First look: Two new Toshiba tablet concepts

Toshiba had two new tablets on show at its 2012 consumer product preview earlier today.

The 7.7" and 13.3" tablets are only concept designs rather than production models and Toshiba was noncommittal about the chances of either going into production.

Toshiba tablet concepts

These concepts do at least suggest that Toshiba is considering more options than just the 10.1" AT200 tablet it has so far launched, though.

Toshiba tablet concepts

The 7.7" AT270' was seen at last month's Mobile World Congress and is a working prototype with a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Toshiba tablet concepts

It also has a vibrant AMOLED capacitive screen with 800 x 1280 resolution, which also looks very crisp at this size.

The 7.7" form factor is a reasonable trade-off between portability and usability, and the AT270 was comfortable to hold, but still perfectly functional with a fingertip.

Tablets smaller than this are largely pointless, not least since they offer little more functionality than a smartphone, but won't fit into a pocket as evidenced by the Samsung Galaxy Note. Indeed, the 5.1" widescreen tablet that Toshiba was showing at CES was nowhere in sight at today's event.

Toshiba tablet concepts

The 13.3" tablet is as-yet unnamed and its size made it rather ungainly to hold. This was a non-functioning unit though, so it was impossible to get a feel for how it might work in actuality.

Toshiba tablet concepts

Toshiba made no comment on its likely specification or operating system, although a similar looking tablet with an HD screen was on show at CES. Since the tablet doesn't conform to the hardware requirements for Windows 8, Android seems like a safe bet for the OS.

Verdict