Toshiba’s next Honeycomb tablet leaked ahead of IFA 2011

Although not much is known about Toshiba’s new Honeycomb tablet, pictures doing the rounds on the internet show that it is a thin, sleek and light machine. This itself is an upgrade from Toshiba Thrive which is bulky and weighs 1.7 pounds.

The picture from Notebook Italia, shows slots for microUSB and microSD ports and cards designed at the side of the new tablet, as well as a combo headphones/microphone socket and HDMI port. There is a front facing webcam seen on the front as well. The tablet features a 10.1’’ touchscreen display similar to the Thrive’s. Its body is made of metal and glass, with chrome edges, quite unlike the body of the Thrive which is predominantly rubberised. The Toshiba brand name is embossed in the cover of the new tablet.

Though details of the hardware of the tablet will be released at IFA, experts are guessing, from the leaked pictures, that it will run on the NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipset. This is the same processor the Thrive runs on. Along with the dual-core processor, the tablet will also include 1 GB RAM and various other storage options. It will offer Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G/4G connectivity.

Toshiba has not yet been able to carve a niche for itself in the tablet market. From the looks of its latest tablet, it might just be able to offer consumers a sleek, powerful device. Toshiba would like to believe that its latest offering could compete against Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. 

Details about the tablets battery life, display resolution, processor speed, price etc will most likely be revealed at IFA in Berlin tomorrow. It will indeed be interesting to see how Toshiba’s latest all-touch tablet compares to other smart devices offered by the leaders of the market.