People really will drive through wind and snow, in the darkness of early morning, on a Sunday to get to the gadgets they need for the holidays! I did it—when I stepped out of my house to get to Best Buy, to check out the Toshiba gadgets on my quest to be a Holiday Hero, I drove out in the dark through the blizzard-y snow to get there early. I did this trip alone because not everyone is so anxious to get out of the house so early in the morning. . .at least not in my family. Having the store mostly to myself didn’t last long—those (we?) crazy Calgarians don’t think much of a ‘bit’ of snow—soon the store was packed with holiday shoppers, and I had to weave in and out of people to get to the objects of my quest.
In the nicely displayed tablet section of the Best Buy Sunridge store in Calgary, I saw many too-small tablets from questionable brands. Where did all these tablets come from? The Toshiba Tablet, which comes in 3 models— an 8GB, a 16GB and a 32GB format. It stands apart from others because it is the thinnest and lightest tablet out there—not bad for a 10.1″ tablet! The BestBuy store only had the 16 and 32 GB models, which I imagine are the more popular ones.
I’m usually really nervous asking for help in stores. Honestly, I can figure out more things on my own, and I really don’t like pushy commission salespeople trying to make me buy things I don’t want. I didn’t have a problem with this at Best Buy though, since the store in non-commission based. The friendly guy in the computer department told me that they’d sold quite a few of the Toshiba Thrive Tablets during the holiday season. Their (relatively) low price point made them ideal for gift-giving.
What can you do with the Toshiba Thrive tablet? Oh, lots! Out of the box you can go online and browse the internet on Android 3.1 Honeycomb, check out the maps (see my video for restaurant listing brought up super quickly by looking on the map app, great for when you’re in a new area!), and so much more. There is a way to easily scroll through all apps in a vertical format, but you can scroll horizontally for ones you’ve placed on the desktop, too.
I also checked around for the Toshiba Passive 3D TL5115 HDTV whilst there. I found the TV and learned that it uses advanced technology to allow viewers to experience 3D TV watching in such as way as to not strain their eyes—just like watching in a movie theatre. I can’t believe that you can view regular movies in 3D, too—there is 2D to 3D conversion! Stuff like this amazes me—the future is here! I don’t think anyone would hesitate calling you a Holiday Hero if you put this TV under the (necessarily oversized) tree this year!
I used my new Camileo Video Camera from Toshiba in to put together this video. Once I’ve used it a few times, I’m sure that my video posts will be more interesting! I checked out Toshiba’s Twitter page and love how they interact with their customers. This makes me love the company more. They just finished up a Holiday Hero contest on Facebook. Check out the page to see the entries and winners.
I am participating in the Toshiba Brand Ambassador program by www.ShesConnected.com. I received a Toshiba Camileo in exchange for my participation in this campaign. The opinions on this blog are my own.