The Excite 10 LE scored poorly in our display tests, too. The display lacked the color accuracy and clarity of like-resolution tablets. More critically, all of our test screens--from still images to a Web page to test patterns--were marred by a tattoolike pattern imprinted on the display. The pattern is actually the touchscreen interface itself, and it's more distracting--more visible--than the usual screen-door, gridlike touch technologies seen on other tablets.

On our SunSpider JavaScript benchmark browser speed test, the Excite was right in the mix, and on our custom Web-page loading test, it took 2.9 seconds to load a page--faster than the iPad 2's 3.3 seconds, and slower than the Transformer Prime's 2.6 seconds. On the GLBenchmark test with antialiasing off, it was competitive with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi, at 30.9 frames per second, but far short of the Transformer Prime's 56 fps. Finally, in our subjective testing, stills and videos produced by the Excite's camera were judged only fair; images had a lot of noise, and lacked sharpness.

Physically, the Excite 10 LE still excites me, but solely from the standpoint of the ideal it represents in weight and size. I look forward to the day when tablet makers can achieve lighter weights and thinner designs, as the Excite has, but do so without making a slew of usability, performance, and price tradeoffs. As it stands, however, this lightweight tablet has to be relegated to the annals of tablet experiments.