Toshiba Excite Write vs Samsung GALAXY Note Specs Comparison

Despite being sold in a niche market, the existence of note-dedicated tablets is still needed by most of tablet shoppers out there.

(Toshiba Excite Write vs Samsung GALAXY Note Specs Comparison)

There are many options available in this category, from really popular Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 and Microsoft Surface Pro, to a small player like Toshiba Excite Write.

Yes, most of these tablets offer great note-taking experience for those productive users out there and even designers as well. So this is the reason why I’m excited today to talk about note tablets.

I know that many of them available on the street and some of them haven’t got the chance to be showcased on this website, like the latest-gen Microsoft Surface Pro tablets or iPad Pro.

But I will definitely bring them up on this website in the near future.

In fact, I’ve been preparing some materials for these new-gen tablets for next future reviews. So be sure to stick around on this website if you’re interested to know more.

Anyway, today in this comparison review, I’m about to show you the rivalry between 2 note tablets from Android camp, the first one is Toshiba Excite Write and its challenger is Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1.


Well, if you’re on the same page with me and wanna know about their comparisons in many aspects, as well as my take on their gaming performances, then here check this one out guys, my comparison review between Toshiba Excite Write and Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 (2014).

Enjoy!


To be honest, I’ve always been a big fan of HP Slate7 Extreme or Nvidia Shield Tablet because not only do these tablets have great powerful gaming performances, but they also offer something that not many other devices do.

And that is the capability to write the digital pen or stylus.

However, HP Slate7 Extreme and Nvidia Shield Tablet are not the only 2 note-taking devices that have great writing experiences from their styluses. There’s more.

And 2 of them are the ones that get compared in this review – Toshiba Excite Write and Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 (2014).

Actually, when we talk about note-dedicated tablets, the first device that will pop up in our minds is definitely Samsung GALAXY Note because this note series from Samsung was the pioneer in note-tablet market and has been the biggest player in this tablet category for the past couple of years.

On the other hand, Toshiba Excite Write is still considered as a dust in the universe because it’s not really popular in note tablet market and not many people know about this device.

However, despite being a small player in note tablet territory, there are actually tons of great things that we can appreciate from this Toshiba’s slate.

First of all, its gaming performance.

So Toshiba Excite Write is really powerful in gaming performance. And that's thanks to its Tegra 4 processor that is rocking a 72-core GPU.

Second of all, this not-so-popular tablet is sporting a super-high-resolution display, the same resolution display that Samsung uses on Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 (2014). So there will be a great sharpness found on the screen of Toshiba Excite Write.

But the questions remain, with all of the greatness and superiority found on each of these 2 note tablets, which one between Toshiba Excite Write and Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 (2014) that deserves to be the best gaming tablet in this review?

Which one is the best tablet in the whole aspect, especially as a note device?

Is it worth it to buy any of these tablets for playing high-performing games?


To be honest, I don’t have enough information concerning the design of Toshiba Excite Write. So I have nothing to share in this regard. But from what I’ve seen on one video review on YouTube about this tablet, Toshiba Excite Write actually looks quite generic with its design.

There’s nothing special and unique about this tablet, especially compared to other rivals like Google Nexus 10, Sony Xperia Tablet Z or iPad Air, which all of these guys have their own uniqueness and characteristics that totally make them look stand out in the competition.

This is the opposite with the 2014 edition of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 with its design. I think this Samsung’s tablet really excels and has the edge here in this department, especially compared to Toshiba Excite Write.

It has this unique faux leather finish on the back, fake stitching near the edge of that rear case and also, fake metallic trim around the side of this device.

Even though all of these elements are not made out of real leather and metallic materials, they actually still make Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 look quite elegant and premium.

The design of this Samsung’s note tablet actually kind of reminds me with the same exact design of its sibling, Samsung GALAXY Note 3, which was released a few months before the bigger variant came out.

As a matter of fact, Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 actually takes almost all the design cues of Samsung GALAXY Note 3. So they both share the same faux leather, fake stitching and fake metallic trim around the side.

And just like Note 3, the 2014 edition of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 of course also has that dedicated port for the S-Pen on the back.

