Google has taken aim at the Kindle Fire with a new 7inch tablet called the Nexus 7. The market is really heating up with competition especially with Apple’s iPad. So, does the Nexus 7 make a great connection with consumers or does it fall apart and sit on the shelf? Let’s take our rooting skills to the table and dig down to see if it’s worth the price.
Video Review
Specifications
-Nvidia Tegra 3 Processor
-1GB of RAM
-216 PPI and 213 DPI (found in build.prop)
-7inch 1280 x 800 IPS Capacitive Muti-touch display
-4235mAh Battery with around 8 hours of battery life.
-8GB or 16GB models (16GB is the model in this review)
-Front 1.2 Mega Pixel Camera
-Wifi 802.11 b,g,n,a
-1x microUSB connector with USB host capabilities
-Bulit in Bluetooth, gyroscope, GPS, and accelerometer
-Weighs .75lbs
The Good
Price Performance: Asus is the manufacturer behind the tablet. Both Google and Asus packed this tablet with 1GB of RAM, bluetooth, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a 1.2 mega pixel camera on the front. Furthermore, the Nexus 7 comes packed with a quad core 1.2GHz Tegra 3 processor. This mean the Nexus 7 is one of the most powerful 7inch tablets on the market. When considering the amazing performance for the size and a price tag of $200, you end up with one hell of a price performance ratio.
Have some More Candy: Google also shipped the Nexus 7 with Android 4.1, Jelly Bean. The new update provides some fine tuning to the performance and transitions to make the tablet a much more fluid experience.
What a Screen: The Nexus 7 comes with a 7inch 1280 x 800 display, which provides a DPI of 213. The combination of the crisp text and the brightness of the screen really provides consumers with a great reading experience.
Decent Battery Life: You can expect around 8 hours of battery life with basic use from the tablet.
Light Weight: The kindle fire weighs in at .91 pounds. However, the Nexus 7 weighs .75 pounds, which means the Nexus 7 is not only a better performer, but it is also lighter than Amazon’s offering.
The Bad
No Flash Support: The web is still heavily reliant on Flash in some areas. While it makes sense moving forward to end Flash support, it still feels a bit premature to completely shut Flash out of the browsing experience. Considering there aren’t too many apps available for the new version of the operating system trying to use web services such as HBO Go isn’t going to happen at this point in time (There are some ways around this by installing Flash manually and using a different browser as mentioned in the video).
Button Management: I felt that the power button was a bit too close to the volume button. I found myself accidentally pressing the power button by accident every now and then when watching a video or playing a game. Furthermore, I also felt that the buttons were a bit sunken in compared to my HP Touchpad. It would have been nice if Asus raised them up a bit to make it easier to press.
Wasted Space: The user interface (UI) is pretty good, but it feels like there is some wasted space at the top. Compared to ICS with all of the home buttons, and notifications at the bottom, it feels like there could have been more screen real-estate. Furthermore, the home screen does not rotate with the tablet. Some users are so passionate about getting back to the tablet interface that they root their devices and change the DPI from 213 to either 160 or 175.
No Micro SD slot: Let’s face it 8GB may not cut it for some individuals out there. I personally purchased the 16GB version at $250 so that it would be less likely to run into storage issues. However, Google does provide users with Google Drive cloud storage space and you can also use Dropbox. However, you cannot run apps off of these storage mediums so it is still a limited solution to any storage problems you may have. So, with that said, leaving out a Micro SD card slot is a big no for some individuals out there.
Conclusion
The Google Nexus 7 is one great tablet and it has a nice price performance ratio. For $200 you get a Tegra 3 processor and a 1280 x 800 screen. The Nexus 7 simply beats down the competition such as the Kindle Fire. However, there are some drawbacks. There is no Micro SD card slot which means there is limited amount of storage available. In addition, the new OS update to Android lacks Flash support, which can shut the door on some parts of the net. Another minor gripe is that the UI, while smooth, feels like it is wasting a bit of space and it does not rotate with the tablet on the home screen.
The last minor issue is the button placement since I found myself accidentally pressing the power button here and there. Fortunately, the good outweighs the bad in this tablet. Sure, I do have some minor issues with the tablet, but you just cannot overlook the outshining price performance ratio of the device, and that is one of the most important factors when purchasing a new product. Overall, the Nexus 7 is definitely a nice tablet that is worth the price.
Nexus 7 Review by FacTor-X
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Thats one very impressive tablet, it is a real shame about the lack of Flash though. It’s still very much needed.
It’s way better than my HP Touchpad. But at more than double the price, I think I’ll pass on tablets until surface comes out.
Well don’t forget the only reason the touchpad was so cheap was because HP was liquidating their tablet line. Also the surface is going to cost like $500+, so if you are worried about price the surface may not be the way to go. The surface does look pretty sweet though, a bit too expensive for me, but it is enticing.
well, they’re positioning the surface as a laptop replacement. and even with the scaled down Windows 8 RT, it probably will be a lot more useful than ios or android.
That’s also true. I am not so sure about the Arm version, but the Intel version will definitely be able to do quite a bit since it will be running the full version of Windows 8. It is tempting, but I just wanted something small and cheap to watch some videos on and browse the web. If you decide to get it don’t forget to let us know how it is :).
I think i spent enough money on computers for the year lol. maybe next year.
Hehe, yeah no worries :D.