Toshiba Excite 7.7,The controls and buttons are easy to operate but not easy to accidentally press.

In fact, nearly everything in our Excite 10 review holds true for the Excite 7.7: it's fast, very stable and the quality is top notch. The controls and buttons are easy to operate but not easy to accidentally press.  The software customization is minimal (a good thing) and the software bundle is mostly useful. The tablet is very attractive and light: both important in a world dominated by the iPad. The tablet has stereo speakers, a front 2MP camera and a 5MP rear camera. It has single band WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth and a GPS. There's a microSD card slot for storage expansion and a micro USB port that supports USB host (host cable not included). That means you can use USB flash drives (FAT32 not NTFS), portable hard drives, keyboards, mice and game controllers with the Excite 7.7. The tablet lists for $499 for the 16 gig version and $579 for the 32 gig model. The Excite 7.7, like the rest of the Excite family, runs Android OS 4 Ice Cream Sandwich and there's no skin to slow you down. Stability is very good as is speed. In fact, Toshiba did well to wait and tweak their ICS tablets because the Excite 7.7 and Excite 10 have been among the quickest and most well behaved Android tablets we've tested (and we test them all!). Display: Love it! The Excite 7.7 diverges from the Excite 10 in a good way: its AMOLED display is drop dead gorgeous and the light bleed that plagues the 10.1" model is absent here (AMOLED displays don't usually have light bleed problems, unlike LCD displays). The only thing we miss from the Excite 10 is the HDMI port, which is increasingly rare on 7" tablets. The 1280 x 800 resolution is relatively high for a tablet this size, and the result is extremely sharp text (sharper than the 1024 x 600 Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet) and great looking photos and video. Brightness is good but not among the brightest tablets, and AMOLED displays do tend to fade more in bright sunlight vs. their LCD counterparts. But overall, it's hard to beat the zingy yet not unnatural colors and sharpness of this screen.

Toshiba Excite 7.7 Video Review

Performance and Horsepower

The Toshiba Excite 7.7 runs on a quad core 1.3GHz NVidia Tegra 3 CPU with a fifth low power companion core and GeForce graphics. The Tegra 3 and the Qualcomm S4 dual core are currently the fastest CPUs on the market, but the Qualcomm S4 hasn't found its way to tablets yet. The Excite has a gig of RAM and 16 gigs of internal storage. It feels fast and it is fast. Here are the benchmarks:

Benchmarks

	Quadrant	GLBenchmark 2.1Egypt Offscreen	AnTuTu	Sunspider JavaScript Test
Toshiba Excite 7.7	3996	61 fps	9559	2002
Toshiba Excite 10	4143	63 fps	11,056	1935
Nexus 7	3638	64 fps	N/A	1720
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7	3545	49 fps	7050	2003
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0	2705	28 fps	4841	2288

The Competition

The Toshiba's most direct competitor is the also lovable Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. The Tab 7.7 is also expensive and in the US it's only offered as a carrier model with 4G through Verizon. Alternatively, you could import a non-Verizon Galaxy Tab 7.7, but that's also pricey. The Toshiba Excite 7.7 beats the Samsung thanks to its faster quad core CPU and easier access to USB host features (it's hard to find Samsung's USB host dongle adapter in stores). The Toshiba ships with Android OS 4.0, while the several months older Samsung hit the market with Android 3.2 Honeycomb. The Tab 7.7 has a more heavily skinned version of 

 Android thanks to Samsung's TouchWiz software, while the Excite has a relatively clean and unskinned OS.

Google's Nexus 7 tablet, built by Asus, is clearly a threat, but it goes after the lower end market where the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet live. The 16 gig Nexus 7 will sell for a very affordable $249 and it has some solid features like the Tegra 3 quad core CPU and an IPS display. It also runs a slightly newer version of Android: 4.1 Jelly Bean. But it lacks Gorilla Glass and goes with a more budget oriented soft touch plastic back rather than the metal back on the Toshiba. The Nexus 7 doesn't have a rear camera, while the Toshiba Excite 7.7 has a 5MP rear camera.

Battery Life

The Toshiba has a 1 cell, 15 Watt/hour Lithium Ion battery that's sealed inside the case. Seven inch tablets can go either way: they can have long battery life thanks to the smaller display or they can have short runtimes since there isn't as much room for the battery compared to 10" tablets. Happily, despite the fast quad core CPU, the Excite 7.7 averaged 10.1 hours on a charge with moderate use. That falls short of the record-breaking Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, but it beats most 10" tablets on the market, including the new iPad.

Conclusion

The tablet lists for $499 (16 gig). That's a high price for a 7" class tablet, and in fact it's the same price as the Toshiba Excite 10. I know many of you expect smaller tablets to be less expensive, and Toshiba's pricing is surprising. That said, it's currently the best 7" class tablet on the market. The 0.3", 13 ounce tablet is thin, light and stylish. But it's not just good looks: the 1.3GHz Tegra 3 quad core is every bit as fast as 10" Android tablets. The AMOLED display is alive with color yet not unnatural looking and it's fantastic for watching movies. The tablet is also fast and stable, and the rear camera takes decent photos and video.

Price: $499 for 16 gig, $579 for 32 gig

Website: www.toshiba.com

Description: Toshiba Excite 7.7,The controls and buttons are easy to operate but not easy to accidentally press. Rating: 4.5 Reviewer: Unknown ItemReviewed: Toshiba Excite 7.7,The controls and buttons are easy to operate but not easy to accidentally press.