite Pure has a 12-core Nvidia GPU. The tablet handles HD video playback and simple games quite well, considering its older processor. You'll be able to run Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and other mobile games without any problems.
On the other hand, in my tests running the graphics-heavy game N.O.V.A. 3, it took the Excite Pure an average of 46 seconds to load up one level and the game was almost unplayable. There was significant lag between when I tapped the screen to shoot my gun or move the camera and when the game actually completed the actions.
N.O.V.A. 3 Level 1 load time (in seconds)(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Toshiba claims that the tablet's lithium ion battery gives it 12 hours of run time. In our test, the battery lasted for 6.3 hours while playing video on a continuous loop in airplane mode before it drained completely. The tablet uses a standard Micro-USB charger and includes a wall adapter. You can check out our battery testing procedure here, to get a better sense of how the tablet stacks up.
| Tablet | Video battery life (in hours) |
|---|---|
| Toshiba Excite Pure | 6.3 |
| Apple iPad 4 | 13.1 |
| Google Nexus 10 | 8.4 |
Display and screen resolution
For a 10.1-inch tablet, the Excite Pure's 1,280x800-pixel-resolution display (with 150 pixels per inch) is disappointing. Icons look grainy, small text is hard to read, and high-resolution photos aren't as sharp as expected.
For a 10.1-inch tablet, the Excite Pure's 1,280x800-pixel-resolution display (with 150 pixels per inch) is disappointing. Icons look grainy, small text is hard to read, and high-resolution photos aren't as sharp as expected.
A 1,280x800 resolution was typical in earlier 10-inch tablets, but we've since moved on to better screens: the Retina Display iPad has a 2,048x1,536-pixel (264 ppi) display and the Nexus 10packs a 2,560x1,600 (299 ppi) resolution.
The Toshiba Excite Pure's screen resolution is disappointing.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)
In addition to the poor resolution, the Excite Pure doesn't handle color very well. Colors are oversaturated and whites are much too bright. For instance, Google often uses colored text with a white background for pop-up messages in the Play store, and they are almost unreadable on the Excite Pure.
The physical display is more reflective than other tablets I've used. That presents a problem when you're using the table in direct sunlight or where there's indoor light from light fixtures behind you, as it will reflect off the screen and obscure whatever you're viewing, even at full brightness.
Toshiba says the tablet has an 170-degree viewing angle. However, as you start titling the tablet away from you, colors quickly become washed-out and distorted.
At full brightness, you can view the tablet in direct sunlight but the screen will still look dim. On the other end of the spectrum, the tablet gets really dark when you turn the brightness down. That's a plus for anyone who reads in bed at night and doesn't want to disturb the person sleeping nearby with too much light. In my experience, automatic brightness works well and adjusts to changing lighting conditions quickly.
| Tested spec | Toshiba Excite Pure | Google Nexus 10 | Apple iPad (third generation) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum brightness | 284 cd/m2 | 368 cd/m2 | 455 cd/m2 |
| Maximum black level | 0.06 cd/m2 | 0.44 cd/m2 | 0.49 cd/m2 |
Video and audio
High-definition video on the Excite Pure looks as clear as the mediocre screen will allow. Standard definition looks awful, so you'll want to opt for HD video for services such as YouTube or Netflix.
High-definition video on the Excite Pure looks as clear as the mediocre screen will allow. Standard definition looks awful, so you'll want to opt for HD video for services such as YouTube or Netflix.
In the settings menu, Toshiba has an option for high-quality video. I found that with that option turned on, colors appeared more saturated, but there was no discernible difference in picture clarity. If you want to test it out for yourself, turn on demo mode in the video enhancement menu, which shows the screen half in high quality and half not when you play video. The demo mode is barely noticeable when you turn it on, and I had a hard time telling the two sides of the screens apart.
Audio from the tablet's external left and right speakers is clear and impressive. You do have to be mindful of how you hold the tablet, because if you hold your hands over the speakers (which is easy to do because of where they're located), the audio becomes muffled.
At the highest volume level, music and sounds are loud enough to be heard over moderate background noise without becoming distorted. At the other end of the spectrum, sound can get so faint at the lowest levels that you'll need to be in a quiet room or hold your ear directly to one of the speakers to hear it.
When you tap the volume rocker on the side of the tablet, you'll see two scales. One is for the tablet's media volume (for audio playback and games) and the other was added by Toshiba to balance the audio to either emphasize music (shown as a music note) or voice (microphone). I played around with the setting while playing a music video and CNET news video and found that both voice and music sounded flat, no matter what I did to the scale. You can turn it off from the settings menu by going to Audio enhancement and unchecking the box next to Toshiba Audio Source Filtering.
Toshiba's built-in volume controls
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