Google Nexus 7 Android tablet Amazon may have done more that most to get Android onto tablets, but Google's Nexus 7 tablet, built by Asus, isn't so much a shot across the bows as a full torpedo attack on Jeff Bezos' ambitions in the fondleslab market. Google Nexus 7 Android tablet Amazon attack: Google's Nexus 7, built by Asus At £159 ($199) for the …
Only if the USB port is capable of being a USB host, and supplying current, which many tablets are not. Why tablet makers don't make their devices use micro-AB connectors and support USB-on-the-Go I don't know, as the support is built into the chips, but... they don't.
If the port cannot supply current but can act as a master, you'd have to have a powered hub or a powered storage device.
It's not the lack of SD that concerns me on this product, it is the general move away from local storage on both Nexus devices and high end options such as HTC One X. Maybe this makes "Sense" (sorry) in the States where Google music is free, large data allowances come with contracts and 4G is rolling out, but where I am in Scotland with patchy 3g at best and a move to smaller / more expensive data then it does not do. Not for me anyway.
People always suggest that no-one forces you to buy a product and to vote with you wallet. That is why I will not buy this device. Even though I want it so bad.
Personally I just want something on which to surf the web while sat on the couch - I have absolutely no need or desire to watch films or listen to music on a tablet. My fire-sale Touchpad (which I'll be glad to get rid of for a Nexus 7) has 32GB of storage and all of it remains empty to this day.
Obviously there are people that will see the lack of SD as a deal breaker, but I also think there are a lot more people with a use case closer to my own who will think the 8GB of the base model is perfectly adequate and more than enough storage.
7 inch is exactly 2DIN on a car.
If someone starts printing out simple "amplifier only" units that take this as a screen + controls were are going to see some very interesting jitters in the last place where the AV industry continues to charge insane amounts of money for an abysmal 10+ year old near-obsolete set of features.
My brother actually did this about 6 months ago with the orginal galaxy tab. Just blanked the panel on the car off completely and only had a headphone cable coming out of the dash and a bog standard universal tablet mount. The cable then went directly to a 6x9 and sub amp in the boot. Worked like a charm with spotify and was loud!
here here. I recently spent one and half thousand quid on a 'top-of-the-range' Kenwood for my car.
When compared to a modern touch-screen tablet at a fraction of the price it's abysmal. Rubbish touch-screen, clunky interface and a GUI that was obviously implemented by a CLI loving geek.
If they choose to, I'm sure Samsung, Apple, HTC or whoever could revolutionise in-car AV overnight - I'd love if someone could explain why they don't
Something smells a little inconsistent here:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/07/divine-intervention-googles-nexus-7-is-a-fantastic-200-tablet/4/
When reviewing the same device, same settings and even the same file, they got over nine hours battery life. 25% variance is pretty high...
Also, Ars didn't mention any stability issues, and managed to get a impressive array of benchmarking done.
I'm sorely tempted, but I want a slot for a storage card and I'm not sure if I'd like it being smaller than the 'normal' tablet size. I do notice that the US price for the high end version ($249) currently converts to £160 (UK price for the cheap version) on fx.com. Might be worth trying to import depending on the hassle involved.
I think I will continue to umm and aah until it's actually out.
Sales tax usually works out to less than ten percent (6% where I live, but they've been holding it down for awhile; most other states which have one have a higher rate); I gather VAT is over twice that, which means you may still do better to have a US-bound friend pick one up for you.
(Oregon, apparently, does not charge a sales tax; if your US-bound friend is going to be in the Pacific Northwest, maybe he'd do well to stop off in Portland to buy one -- that said, if he's going to be in the neighborhood, warn him off Powell's unless he wants a real good example of why brick-and-mortar bookstores aren't going to be missed.)
Please remember to add 20% VAT to the price after conversion from dollars to pounds. You'll likely be charged a 20% VAT cost on import which will bring it up to £180, add shipping cost and you're likely paying over £200.
Personally, I'm waiting till it's actually released, I'd like to see some end user reviews. There's things a normal person will point out that even the most scathing journos will let slide. Plus I'd like a definitive answer on whether the USB port can host an SD card like some people are saying.