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Toshiba Excite Write

Samsung GALAXY NOTE 10.1 (2014)

No SIM Released 2013, July 671.3 g (Weight) Stylus 10.1 inch LED-backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors 2560 x 1600 pixels,(~299 ppi pixel density) Quad-core Cortex-A15 Nvidia Tegra 4 Chipset ULP GeForce GPU 2 GB RAM Android OS 4.2.1 Jelly Bean 8 MP rear-facing camera (autofocus and LED flash) 3264 x 2448 pixels 1.2 MP front-facing camera microSD Card slot for up to 32 GB 32 GB Internal storage Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band Bluetooth microUSB v2.0 Accelerometer, gyro, compass Sensors HTML5 Browser GPS No Radio HDMI port Java MIDP emulator Silver Colors Non-removable 33 Wh Li-Po battery Up to 11 hours for Talk time (multimedia)

Released October 2013, S Pen stylus 10.1 inch Super clear LCD capacitive touchscreen, 2560 x 1600 pixels, (~299 ppi pixel density) Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400 CPU (LTE model) Adreno 330 (LTE model) GPU 3 GB RAM Android OS, v4.3 (Jelly Bean) Samsung TouchWiz UI microSD Card slot for up to 64 GB 16/32/64 GB Internal storage 8 MP rear-facing camera, LED flash 2 MP front-facing camera Micro-SIM GPRS EDGE Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band Radio TBD Java Bluetooth Infrared port GPS USB Non-removable Li-Po 8220 mAh battery Up to 2230 hours Stand-by Up to 49 hours (3G) Talk time Up to 98 hours Music play

Both Toshiba Excite Write and Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 are no doubt two high-end flagship devices from Toshiba and Samsung. So they are powerful and superior when it comes to spec sheet as well as performance.

So Toshiba Excite Write features a Tegra 4 quad-core processor, which we know is one powerful chipset with a staggering 72-core GPU.

And then, it has 2GB of RAM, an 8MP rear-facing camera with LED flash, 1.2MP front shooter, external storage for up to 32GB, a 33Wh battery and of course, an insanely sharp 10.1-inch screen sporting the 2560x1600 pixels resolution.

The same happens to the 2014 edition of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1.

So it comes with a powerful Snapdragon 800 processor and Adreno 320 GPU, plus 3GB of RAM in the sector of performance.

And then, an 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a 2MP front shooter are responsible here in photography.

It’s powered by a huge 8220mAh battery and supported with external storage for up to 64GB via microSD card.

By looking at some crucial parts of their specs, we can see right through here that both Toshiba Excite Write and Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 are definitely high-end flagship tablets.

I mean, they have superior performances, their cameras are top notch, their batteries are huge and they have super high-resolution screens.


Samsung GALAXY Note series has always been one of the best note-dedicated tablet series on the market for the past couple of years. In fact, it is still the best in the world (of course before iPad Pro came around).

It’s no exception with the 2014 edition of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1.

I probably will not talk a lot about the S-Pen stylus of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 because we know already how great and amazing it is.

But in simple words, not only can you take some simple notes or write some novels with the S-Pen on Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1, but you can also create some beautiful paintings out of this digital pen.

This is why Samsung GALAXY Note series has been the top choice for most of designers and artists out there for the past couple of years. They know how great it is to accommodate their passions of designing and painting more professionally.

All thanks to N-trig that develops the technology behind this S-Pen (as well as on HP Slate7 Extreme and Microsoft Surface Pro), which is basically to make sure that its writing experience is close to the experience of writing on a real paper.

So on Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1, you can easily control the thickness of the S-Pen on the fly by applying more pressure of the S-Pen to the screen.

I mean, if we put pressure to the S-Pen little bit harder on the screen, the results will be thicker.

On the other hand, if the pen is applied softly on the screen, the results will be really thin, which is awesome because with this capability, you no longer need to choose a bunch of thickness options through the setting.

However, this is totally the opposite with the stylus of Toshiba Excite Write.

So unlike the S-Pen that is so awesome with its realistic writing experience, the stylus of this Toshiba’s tablet is the other way around.

So everytime you want to draw a bold line on the screen with the stylus, you must firstly choose which type of thickness from the available options that you really want to apply on the screen.

