Toshiba Thrive faces sleep and reboot bugs

Toshiba faced a second rocky tablet launch this weekend after mounting reports from the company's forums and elsewhere of serious power management issues. Owners are finding the device frequently refusing to wake from sleep and requiring a hard reset. Others have had the reverse problem and seen the tablet turn on itself without prompting.

The flaws creep up even on completely stock devices with no installed apps. Some have claimed to have a fix through changing the Wi-Fi disconnect and screen timeout settings, but the solution doesn't appear to be consistent. Not everyone is encountering the problem.

Toshiba hasn't formally addressed the glitches so far but may have its hand forced by the market, where swaps are purportedly common. "Best Buy returns are apparently on the high side," one forum poster was told.

The experiences mar Toshiba's long-in-waiting entrance into the US tablet market, which came half a year after the tablet was first shown at CES in January. It's also the second for the company in less than a year to be plagued by technical flaws. A UK launch for Toshiba's first Android tablet, the Folio 100, encountered so many bugs and build quality issues that the tablet was temporarily pulled from shelves due to the high return rate.

Its issues come with a degree of irony. Toshiba had repeatedly bragged of having a superior option to the iPad months before the Thrive was on the market. In the intervening time, Apple has upgraded to the iPad 2 and will have likely shipped over 10 million with few issues.

By Electronista Staff

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gadgets, Toshiba, Android, Best Buy, Apple, iPad, Thrive