If you do buy a US Nexus, check what warranty comes with it - it might be as little as 90 days (1 year standard in the UK) and it might be limited to the US only. A very few companies - mostly camera companies - offer worldwide warranties on their products, but most do not. If you're out of the warranty zone and if your product fails within the warranty period you will have to pay the full cost of a replacement or repair through the company's local tentacle.
Users may well have a mobile in their pocket, but its quite likely its a works mobile - and businesses still like to give out absolute basic non-smartphones to most employees to stop them running up ridiculous data charges.
So if they wanted one of these devices, they'd have to carry their work mobile, a personal smartphone just for tethering, and this tablet around - seems a bit ridiculous to me.
Has anybody here complaining about 3G tablets ever actually tethered through their phone?
If they had, they'd know that the wifi hotspot feature might as well be called "the energy vampire". It eats batteries for breakfast. Alright if, like me, you have £80 worth of Energizer XPAL in your pocket, but that's just more dicking about on top of the dicking about with a phone when what you really want to use is a tablet.
Plus I've seen people with dual-SIM contract deals anyway. One for the phone, one for a dongle... or tablet, if you like. Ask your provider.
That's why you're supposed to tether using bluetooth! It consumes much less power and while admittedly it's not the fastest, it is certainly adequate when the limiting factor isn't actually the connection between phone and tablet but rather the abysmal 3G reception (or more likely, plain old 2G)
I didn't know Michael Bay read The Reg, I can't think of anyone else who would downvote that comment.
By the way, the review said the test was done with the tablet at full volume. People want to know if the reviewer really sit through Transformers 3 at full volume three times in a row and if he ended up with perforated ear drums.
>> "I'm really on the fence as to if I even need a tablet"
^this.
I'm looking at these things thinking, hm, good price, decent specs, would make me look less of a hipsterish numpty than an iPad, all very tempting. But then I'm racking my brains as to what I'd actually use it for.
It's very easy to get carried away on the novelty of a google tablet, and the relatively good price, but it's still looking like £200 for yet another helping of mindless consumption that'll be gathering dust in a few weeks time.
Tethered brick???
You you do know you can tether the tablet to your mobile phone and use that connection - it's quite easy and just as quick.
It also means you don't need to pay for another mobile contract, you buy one decent one and use it for both tablet and phone.
So the non-3G tablet is not only cheaper to buy, but also obviously cheaper to run.
Or alternatively get yourself a decent mobile phone that allows you to create a WiFi hotspot.
I bet most 3G tablets sit at home almost all of the time, costing their owners a small fortune each month for data that is never used when you could just as easily use your mobile phone to act as the gateway on those rare occasions when your tablet needs mobile data.
So you want to get a SECOND contract for the tablet?
I assume you have a crappy mobile then!
I have a single, unlimited data contract on my mobile, and I tether my devices to it when needed.
I don't see why I should pay for a contract for each device!
>All we're asking for is the OPTION of not having to carry a smartphone!
There would be a market for a revamped Nokia 6210 that worked like the original, only had 3G and could act as WiFi Hotspot... it would work well with a 7" tablet that lived in your jacket pocket, purse, sofa or car glovebox.
Because that is the way the robber barons at the telcos want it.
One contract per device, no data sharing.
Now else do you expect those overpaid C level types get paid their bonu$e$????
Now, if you could get a single sharable data plan, it would decrease their revenue stream. Which is totally unacceptable from a telco POV (unless it contains new per device additional charge (I'm looking at you Verizon).
Decrease revenues??? Can't have that!!!!!
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Just go for applying the US firmware......works a treat.
Only thing to be aware of is that you have to remember to turn on the USB debugging if your device fails to connect to your PC. Check that at every stage and your sorted.
I am happy on 4.0.4 now....and waiting for those smooth graphics in 4.1
It's exactly what i've been wanting - if the Kindle Fire had been released over here, i'd have got that.
I don't need a 10" display, if I want a larger display i'll use my Netbook, it's the 7"/Kindle sized display I was looking for - plus in colour for online graphic novels.
As for no 3G, why not just set your phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot and use that??