It goes the same when you want to draw a thin line. And this ruins the whole drawing/writing experience on this device.


As far as screen sharpness is concerned, there’s actually no significant difference of sharpness found on the screens of both tablets.

They have the same exact 10.1-inch displays sporting the same exact 2560x1600 pixels resolution. And overall, the screens on these 2 tablets look insanely sharp and gorgeous.

Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 with its Super Clear LCD is definitely a top notch quality display with the usual over-saturated colors. So everything on the screen looks really crisp and vivid with popping out colors.

But surprisingly, the same thing also happens to the screen of Toshiba Excite Write.

So based on some video reviews on YouTube about this tablet, the screen of Toshiba Excite Write not only has the sharpness, but also looks quite gorgeous with well-saturated colors and great viewing angle.

On software side, they both are running on the same Android platform, with Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 getting Android 4.3 Jelly Bean out of the box, while Toshiba Excite Write comes with slightly older Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean version.

However, these 2 tablets come pre-installed with entirely different UIs here. So Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1, as usual, comes with Samsung’s own heavily-customized TouchWiz UI.

Meanwhile, on Toshiba’s tablet, the UI looks little bit like the stock version of Android, although there are still some customizations found here and there like on the icons, wallpaper and stuff.

But it’s not as heavily-customized as the TouchWiz UI of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1.

This is a good thing because it will allow this Toshiba’s tablet to perform really fast and smooth, without squeezing a lot of power from its already-huge battery, especially when we already know that Tegra 4 processor is one power hungry processor.

And that’s proved by how Toshiba Excite Write is so great when it comes to battery life. It lasted almost 8 hours and 12 minutes in moderate use, according to battery benchmark test.

However, Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 impressively managed to top that achievement by reaching over 24 hours and 20 minutes for browsing with WiFi in minimum brightness.

But of course, the battery lives of both Toshiba Excite Write and Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 are not gonna last that long (probably around 6 hours) if you use any of these devices to do some heavy intense tasks without resting the screen at all, like for watching movies in marathon or playing games in the row.


If there is one strongest point found on Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1, then it’s definitely its cameras.

So if you’re a huge fan of photography and you love taking photos or recording videos, then you can totally count on the cameras of this note tablet to accommodate your hobby.

I’m actually not gonna talk a lot about this because I already know that many flagship devices from Samsung, either smartphones or tablets, mostly have great quality cameras.

As for the cameras of Toshiba Excite Write, unfortunately, I haven’t seen any photos or videos taken with its cameras. So to be perfectly honest, I have nothing to share here in this regard.

But by looking at the camera specs of this tablet, 8MP on the back and another 1.2MP on the front, plus LED flash, then all I can say is, these cameras probably are not that bad in terms of sharpness and quality, if not as great as the cameras of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1.

But you can still count on them to take photos/videos.

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Toshiba Excite Write looks so superior with a Tegra 4 quad-core processor, coupled with 72-core ULP GeForce GPU and 2GB of RAM. So on paper, of course this tablet really screams a lot in performance, especially for gaming.

But Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 is also an impressive performer here, thanks to Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor, a huge 3GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. So this note-dedicated tablet is also a beast when it comes to gaming performance.

However, the 2014 edition of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 actually has 2 different versions - the LTE and WiFi/3G models.

So the LTE model comes with hardware package that consists: Snapdragon 800 processor, Adreno 330 GPU and 3GB of RAM.

Meanwhile, the 3G/WiFI variant got the other package: Samsung Exynos 5 Octa 5420 octa-core chipset, 3GB of RAM and Mali-T628 MP6.

These 2 packages actually are incredibly powerful in performance. However, from what I’ve seen from a video review from theVerge, the 3G/WiFi model of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 apparently is not that powerful.

So there are still some choppiness and stutters especially when deploying some heavy tasks like opening Samsung News Hub and also when playing heavy games like GTA San Andreas.

The super-sharp display of this tablet could be the culprit of that problem because the processor inside this tablet (Samsung Exynos 5420) is probably not sufficient enough to run this type of screen in such a heavy UI.

And we know how heavy the TouchWiz of Samsung GALAXY devices, especially the NOTE series, filled with many bloatwares and features, especially for the S-Pen.

