We recently had a chance to take a meeting with Toshiba representatives in San Francisco, California, where we were previewed their upcoming releases for 3Q12. Toshiba is essentially targeting the back-to-school crowd with their refreshed notebook lines, while their new tablets aim to take both a more aggressive and a more out-of-the-box approach to the market.

Fusion X2, Begone

As far as notebooks go, the news can essentially be distilled down to "almost every line refreshed, Fusion X2 is gone for good." Toshiba will continue to offer notebooks with hardware from both AMD and Intel, and their new machines will sport Ivy Bridge hardware from Intel and Trinity hardware from AMD, as expected. The action going on under the hood is expected and unsurprising, but in this editor's opinion, the bigger news is the death of the Fusion X2 finish in favor of what Toshiba simply calls "Fusion II."

I've mentioned in multiple reviews that the bulbous, glossy design was one of the big things keeping Toshiba back compared to the competition, and I'm pleased to report their Satellite and Qosmio systems have been radically redesigned with a much sleeker, more attractive, more modern shell. Gloss is mostly gone, replaced with textured matte finishes. The new Qosmio in particular continues its gentrification with what Toshiba calls their "Black Widow" finish, which takes a page out of HP's Beats Edition playbook by using a keyboard backlit with red LEDs.

Weeding through the press releases for the more interesting notes beyond what's expected, Toshiba will apparently be offering the Satellite S800 series with AMD's Trinity APUs...and optional discrete Radeon graphics. Hopefully this means that either AMD's current APU/GPU Crossfire technology is getting some much needed refinement, Trinity will be potent enough on the CPU side to warrant a dedicated GPU, or both.

Meanwhile, the new Qosmio line will be running Ivy Bridge alongside NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 670M with 3GB of GDDR5; the  GTX 670M is essentially a rebadged GTX 570M, but that's not a terrible thing as that GPU still offers excellent performance at the high end. Qosmio will be offered in a 17.3" shell with either a 1600x900 screen or a 120Hz 1920x1080 screen and NVIDIA's 3D Vision 2 glasses.

As for pricing, the Satellite P845 (14") and P855 (15") will start at $799 while the P875 (17") will start at $849. These models will be available at the beginning of 3Q12. The Satellite S800 series will start at $699 and is planned to be available beginning on June 24, 2012. The Satellite L845 (14" value) will start at $449, the L855 (15" value) will start at $499, and the L875 (17" value) will start at $599. The Satellite C800 (14" through 17") extreme value line will start at just $399. Both of these lines are planned to hit at the beginning of 3Q12. Finally, the Qosmio X875 line will start at $1,299 and is planned to be available at the beginning of 3Q12.

Don't Just Thrive, Excite

Toshiba's Thrive tablet did modest business on release, but it was a first-generation Android tablet affair stemming from a period of time when most vendors were still trying to figure out just what this tablet craze was about. As someone who admittedly hasn't necessarily been that excited about tablets as a platform, I thought the Thrive was charming on its own but had some trouble standing out. In short, it felt like an also-ran that was bouyed in the market largely by a compelling price tag.

So if the Thrive was an opening salvo roughly equivalent to a spitball, the new Excite line of tablets is the real barrage of heavy artillery. Rather than try to figure out what the sweet spot in the tablet market is in terms of form factor, Toshiba is simply hitting all of them with the Excite 7.7, Excite 10, and Excite 13, with the numbers following them being the screen sizes of each. Each of these tablets is running NVIDIA's Tegra 3 under the hood along with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and each of them offers a micro-USB port, mini-SD card slot, micro-HDMI, stereo speakers, a 5-megapixel back-facing camera, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Toshiba has also substantially reduced the footprint of their design, with each tablet substantially thinner than the Thrive.

The original Thrive is in the lower left.

Form factor isn't the only differentiator between these models, though. The Excite 10 is essentially the least "exciting" model; it's pretty much the bog standard Android tablet, with a low 1280x800 resolution. It measures 0.35" thick and weighs 1.32 pounds, and Toshiba claims a running time of up to 10 hours on the battery. The Excite 10 is expected to retail for $449 for the 16GB model, $529 for the 32GB model, and $649 for the 64GB model.

Where things get a little more interesting is with the Excite 7.7. The 7.7" tablet enjoys a Super AMOLED display (likely Pentile, but we'll have to confirm), and while the resolution is still only 1280x800, color and contrast are absolutely stellar when compared to Toshiba's other tablets. The Excite 7.7 is 0.3" thick and just 13.4 ounces, and is expected to retail for $499 for the 16GB model and $579 for the 32GB model.

Meanwhile, the Excite 13 is an interesting experiment on Toshiba's part. It offers a 1600x900 display and is frankly pretty beefy for a tablet. Toshiba expects the Excite 13's unusually large form factor will produce new and interesting usage scenarios for tablets, and it's certainly better for watching movies than a smaller model, but whether their gamble pays off remains to be seen. The Excite 13 is 0.4" thick and 2.2 pounds, and it's expected to retail for $649 for the 32GB model and $749 for the 64GB model.

The Excite 10 will be on the market first at the beginning of May, while the 7.7 and 13 will follow in June.

Conclusion: Last But Not Least, New All-in-Ones

While the vastly improved fit and finish of the new Satellite and Qosmio notebooks is worthy of attention and Toshiba definitely seems to be trying some new and exciting things with their tablets, it's important to note Toshiba isn't standing still with their all-in-one line, either.

The new LX815 and LX835 all-in-one systems will be employing desktop-class Ivy Bridge processors, but otherwise (wisely in this editor's opinion) foregoing dedicated graphics hardware. Toshiba has redesigned the exterior shells of these units as well. MSRP for the 21" LX815 starts at $599, while the 23" LX835 will start at $879, and like almost everything else Toshiba expects these systems to be available at the beginning of 3Q12.

My personal impressions during the briefing in San Francisco were generally very positive. Toshiba seems to be bringing new blood into the company and it's paying off; the new designs are vital and distinctive, and they shed a lot of that "also-ran" feeling that has plagued them over the past few years. I'd still like to see them attack the ultraportable market with a little more fervor, but the new line of tablets has some life to it beyond just being another set of Tegra 3-powered Android devices.

We'll be looking forward to getting some of the new hardware in for testing (including the Excite line) and seeing how it all holds up in practice.