Not sure why people are commenting on the tablet not having 3G connection, most if not all of the users will have at least an iPhone or an Android one, both of which can tether. How many people will use the tablet and not have their phone nearby? Not many, therefore, I see the tablet as not having 3G a blessing.
Just waiting for the 10" version now.
Correct me if I'm wrong but virtually every phone I've had with Bluetooth, including the somewhat dumb by today's standards Nokia 6230, and with it is a PAN like profile to allow external devices to use it to access the internet. This was a really useful to hook up to things such as sat navs to get traffic updates etc.
In fact, it's only really with my current Samsumg Galaxy S where I've had an issue - I swear an (Orange) update removed the BT "Internet Access" which is one reason among many as to why it's now running CM9.
So, what was your point exactly about companies not splashing out for smart phones?
Yeah, unless they've suddenly decided to give away free 3G service, then one would be looking at an ADDITIONAL monthly expense of $30. The data plan cost would swamp out the cost of the hardware in the mid-term. Daft.
Assuming one already has a mobile phone with a rational data plan, then turn on wifi tethering. Duh. If your carrier doesn't allow this, then you've chosen the wrong carrier. Daft.
Looks good. I was skeptical about tablets at first but got one because it was cheap. I now use mine all the time now, mostly for reading ebooks. I like being able to switch between the ebooks and a web browser, play spotify on it at the same time, etc, so for that reason it is more suitable to me than a dedicated ereader.
If I didn't already have a tablet (I would probably still be skeptical and not looking) and could see the benefit of them despite having not had one, I would definitely be looking at one of these.
Yup 3G on a 7' portable Tablet is high on the must list. Not so much on a 10' which is more (on average) a home based device..
I carry my 7' tab everywhere as portable office instead of a smart phone. Use a very old Nokia 6210 for basic voice duties due fantastic battery life and size. Slightly unusual set up maybe but works for me
Well, I'm amazed you've had a down-vote for basically expressing your opinion. You obviously have a setup that works for you but obviously someone doesn't like it that you have!
I am personally in the tethering to smartphone camp, but that's just me. I think these look brilliant.
Different strokes for different folks and all that...
This mirrors my setup. I abandoned my smartphone because it was too small to be any use.
Tethering is not always straighforward, it does depend on phone, Android version and network.
An SD slot would be nice, but 3G is essential. A 7 inch tablet would then be the ideal portable device.
It looks like I am going to have to wait for Mk II to be released.
Google have missed a trick with this one.
It is MTP, as Android post 3.xx doesn't support mass storage as standard.
That said, my 4.xx phone is rooted, and I can unmount the SD card and export it as mass storage. However, it seems highly unlikely that you can export the unified internal storage of an Android 4.1 device as mass storage at all, even with rooting.
I'd happily be proved wrong.
(Ordered my Nexus 7, it can live with my iPad 3, and annoy both kinds of fanbois, as I love gadgets.. It's a lot cheaper than a drink problem :D)
Hopefully Google will do a bit more than Amazon who "have done more that most to get Android onto tablet" and buy an Atlas... Then they'll notice a market Amazon missed. Namely the rest of the world!
I was quite up for a bit of Fire hacking when it was announced. It's not like they would have to translate anything for the UK market, we're quite used to having American English forced upon us.
What does that have to do with the price of coffee?
I think 4g will be pretty pricey for a while to come. I won't be buying a 4g phone for a while but a data contract will probably be the cheapest option. So I'll have a fast 4g mifi to use with my wifi devices, none of which have 3G built in and hence were cheaper to buy, and I'll stick to my cheap 3G iPhone 4s for calls.
Makes financial and technical sense to me.
"I'd be reluctant to buy anything with built-in 3G. 4G is around the corner. Why keep on paying for 3G modems for each device when you can use one as a mi-fi. You'd probably end up with a 3G phone and another contract for your Nexus 7 3G. Pointless. Then there's the extra hit on the battery."
4G? You wanna wait for 5G... THAT is what you really want
4G is so far away in terms of a UK rollout that it really shouldn't be a consideration as a device feature.
Considering these devices update every six months or so and 4G realistically isn't going to be mass market until late 2014 / early 2015 we'll all have much newer editions of these by then.
I'm really baffled by the number of people who say "It must have 3G"...
