Toshiba's new AT200 is thinner than iPad, Galaxy Tab

Summary: Toshiba is giving the tablet race another start with the AT200.

First things first: The AT200 is not Toshiba’s first stab at crafting a compelling tablet offering. That honor goes to the Thrive, a tablet whose appeal was limited by its rather bulky design.

Toshiba seems to have learned from the Thrive’s mistakes with the AT200, which, at 558 grams and 7.7mm thick, is a hair thinner than both the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1. But the AT200 also follows up on some of the Thrive’s most beloved features, offering a variety of ports to increase its functionality. Micro-USB, micro-HDMI, and microSD ports are all accounted for in the device’s thin frame.

That thinness doesn’t sacrifice battery life, either. Toshiba says that the tablet offers eight hours of video watching. The device’s other major specifications include its dual-core 1.2 GHz TI OMAP4 CPU, 1GB RAM, up to 64GB of storage and, of course, its 10.1-inch, 1280×800 resolution screen.

The AT200 will hit Europe in the fourth quarter of the year. There’s no word on price point or whether other regions will see the tablet as well