Article: Our Nexus 7 Thread

[howard]

Just got back from BestBuy with my new Nexus 7. I got there about 5 minutes after the store opened. They said they had 20 when they opened and there were 11 left when I was done. I actually work up earlier today, ordered it online for in-store pickup.

Bonus points if you can guess all my tablets in the background.



I'll post my first impressions here soon.



The back has an interesting pattern that is covered with rubberized paint.



The power and volume buttons are on the right side. I wish the power button stuck out just a little more. When I hold the 7 with one hand it's kind of difficult to press.

There are contacts on the right side - presumably for a docking station.



The headphone jack is located at the bottom along with a microUSB. The location of the jack may annoy some.



As far as build quality goes it's not bad. The back doesn't feel as solid as my Playbook or iPad but i wouldn't complain about it either.



The screen is very nice. It's not a bleed-edge screen like what you'd get from say a HTC One X but it's still very good. Viewing angles are good, it has a higher resolution than most of the 7" tablets. At maximum brightness it's pretty bright but the black levels suffer a little bit.

The best thing about the Nexus 7 is the size. I love my iPad but it rarely leaves the house because it's too big. The Nexus 7 is small enough that a) It fits in some of my pockets b) I don't feel like an *** if I use it when I'm walking around.

I noticed that the gallery app is now able to playback 720p mkv files (never worked for me on other Android phones). The problem is that there isn't any sound! It still can't playback divx avi files either. Luckily, unlike Tegra 2 tablets the Tegra 3 chip inside the Nexus 7 is powerful enough for 3rd party video players to decode 720p mkv's.

Performance is good. SunSpider scores are around 1700ms which is similar to the iPad 3 (though slower than the Galaxy Nexus running Jellybean). GLBenchmark (Egypt Standard) scores are a very good 52fps.

The animations and transitions in Jellybean are very smooth. Android no longer feels like cheap alternative to iOS of Windows Phone in this respect.

One of the key pieces of software Jellybean brings to the table is Google Now. Google Now is sort of an automated assistant that watches where you are and presents relevant information in the form of 'cards'.

One of my favorite things about Samsung's Touchwiz (and now LG's software) is that there's a orientation lock in the notification area pull-down. Seems the Nexus 7 has this too so hooray!

I live in Oakville and was downtown yesterday. One of the phones I had on me was a Galaxy Nexus running Jellybean. When I looked at it had the time it would take me (with traffic information) if I drove home at that time. It also gave me the weather forecast for Toronto. Apparently, if you take transit it also gives you scheduling information. There's also flight information if you travel among other things.

Google Now is very useful but it probably makes more sense on a phone (like my Galaxy Nexus) rather than a tablet since my phone is the first device I reach for.

As for what's bad I guess the worst thing about it is that it doesn't have external storage (neither does the iPad) and the fact that it isn't available with 3G/4G. The lack of a built-in camera isn't important to me.



The Galaxy Tab 2 has a really nice display - while it's lower res the colour is very nice. Compared to the Nexus it's slightly cooler while the Nexus is a little warm.



They're both 7" Tablets and surprise, surprise, they're about the same size.



I really like the Nexus 7's back cover. The Samsung's design seems lazy in comparison.

Thanks to Sabesh for taking these pictures for us.

The Nexus 7 isn't perfect but it's a great device. It's $259 CAN price tag makes it an amazing deal. Only a month ago a 7" Galaxy Tab 2 cost $350 and it has a lower resolution screen and ships with an older version of Android.

If nothing else the Nexus 7 really shakes up the marketplace. Its $259 prices it occupies a price point that was previously populated with lower tier Android tablets like the Acer Iconia A100. Even if you don't get a Nexus 7 it's going to push prices for devices like the A100 even lower.

I'm still working on this so I'll update it a few more times today.

Did you get yours today or did you already pick one up?

[DerekToronto]

When i got to bestbuy on warden. There were two guys in front of me. At first the sales took out one at a time. But when it got to me he took 10 out from the back to the service island. Go Nex7 go!

[icemasta]

I may skip this generation of the Nexus tablet line up. Got mine delivered yesterday from Staples and it was defective out of the box. As soon I held it, the right was creaking horribly and the right size bezel was so squishy that if I touched that area, the screen would begin to change colors, similar to pushing down in a monitor LCD but I barely touched the 7 bezel.

My cousins screen was having flicker issues and reading online that these defects are common I'll just hold off.

[kodakball]

I ordered my n7 16g from play store. If I knew google would drop the ball on this product release, I would have just went to the store and get one, now I still waiting. Awesome Google. But I can't wait to get it lol.

[sabesh]

The biggest issue with the N7 is the lack of Landscape mode for Home screens. Other issue: Lack of Flash support for web pages. Flash maybe on it's way out, but plenty of sites still utilize it.

[DerekToronto]

I have no bulid issues so far. Knock on wood.

As for the landscape (bug) i rarely uses it except watching movies.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using HowardForums

[howard]

The Nexus 7 is able to go landscape when you watch videos. It's similar to most phones in this respect: Many apps which can use landscape go landscape but the menus and homescreen don't.

[sabesh]

Yes, but it's a Pita to have to turn when holding it Landscape and then switch to portrait when you want to switch to another app etc. All others tabs support this. Why not Jellybean? It appears that they lazily ported over the phone Galaxy Nexus O/S to a Tablet and got rid of that device's stock browser which supports Flash and replaced it with Chrome. I want a Tablet, not a gigantic phone

[sabesh]

Anyways, I slapped on a custom ROM that fixes the landscape issue and adds Flash playing ability. It's a quite useable now.

[howard]

Anyone try a USB flash drive via USB OTG? I just tried it and it's not being recognized.

[Furry Atom]

The Nexus 7 is able to go landscape when you watch videos. It's similar to most phones in this respect: Many apps which can use landscape go landscape but the menus and homescreen don't.

Yah. It's just throwing some people off because Android tablets from Honeycomb 3.0 to ICS 4.0.4 were all used primarily in landscape mode.

Yes, but it's a Pita to have to turn when holding it Landscape and then switch to portrait when you want to switch to another app etc. All others tabs support this. Why not Jellybean? It appears that they lazily ported over the phone Galaxy Nexus O/S to a Tablet and got rid of that device's stock browser which supports Flash and replaced it with Chrome. I want a Tablet, not a gigantic phone

It's funny how people called the iPad a giant iPod Touch/iPhone, but really the Nexus 7 is more of a giant phone than anything else out of the box. Especially considering apps have to conform to a one size fits all policy.

Anyone try a USB flash drive via USB OTG? I just tried it and it's not being recognized.

The Nexus 7 doesn't have native support for flash drives over USB-OTG.

[sable]

The biggest issue with the N7 is the lack of Landscape mode for Home screens. Other issue: Lack of Flash support for web pages. Flash maybe on it's way out, but plenty of sites still utilize it.

You can try GO Launcher, it gives landscope mode home screens on my GNex.

[howard]

You can try GO Launcher, it gives landscope mode home screens on my GNex.

Cool! That worked!

[Steve Punter]

Anyways, I slapped on a custom ROM that fixes the landscape issue and adds Flash playing ability. It's a quite useable now.

Since there are no custom Jelly Bean ROMS yet, do you mean to say you gave up Jelly Bean just to get landscape in the launcher (when I know that you know you could have just used a 3rd-party launcher)?

[terryjohnson16]

Is there a way to put Flash on the Nexus 7? I don't see why Adobe would leave Android dry like that. Especially on short notice.

How is the Nexus 7 at playing youtube videos in terms of clarify, and sound? Some tablets have horrible sound playback, and low speakers.