Are you seriously planning on carrying a 7" tab an using it as a phone too?
No, thought not, so you mobile phone will still be in your pocket, a few feet from your tablet. So tether it! One mobile contract, one SIM... Simples.
Dunno, whatever the stock battery in the first gen HTC Desire was (I just upgraded to a Galaxy S3). It was running Juicedefender, too. Battery power was generally never a problem.
The real killer is how strong or weak the 3G signal is, polling for the cell is what kills the battery. The wifi doesn't make as much difference as folks generally imagine. (Oh, also, if you're devious, and you're tethering some laptops, you can always ponce some power from them over USB, too, don't forget!)
You would be surprised. While running the mobile chipset takes up some juice, and running wifi takes up some juice, running the portable AP does seem to eat vastly more juice than both put together. The more data you transfer over it, the faster your battery flattens.
It's kind of telling that my Xperia Arc S only gets really red hot when I'm running the portable AP. So hot in fact, I've had it stop charging itself - apparently this is a safety feature.
Kind of annoying that since the ICS update, it randomly turns the AP off though. Ho hum, that is a different issue.
Just how much storage do you guys need from your kit?
I have never reached the 8Gb on my SD card on my phone, and I use it for podcasts, films, books and newspapers as well as the 30 or so games that I regularly play. And the 1Gb of maps I use for sygic. All my pics are backed up to my G-Drive. Currently I still have just under 4Gb left.
Mine is on order :-)
So what negative points were in the other 15% Was it the fact that it crashed a few times, the lack of MicroSD/3G or the battery life?
Just curious as to what prevented it from getting a higher score; seems to be a very positive review overall, with few negatives. Though I am heavily biased on the subject, I'm not suggesting that it *should* have scored higher - I'm just curious about the rationale.
Ultimately I really don't care about the review scores; this is an impressive device, regardless of your opinion on Android or tablets in general, which could have easily commanded a higher price. At £160 it almost feels like I'm ripping them off by buying one.
The article cites 4.1 as a possible drawback, but fails to mention that most apps written for earlier Android versions will work perfectly well on it.
Comparisons with the Kindle Fire and Amazon's content library miss the point. Sure, Google *want* you to get your media from the Play Store, but there's nothing to stop you installing Kindle apps or even (if you live in the USA) the Amazon App Store on the Nexus. In contrast you need to root the Fire to get past the Amazon lock in. So I don't see any advantage to the Fire here.
Having said that, some of us do need more than 16GB, which is where Google seem to have a blind spot (the Galaxy Nexus is the same).
These points in particular....
"Yet it's also dependent on Google finding enough developers to write for the operating system, at a time when most Android devices haven't even made it to the Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 build"
Pretty much all Android apps work on all versions of Android. Infact very little has changed in the API, that's not been added to the Android compatibility libraries.
And of course with 400m Android devices in the wild, many of them will never get ICS, it's always going to be a struggle to get ICS marketshare above 40%. It's currently around 10% - 40m devices... Apple's charts show the same story, plenty of devices stuck on old versions of the OS unable to ever upgrade. They don't have the problem of thousands of devices thou. They also play sneaky games too, like calling different versions of iOS6 with different featuresets all iOS6 to make it look to idiots like they are getting the latest and greatest.
"Google still can't match Apple and Amazon in terms of the range of content available"
Has this writer ever seen how dire the Amazon store is??? Clearly not...
"The 1280 x 800 display has 216 ppi, which isn't up to the standards of the latest Apple iPad"
REALLY? Comparing a device that costs over 2x the price... Come on. get real....
What if someone already owns a WD TV Live, an Apple TV box, a couple of PS3s, etc. etc. etc. ? Maybe getting files up and onto the big screen is already taken care of? I mean seriously, how many people here would be buying this as their one and only media player? Incredible... The whole point of a tablet is to plug in some headphones, kick back on the couch and watch some videos ON THE LOVELY BUILT-IN DISPLAY (the rectangular area on the front surface that glows...).
"What if someone already owns" ... long list of expensive toys.
What if you don't? Or at least - don't own a box that can stream media you've bought on the web to a TV. I've got a blu-ray player with internet access but I can't rent a film off Google Play, Netflix or Lovefilm and play it on that as it's not the latest model. (the internet access is almost useless - youtube, picasa and weather!)
