Asus Eee Pad Transformer vs Toshiba Thrive?

inanition02

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All,

I have a chance to get one of these two for the holidays:

-Toshiba Thrive 10.1"
-Asus EeePad Transformer 10.1"

I'm torn - the price (to me) is the same ($0) and the capacity is the same in the models I'd be looking at. Each has positives and negatives as I see it. The Asus is thinner, a bit quicker (though they have the same specs - it "feels" a bit quicker) and according to reviews better battery life. The Toshiba has a full size USB slot (for flash drives and hard drives) and a full size HDMI out - so no adapter needed - it also recharges fully faster.

The big difference to me, and thing that prevents me from picking the faster Asus, is that the battery on the Asus is not end-user replaceable, whereas the Toshiba is. I plan to use this tablet every day so battery wear could be a big factor. I haven't had a tablet before - but in my experience cell phones and laptops start dying faster after a year or so - perhaps the Toshiba is the choice then since I can just buy a new battery and swap them?

What would you do given this choice? (And it's only those two - no "get an iPad")

Thanks!!
 

inanition02

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I should also note that (because I have a personal netbook and laptop and a work laptop) I wouldn't be purchasing the transformer "dock" that allows it to become a netbook.

So I don't see that as an advantage.
 

Ragnaarock

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Is your only choice the current gen ASUS? Because the new ASUS eee Transformer Prime is released december 9th. Price point is $500 and has the first Tablet quad-core processor, the new NVidia Tegra 3. May be worth waiting for someone to do a review of it and see if it will blow all the dual-cores out of the water since it is around the same price as the current ASUS eee Transformer. Not sure if it is going to support third party batteries though. Probably not since the current gen doesn't.