Toshiba TG01 review

Can the most powerful mobile phone ever built compete with the iPhone?

The Toshiba TG01 - the fastest, thinnest and largest
The Toshiba TG01 - the fastest, thinnest and largest

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Battery life on the TG01 is only middling, which is mostly down (once again) to the efforts to make the device thinner. This has resulted in only a 1000mAh battery being used, which is around 20 per cent to 50 per cent smaller than other smartphones on the market.

Toshiba tg01 battery

The processor obviously takes up a fair whack of battery life, and although you can turn it down to conserve, that kind of takes away from the point of the handset in a way.

Obviously powering the giant touchscreen is difficult too, and once we factored in a good session of internet browsing (which took longer after we kept hitting the wrong section) as well as full brightness video viewing, the battery was nearly empty after around seven to eight hours use.

This is a little shorter than we're used to, and while we're obviously going to test the phone to extremes, there will be days when you find you need to keep checking on different things, and you'll be needing your charger with you in these instances.

Toshiba tg01 battery

BATTERY LIFE: The 1000mAh battery is a little underpowered

Most of the time you'll get to the end of the day to charge up overnight, which we find necessary with most smartphones, but still the battery life seemed a little short here (and that's without exhausting it on the media front.)

Organiser

The organisation functions on a WinMo device are famous already, and the same Outlook-style interfaces and ability are present on the Toshiba TG01.

The calendar is obviously functional with easy viewing of all your appointments, although it lacks the gloss and attractiveness of the Palm Pre with the collapsible sections for when your day is without event (you know who you are, you boring types).

Toshiba tg01 calendar

Tasks are also easy to add, and although there's only three viewable on the homescreen, it's still nice to be able to check them off quickly, although for some reason you can't interact with the task menu from the 'Gadget Zone' (we don't think we'll ever be OK with that name).

Toshiba tg01 gadget zone calendar

To be honest, you could spend ages setting up the TG01 to help you sort out your life - from Google and Outlook to the calculator and SIM management software, there's a lot on here to help you out.

Toshiba tg01 calc

It's all very basic-looking thanks to beauty of WinMo 6.1, but there's a lot to come from the 6.5 upgrade (we hope... dear God, do we hope) and the fact the options are there now is a very good sign that the TG01 combined with Windows Mobile 6.5 will be a much more sleek and powerful beast.

Toshiba tg01 tasks

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.