Would have been nice to have the option to plug the Nexus 7 into a TV but not essential for me as I'm happy with the Lovefilm postal service - or I would have got a different tablet. But that doesn't mean it isn't a pointless feature - we don't all have loads of spare cash to buy multiple toys.
My GF is a "luddite". She has a DVD player and a 32-inch LCD telly. No WDTV, no Apple TV, no Blu Ray, no PS3 etc. etc.
It would be great to pop over to hers with my tablet, plug it into the HDMI in on her telly and play something through it. Us techy blokes are laden with toys, but not everybody else is.
There's no HDMI or indeed no USB MHL. If this had either of those then I would have bought it despite the lack of SD socket. I don't get why you'd have such a powerful media device with little storage and no TV-out, especially if you use this Googly Play film rental thing. Surely people would want to play their films on the TV? *sigh*
I ordered an Hyundai A7HD instead - not nearly as fancy specs-wise, but it has HDMI out and a SD slot and a resonable screen for a few quids less.
> Surely people would want to play their films on the TV?
Yeah - sounded mad to me until someone pointed out the good old licensing issues with the film studios. They'll make the film available for devices with no HDMI out as then it's only going to the mobile market. Someone said that some Sky TV app is only available on devices without HDMI output for that reason - I've not verified it. Anyway - I reckon it's to do with something like that.
I want a 7" tablet
But I also want a micro-sd slot. A also want a 3g option
I don't *want* to use my phone as a 3g hotspot. My phone is a valuable business tool, a 7" tablet something fun to play on while I travel. I don't want to waste the battery on the important device to support the not-so-important one.
Second phone contract is preferable to carrying around a separate device.
No doubt I'll be downvoted by people who have trouble understanding people may have different needs to them.
Definately agree with the above. For me the whole point of a smart phone/ 7" tablet is the fact that it is an independant internet connected device.
When I am on the tram in the morning i do not want to pull out the tablet AND my telephone, the faffing about setting up tethering.
I had the Galaxy Tab 3G and have subsequently moved on to the Galaxy Note, both very independant and capable devices. I would like the Nexus 7 for JB, but not if I have to tether it.
When a device becomes dependant on another device it , for me, it loses all interest.
I'm torn on this issue. I do want all of my devices to be connected all of the time, but I'm not sure I *need* all my devices connected all of the time. One of the reasons I'm happy I've ordered a Nexus 7 is that I'm moving from a PlayBook. With the PlayBook I really hated the lack of a connection, and that's because the tablet seemed to constantly remind you of that fact. The system really didn't seem to cope with being disconnected elegantly, whereas with Android I'm normally happy losing my connection while down in the tube. My gMail and offline cache on gReader (third party - well worth a look though) are there for me to go through and deal with without ever once complaining that they can't sync right at that minute.
p.s. "Faffing setting up tethering"? Come on! For me that's one press on a widget :) Having said that, I haven't used an iPhone to tether and if it's anything like the number of presses required just to turn bluetooth on on my iPod I understand your pain.
Hassle in having an extra phone contract = zero
Hassle in tethering my phone to the tablet and being concerned whether its already stressed battery life will last the day = lots
Is it really that difficult to understand some users have different needs and priorities to others ?
You really have to flex your fanboy skills to argue that the lack of choice is somehow a good thing.
I don't like that it doesn't have the micro hdmi or the micro sd slot.
(Google not wanting people to use file managers is damn annoying.)
The nexus q is not cheap enough for it to not be an issue (It is just as restricted as the Apple TV if not more so and much more expensive).
I do like that it has the GPS though (Offline Google Maps seems quite nice).
If I get one I think I will use a rom that allows the full tablet UI (Like I have on ICS on my Xoom).
7" and 1280x1024 is good enough in terms of size/resolution to run it.
... if so, that's a bit of a blow. However, I'm sure they'll update it at some point.
