Toshiba Excite 13 Pro Reviews

Put simply, the Toshiba Excite 13 is a huge tablet. It's a capable tablet, too, with a quad-core Tegra 3 processor that handles Ice Cream Sandwich well, but we imagine there are many people who won't get past its size and give it a whirl. In that regard, the Excite 13 reminds us of the Galaxy Note, a super-sized phone that never fails to produce a love-it or hate-it reaction. Sizeism aside, Toshiba's 13-incher is prohibitive in another way: cost. Shelling out $650 ($750, if you want the 64GB version) for a tablet that pretty much defies mobility is a bit ... impractical. We also couldn't bring ourselves to pay a premium for a device with such forgettable specs: a Tegra 3 CPU and a garden-variety LCD display. Why, you could easily find a similarly equippped tablet for $500 -- or less, even. Now it's true, Toshiba bundles a stand with this product, which is a big indicator of its unique place in the market: it could live on your desk, ready and able to cater to your gaming and Netflix-watching whims. If that setup suits your fancy, the Excite 13's has the capacious screen and solid performance to cut it. While you're at it, though, you might want to look into getting a wall mount.

The huge, pricey Toshiba Excite 13 tablet doesn't offer enough content to fill its vast screen.

Toshiba's come a long way in the tablet world. The Thrive line was filled with huge, clunky devices, and the Excite 10 LE sacrificed everything (and I mean everything) to be as thin as possible. The new Excite tablets find a much better middle ground, combining great internals and solid performance with up-to-date software, all in a body that looks and feels good. The case for the Excite 13 is a simple one, and to some people will be really compelling. If you want a tablet that only travels as far as the distance between rooms in your home, that's great for watching movies, playing games, looking up recipes, or using as a serving tray, the Excite 13 is a pretty great device. All the extra screen real estate does cause a few problems, especially in games, but for relaxing on the couch and doing some light web surfing or plowing through a queue of YouTube videos, it's a pretty great device.

Ultimately, only the individual customer knows what's good for him or her, and the ideal screen size depends on what the tablet is being used for. While I commend Toshiba for providing costumers with more choices and more space for those who need it, it's hard to imagine a time where those extra 3.3 inches are completely necessary. Though the Toshiba Excite 13 was meant for the home, the portability of a tablet is part of its appeal. When propped up or docked, it functions beautifully and you don't feel like you're using one of Moses' rock slabs in "The Ten Commandments." But with this device, it feels more like you're lugging this thing around than carrying it. In addition to the high cost, there's also the fact that most media files won't fit its aspect ratio perfectly, rendering that screen even more of a waste.