So if you’re on the verge of buying Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1, I strongly recommend you to pick up the LTE model as this variant is more powerful in performance than the 3G and WiFi-only models.

But even so, the 3G/WiFi version of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 is still a great performer, but it’s just not on the same level with the LTE model.

Anyway, according to some benchmark tests held by some tech sites on the net, both Toshiba Excite and Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 managed to grab some decent scores.

Toshiba Excite Write with its Tegra 4 processor reached 12.272 points in Quadrant v2, 26.696 points in Antutu and 851.03 points in Sunspider 0.9.1.

On the flip side, Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 also looked impressive in Antutu benchmark test with 32.408 points. Meanwhile, in GFXBench T-Rex HD (on screen), this note tablet managed to run the app in 13.8 fps (frame rate per second).

As far as the gaming performance goes, basically you can play any kind of games on any of these devices.

Even the latest and most graphically demanding games like Asphalt 8: Airborne, Modern Combat 4, GTA Vice City, NOVA 3, Need for Speed Most Wanted or even GTA San Andreas, all can be played perfectly in buttery smooth performance, either on Toshiba Excite Write or Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1.

And their battery lives are also great and long lasting, even for doing heavy stuff like gaming. So you can play games on these 2 devices for very solid long hours.

Not to mention, the support of expandable storage via microSD card slot will also provide more storage space to keep as many games as you want on any of these tablets.

So between the 2, I’ve gotta to say that they both are great gaming tablets. In fact, they are still 2 of the best gaming tablets on the market right now.


So we’ve finally come to the final conclusion of this comparison review. But which is the best gaming tablet in this review?

Well, both tablets are actually incredibly powerful in performance, especially for gaming.

And you cannot do wrong if you pick any of these 2 tablets as the choice of your gaming device because they both are more than happier to execute any of your favorite games. No doubt about that.

So is it worth it to buy any of these tablets especially for gaming? The answer is of course YES. Either Toshiba Excite Write or Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 is an incredible gaming tablet.

However, as a note-dedicated device, I think it’s really obvious here that Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 is the one that deserves to claim the throne as the best note tablet, thanks to its amazing S-Pen stylus.

Meanwhile, the stylus of Toshiba Excite Write, as well as its writing experience is definitely not so great especially compared to the S-Pen of Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1.

The good thing is, Toshiba Excite Write is still on the same page here with Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 when it comes to hardware specs.

It has a super-sharp display with 2560x1600 pixels resolution, 2GB of RAM, a powerful Tegra 4 processor, 72-core GPU, an 8MP rear camera with LED flash, a huge 33Wh battery and the support of expandable storage for up to 32GB.

So I think its expensive price is still acceptable here because it comes with flagship quality specs.

But then again, if the tablet you’re looking for is a tablet that has great writing experience, then Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 is definitely your best choice here.

On the other hand, if you’re only looking for a reliable gaming tablet that has great specs and it also happens to offer note experience with its stylus, then Toshiba Excite Write can also be a decent option for you.

Both tablets are great.

But Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 is of course the one with the best note experience. In fact, it is the best on the market right now, alongside Apple iPad Pro, Nvidia Shield Tablet, Microsoft Surface Pro or HP Slate7 Extreme.


Toshiba Excite Write

Pros:

• it’s really expensive
• a super-sharp and gorgeous 2.5K display
• insanely powerful gaming performance
• great set of cameras, including LED flash
• a huge 33Wh battery (mAh)
• the support of digital pen
• huge 2GB of RAM
• microSD card support for up to 32GB

Cons:

• the note experience on this device is not that good
• Tegra 4 processor is plagued with overheating issue
• generic looking design

Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 (2014)

Pros:

• powerful Snapdragon 800 processor
• great for playing games
• amazing stylus experience with S-Pen
• great quality cameras with LED flash
• solid battery life
• the support of expandable storage for up to 64GB
• premium looking design with faux leather finish

Cons:

• the performance of regular 3G/WiFi model is not as fast as the LTE variant
• TouchWiz software is bulky, filled with gimmicky features
• there’s still no upgrade/sequel of this tablet

Have any question? Leave your comment here!