My order for the 16Gb one has been placed - I love the iPad (and have an iPhone), but the price is too high given I can't replace my laptop with it, and at £199 this would seem to fit the bill nicely
Would be a great device to have for media consumption, streaming stuff. Couple of UK problems - mobile broadband in some places is still pants and google music isn't available here. A mobile with hotspot ability is great right until you realise you have flattened your battery and left yourself with NO devices with broadband connectivity. I fully recommend a 3 mi-fi or an old smartphone off ebay with a 3 pay as you go sim.
Overall, This would be a great cheap tablet for sofa based internetting. I wont be replacing my iconia a500 any time soon however as I like the fact the Acer can turn into a bit of an ultrabook type device on top of being an ICS based tablet. Even if the power cable is a bit short.
>3 pay as you go sim.
I did see one advertised online the other day, and it did seem good value.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this 3G/MiFi/ Phone tether debate. It has helped me decide on what to advise my dad.
He has decided that he a; wants his Galaxy Tab 10.1 to access data by phone network, and b, wants a Motorola flip phone that has nice big buttons (no tethering there)
A MiFi might be the best solution, though whether he has patience for / remembers to carry it with him and turn it on remains to be seen. He been talking about just buying another tablet that does have 3G built in, such is his attitude to digital gizmos.
Maybe all he needs is for European maps to be cached on the thing.
A wee bit generous for a device that lacks extra, lacks app support and lacks anything. Okay, this is a marker device for the next version of OS, but to not have the best apps ready and waiting is a definate fail. And still also definately an average device for your average fandroid. I wouldn't mind eating some real jelly beans though whilst using my iPad.
*waiting for the thumbs down entourage!*
That was 2 weeks ago though. In comparison to the iOS 6 beta's and SDK available for several months before official release, it's surely a poor way to do business with developers? To turn something around in a few weeks is an amazing feat for any dev, even the larger corps (unless they get private early builds of the SDK).
Well, it'll be about a month by the time the Nexus 7 hits, and I don't think that's a massive ask from a dev perspective (given this is an incremental upgrade). Can't remember which talk it was in but there was something about getting the JB source out early to device manufacturers so maybe there's something similar with top devs? Doubt it, but it's possible.
Anyhoo, not convinced there are many "big" apps not working.
This is Google saying to the tablet manufacturers.. "Here, this is what we can do for £159, go away and beat it".
Have you seen the price of a HTC Flyer or Samsung Tab 7? Effectively this thing blows the market for either of them. The equivalent HTC or Samsung 16Gb wi-fi only tablets are more expensive and have much lower specs all round.
This is the challenge, the kick up the backside the manufacturers need.
It's up to them to pick up the torch and carry it forward.
25 watts .. really? Now that would be loud on such a small device 8-)
I've ordered a 16Gb Nexus 7 to hack Android on from eBuyer with free next-day delivery (maybe next Friday if the stock comes in) and 2% cash back from Quidco and 5% cashback on a Capital One credit card .. so not a bad piece of kit for £175 then.
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This looks like a decent bit of kit for a good price. I'm assuming this would be ideal for a little idle browsing (Which browser? Is there more than one?), a bit of movie playback (Which formats? Which player? Again, is there more than one?) and eBook reading (same questions).
You can probably guess I'm viewing from a certain walled garden. Any help or a nod towards Android for Dummies would be appreciated.
>Which browser? Is there more than one?
Comes with Google Chrome but you can usually get others like Firefox or Opera for Android.
>movie playback
Built in player on my Android 2.3 doesn't cope with DivX but there are a few free ones available on the market that do.
>eBook reading
You can install the Kindle app and I bet there are others - not something I've looked at.
Welcome to the world of choice!
Richard,
As an iOS and Android user, I can understand your curiosity..
Browsers... there are various minority webkit ones on the app store, there are also the usual big name suspects- Chrome, Opera and Firefox are all surprisingly good these days, on Android. Firefox was really heavy and ropey until quite recently, so I have the bleeding edge "Aurora" version on my phone, but it's not the main browser that I use (though I probably could, I suppose).
For video playback, the default players that ship work pretty well, though not every single format is covered in all cases. There is a very early port of VLC to more modern devices, but that might be a little too raw to bother with. Generally, the stuff you've coded as h.264 for your iThingies will be fine, in any case, so it's largely not a problem.
