[turnyourbackandrun]

Hi guys, I've been lurking these forums for a little while monitoring the CM7 progress. Now I need some advice. I work at RadioShack, and I bought a demo Touchpad (32gb), used the demo hack successfully, and now am patiently waiting for the wonderful CM7 team to do their magic. The store I bought it from called about a week ago and said they had a new retail unit being shipped to the store, and that I could come in and swap it out when it got there. They just called again and said that they couldn't get the retail unit (not surprising), but I could swap it out for a Toshiba Thrive instead. (In case anyone is wondering, idk if any other stores would honor this. I think it's a pretty unique situation.) So here's my list of pros and cons so far for the Thrive:

Pros:
GPS built in (this is a big one!)
full-sized HDMI and USB ports
rear-facing camera (have an actual camera. don't care.)
slightly bigger screen
replaceable battery

Cons:
heavy and ugly (but not too much worse than the Touchpad)
giant non-USB charger
no awesomely fast-paced dev community (but there is root and a couple ROMs elsewhere.)

What should I do? Thanks in advance. (Oh, and sorry about my first post being needy. Didn't plan for this.)

 

[mputtr]

unfortunately it's up to you.
if you put the thrive in a case, maybe it'll be less ugly? From my experience playing with the thrive, i felt the body felt cheap but it does have a ton of ports and all that.
If you really want to be guaranteed a brand new tablet that already has android and rooted, then I suggest go for the thrive, but if you want to chance it with the touchpad (which i'm not worried due to CM's track record), then you can do that, but just keep in mind that you should consider what is more important to you and if you get a chance at a native android tablet, then maybe.. it's a good deal.
Good luck

 

[ximbecile]

I've got a rooted/ROM'd Thrive, and I love it. It is a tad bit heavy, but I have strong forearms so it doesn't bother me. They make some nice cases and peripherals for it too. There isn't a whole lot of development for it yet, they are building a team for making ROMs. Most of the people don't know much about whats going on with them, but seem pretty knowledgeable about SOME things.

If I had to buy a tablet again, I would probably still pick the Thrive.

That said, I haven't touched the Touchpad yet... so I may be biased.

*another Pro ~ removable/expandable SDcard
*another Pro ~ giant charger charges in a short amount of time, vs all day

 

[olagaton]

I was in the same situation as the OP. Bought a HP Demo Unit from Radioshack, but have already decided that I am going to end up swapping it for the Thrive after thinking long and hard about it. I actually have another TP potentially coming from HP SMB in a few weeks, and had already pondered selling both to make raise enough to buy the Thrive anyways. With the Radioshack swap situation arising, I can essentially get the Thrive for 60% off ($149.99 down from $350-400); and possibly just sell/cancel the HP SMB order (any buyers??, lol) to end up with a $150 tablet anyways.

The pro's and con's listed pretty much sum it up, though I do actually like the "rugged" backing of the Thrive more than the slick back of the Touchpad. I found myself babying my TP a lot in the month since I picked it up. Personally, the HDMI port, and the fact that it already has Android are biggies for me, since I was planning to put CM on the TP eventually, anyways, and was getting tired of the WebOS platform and the Ad-hoc issues with tethering. With the Thrive, it pretty much remedies all of that instantly, plus the bigger screen certainly calls as well.

One thing to note that hasn't yet been mentioned is that the HP Touchpad Demo was 32GB installed, with no expansion slot, but the Thrive they are allowing the swap for is only 16GB, but it does have the expansion slot (mentioned by someone else), so technically it is a step backwards, but certainly something that can be fixed very inexpensively, especially with the employee discount.

 

[turnyourbackandrun]

Thanks for everybody's input. I swapped it out for the Thrive (yeah, none of the stores had the 32gb so I got the 16gb) and am playing with it now. I still am mildly considering ebaying it, although I've already decreased the value by opening it. Most likely I'll be keeping it. The storage doesn't really bother me, especially now that apps can go on the SD card easily. (and yeah, that employee discount is nice Anyway I know this is a Touchpad thread not a Thrive thread... thanks again.

Oh and first person to PM me can have a Skinomi screen protector for the touchpad for the cost of shipping. Packaging is mangled, but it was never applied.

 

[kernelhappy]

Take the Thrive, sell it on ebay unopened for $350, buy Touchpad off ebay for $200-225, put $125 in your pocket.

 

[excaliber88]

I would keep the Thrive, a tablet natively designed to run Android will always be better than a hacked solution.

 

[jbg22003]

I would keep the Thrive, a tablet natively designed to run Android will always be better than a hacked solution.

Ahem, it had Android running on it before WebOS. all the hardware is on multiple devices that run android, the hacked versions of Droid Run Faster and better then most stock,

 

[turnyourbackandrun]

@kernel: I actually had planned on that, until I had the Thrive new in box in front of me, and couldn't keep my hands off of it

Oh, and the screen protector is now spoken for.

 

[scifan]

I've played with a thrive, and they're pretty cool... at the same price point, honestly, I'd seriously consider the thrive. you're giving up drive space, but gaining a SD card. if you can get them to throw in a 16GB SD, you'd be doing pretty well... it's dual core and has the same amount of ram... and the screen aspect ratio's right...

 

[Immolate]

The Touchpad/Android community is at least 2/3 of the reason I'm interested in a tablet. Why would I pay hundreds more to deprive myself of the nerdy goodness? That's like applying normal-people logic to a techno-geek problem.

 

[piiman]

The Touchpad/Android community is at least 2/3 of the reason I'm interested in a tablet. Why would I pay hundreds more to deprive myself of the nerdy goodness? That's like applying normal-people logic to a techno-geek problem.

Make perfect since to me

 

[turnyourbackandrun]

The Touchpad/Android community is at least 2/3 of the reason I'm interested in a tablet. Why would I pay hundreds more to deprive myself of the nerdy goodness? That's like applying normal-people logic to a techno-geek problem.

You wouldn't. Read OP.

Sorry, let me clarify. This thread was comparing a Touchpad at $150 to a Thrive at $150 (read OP to see why), not a Touchpad at $150 to a Thrive at $400.