For ebook reading, there are tonnes of readers, most free, to read most formats. Some are good, some are rubbish, and opinion differs as to which go in which camp. You'd find one to suit within a short time, I am sure. Oh, and the official Android client for Kindle stuff is really slick, too, if you've used the iOS one, you know what to expect, more or less (I use it when I forget my Kindle, it works nicely).
It does look like a decent bit of kit at that price. I have ordered one to play with, too. Shinies!
I think I'll want for it to ship and see what people say when they have it in their hands.
I would have liked an SD card slot. My old 2G iPod has 32 GB and is over half full at the moment. If you can mount external storage through the USB port that might be good enough.
A rear camera might have been nice to read bar codes and such.
Don't give a crap about G3 as it's too expensive in Canada, I'll just use my phone for when I really need it.
TBH I've had my Galaxy Tab for over a year now and I can count on both hands the number of times I have used the 3G facility. The vast majority of use is Wifi for me.
External storage is more of an issue - a decent music collection, a few films and books and you can easily fill 16GB let alone 8GB. Now if you can easily get to cloud storage (as I am sure Google intends) then not a problem, but otherwise it is a bit of a fail.
Hence it must be rubbish, get over yourselves.
This is at a price point where the extras you are all crying out for 3G/HDMI/RAM etc. are just not possible, if they were then Amazon would have done so already with the Fire. This is a subsidized product.
If this came out at £250, with the requested features then you would all still be complaining as you think it should be available for £200!
I will get one, 8GB, and remove videos when I have watched them, I will tether to my phone, I will not play much music on it, I already use my phone and spotify for that. I may use it for navigation with the downloaded maps feature. I may connect it to a USB stick when I want to access extra things, but most likely I will use it to consume content, play with data in the cloud and stuff like that, fits the bill exactly for what I want and at a price where I don't mind ditching my 10" 32GB (+32GB SD) standard android tablet, which also did not have 3G and I have never noticed!
"This is at a price point where the extras you are all crying out for 3G/HDMI/RAM etc. are just not possible,"
do you realize the extra cost of sd slot? Would you say it's 50 USD or 5 USD, or... 50 cent? They didn't put it there, because nobody would bother to buy the 16 Gb version, for obvious reasons.
"This is a subsidized product"
no, it's not. They're making money on it, particularly on the 16 Gb version (which they know most people will go for, not having the sd card slot). Look it up.
How much built-in behavioral tracking is there? I mean besides "Now" of course.
Google has proven to be especially untrustworthy in that respect which is one reason the only "tablet" I have is a Nook e-ink reader and I keep the WiFi off. Lots 'n' lots of good reading on Project Gutenberg without needing to access BN, Amazon or Google. I don't watch many movies or TV shows anyway but watching on a 7in screen sounds like a good definition of Hell to me.
Let the downvotes begin.
I can't see the "fun" in watching video on a tiny screen either. I have an iPad and have only resorted to that in times of real desperation.
I really would prefer a 7" device, clunky for my uses it makes far more sense than an iPad. And iOs is looking increasingly clunky these days. But, my iPad gets most used mostly as a web browser - all over *built in* 3g. With an extensive music library on tap - it's a 64gb model.
I'm hoping that other device builders see this as a challenge and decide to bring out some premium models. Thought they could also decide to say "f'k it, google's making this on zero margins - why should we bother?"
I think it might be worth the extra. Ars Technica has an excellent review, 12 pages of nerdery, complete with benchmarks, which make it look like it's head and shoulders above anything comparable. Costs like a noname device, performs like a high-end one.
Aye, and all reviews (well, the ones I’ve seen anway) have been extremely positive and the consensus seems to be that this is the best Android tablet yet – or for that matter, a terrific bit of kit.
According to David Pogue in his review, Google has said that it’s not making a profit when selling the Nexus 7 direct (and therefore, will be making a loss when sold via other channels) – so arguably, that means a rather big bang for your buck.
Only 8GB and 16GB are frankly insulting given current microSD prices, which have been dropping rapidly for at least a year (e.g. 32GB for £13 on-line in UK now), so I don't accept manufacturing lead time excuses. Some of us need a lot more storage without messy dongles e.g. for off-line use of media including music, a lot of books and maps (OSM maps are huge).
The Google move to swap system and storage Flash partitions for one ext? filesystem is nice, but is a distraction; the base flash size is still pathetic and can't be compensated for with external flash, and you can't quickly add/change Gigabytes of files by swapping cheap flash cards rather than slow USB or much slower WiFi data transfers.
No, having and using a mobile as a bridge to 3G is a bad idea; it isn't just the hassle and heavy battery drain, a mobile is typically kept close to the body in standby, so your cells get regularly zapped by pulsed microwave radiation not heat; at least with only 3G on in a tablet, you can handily reduce the radiation exposure.
I just bought an ex demo HTC Flyer 7 with 3G, GPS, Compass, 32GB, and a 5M front camera for £200, and added a 32GB microSD; rather than buy one of these crippled tablets.
If Asus has any sense they'll do a Samsung on this, and produce their own similar tablet with higher spec, like Samsung do with the Nexus phone being superceeded by the Galaxy S shortly afterwards.
Is Asus were to release basically the same tablet with 3G and an SD card for about £250 they'd probably shift plenty of them, especially if the networks subsidise it on data contracts.
<blockquote> I[f] Asus were to release basically the same tablet with 3G and an SD card for about £250 they'd probably shift plenty of them [...] </blockquote>
Yeah, but then you'd have to contend with the Android Uncertainty Principle (AUP) where you don't know if you'll get the next OS update in a timely manner (or even at all).
A Nexus branded device ensures timely updates with no extra vendor-crud thrown in. That's worth a lot to me - and I suspect, many others.
Now if Asus can guarantee their newer, better specced (but more expensive device) will work flawlessly with the latest stock Android and be indistingushable from a Nexus device in that regard ... then we'd be talking.
"That said, it doesn't compete with the iPad, but it's not meant to. Instead Google has come up with a tablet that's ideal for the morning commute, most flights or as a second screen device for the home."
I'd say that puts it bang into the iPad's territory. Just because the iPad is capable of much more, doesn't mean most of them ever actually do that much more. Anecdotal evidence says most are sofa surfing, email and photo gallery machines. The Nexus should do those things fine.
There hasn't been an alternative to the iPad yet that is a safe bet to buy for a non-techy family member. There are alternative tablets that will do a perfectly good job, but it takes some research to find out which ones (otherwise you might end up with a Playbook.) My partner's mother got an iPad for her 60th birthday. Guarantee she'd have got one of these instead if it had been this year. And maybe a weekend away somewhere nice with the price difference.
Is Facebook pre installed in a way that means you need to root the tablet to get rid of it?
Likewise various eReaders and whatever else tablet/phone makers get paid to put on?
Presumably Google have a bit of control over it and won't allow it, but does anyone know either way?
Been using a Kindle Fire with ICS on my daily commute for many a month now. Tether it to my lowly Xperia play and the phone easily lasts a day even though the xperia play isn't renowned for having a marathon battery.
Pretty super combination really. Fire is small enough to fit in my pocket and the ICS rom runs really smoothly on it (CM9 based). Tethering is seamless - I have a little widget on my home screen to turn it on and off with a single touch. Connects really quickly, no drops, recovers from loss of 3g signal , connection and data still works even when making calls. The only thing missing from the Fire is bluetooth imo - and possibly some meatier speakers. 8gb has been plenty. Nexus looks superior in almost every way. I'm very tempted.
Oh no, you mean for some reason I can't link it to my smartphone and share it's data connection, oh woe is me.
Perhaps it then does need 3g, as opposed to noone really needing it if they can tether it (or someeone else is paying the data charges)
Wow!
I thought this was supposed to be a tech review. This seems to be just a low tech users review.
Forget 3G...Tether it to your cell...who needs two data plans except a fool who wishes to part with his money faster?
No reason to mention the IPAD (Ver 1,2, or 3) as that's like comparing a small car with a bigger four-door. Built for different purposes and buyers needs. Although Apple is NOW building a smaller version of its product, even when Jobs balked at the idea years ago.
How about what the Nexus gives you that the Nook did not....camera, gps, compass.etc. How about the Samsung Note? Come on man. Make an effort at least.
Geezzzz. Good thing I don't bother counting these reviews towards my own purchases.
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