Google Nexus 7 shipping cock-up enrages fandroids Google hasn't cloaked itself in greatness if the number of complaints from a legion of frustrated customers awaiting the arrival of the Nexus 7 is anything to go by. Those who pre-ordered the Jelly Bean Android-powered fondleslab from the web giant's online Play store late last month have told of shipping delays and poor …
I don't think they love any of these corporations so just pragmatically buy whichever device they're most attracted to, completely blind to the troll wars that go on amongst certain users in forums like this. I'll wager that 99% of people that pick up a Nexus 7 from, say, the shelves of Tesco, will at no point have a conscious thought about the ethics of Google versus those of Apple or Microsoft.
The brand will make them confident the device is going to work well and the rest of the decision will just be features (as in, actual tangible ones, like 'surfs the web', 'plays Angry Birds', 'can be plugged into the TV', not the child-like 'OMG! It's got a triple-core 987Mhz GPU!') versus price.
... that I pre-ordered via Google Play a 16Gb version on the 1st of July and won't get it until next week, when I can order RIGHT NOW on the Tescos website and pick it up from store tomorrow.
I didn't think it was a stupid assumption that ordering direct would be quicker than waiting for resellers to get stock...
Thing is, what you've got is a massive number of people pre-ordering from the main source, and very few people ordering from third parties.
So when the big shipment arrives, it's easy to send off a few cases to the main third parties, at the same time (or even after) sending a load of cases to the pre-order fulfillment.
However, the third parties have fewer orders to work through, and have better distribution scale than the Google pre-order fulfillment. Hence the third parties can get it out to people ordering late, whilst Google are still trying to get through the pre-order backlog
Just go and get it from Tesco. When the pre-order arrives, send it straight back. You don't have to have a reason to return products you buy mail order (although you may have to pay return postage).
I got mine --- well my son's :-( --- yesterday, despite being addressed to Gordon House.
me2 .. as ebuyer had free next day delivery and I could go through quidco I did not bother with Google play.
Still have not found anything worth spending the £15 play credit on (no music in the UK store) .. Going through the free apps first .. although the app quality does not yet seem as high as the Apple store variety.
Have watched Transformers 3 as it was free though.
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Sits back and wait for the usual suspects from Apple and Nintendo threads to start screeming about 'deliberate shortages to get launch day headlines'...
Didn't see no stories about queues camping round the block to get one though..
off topic: 'Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon' ...cannot see what they are typing either.. nice one Chan Reg.... D'oh!
TNT wouldn't let me correct the broken address (this qualifies as an address 'change' that's prohibited by their contract with Computer2000). So they tell me to contact Computer2000. Who tell me to contact Google. Who are of course impossible to contact. Umpteen more conversations later with TNT staff all end with "sorry, we can't change the address, you could be anyone, you must contact Google". I make a radical suggestion - why don't I collect it from the TNT depot? Yes, that will work, they say, if I bring enough identification. We'll see if they deign to let me take it away, or if the machine is in bits from rolling around a TNT van for 3 days. Wow. If Google don't fire Computer2000 I'd be amazed.
Luckily the TNT delivery driver was significantly brighter than Computer 2000 and despite my address showing as Name, Flat #, Gordon House, Postcode he actually took the trouble to find me when he had a choice of at least 10 properties (40 Flats) to try. Well done the TNT driver! Zero points for Computer 2000 and not many for Google who seem to choose contractors like the Olympics committee. At least we didn't finish up with G4S.
A major gripe apart from the device shipping from third party retailers before Google Play started shipping is that Google Play have been shipping pre-orders in seemingly random order.
For example, some Nexus 7’s ordered on launch day (27 June) over three weeks ago have not yet been shipped compared to units ordered as recently as earlier this week that have.
Not the end of the world, but I can’t imagine someone like Amazon processing orders this way.
Tell me yourself. I may well be left with no option but to return the N7, but given how well Google/third party fulfilment firm have taken note of cancellations (mine and others on the thread), I'm not convinced I'll actually get my money back. If it does go back on return then every last scrap of correspondence is getting printed in anticipation of a word with my credit card co.
Whilst I applaud Google for getting into direct sales again after the Nexus One, they need to understand that retail is about more than just gathering orders/pre-orders and then fulfilling them. People cancel, expire, want to return, change address, change payment method etc. Google Play seems to have little to no facility to do this.
Not sure why 8GB N7s are closing out at £189+ with p&p on top on ebay. I suspect sellers would have to clear at least this to break even after ebay and paypal (prop. ebay) take their modest considerations.
Further to the above, took an hour and 20 mins on the phone to ultimately get through to someone in the USA. Cue trying to impress on her that no, it was delivered by TNT and not UPS, that even though there is nothing wrong with it it CAN be returned (Distance Selling Regulations), no you can't charge me a restock fee (Distance Selling Regulations again) and that I don't have a Zip code - I have a postcode.
I supposedly have a returns number & label being emailed to me, although half an hour later I'm still waiting. Google may well be kings of search, advertising and the like but as a retail entity I know several dodgy burger vans that could seriously outclass them. They'd have to be twice as good as they are at the moment to qualify as shambolic.
me too. lucky for me, it arrived just as i was heading out the door last friday morning so had the pleasure of showing it off to my workmates (all infrastructure geeks too). then utilised the friday night hotel wifi to browse/fondle/nerd out
i like it, sygic satnav on it is very good btw. download all maps locally.
with gps and hdmi out, under 90 quid. Surely not as perfect as the google product, surely the gps "must" be much worse, and the battery life is like 5 hrs rather than google 9 or so, but then, with a 32 Gb micro sd card for 15 quid I have a surprisingly ueable toy (common, it's nothing better than that).
and then, it comes with this google play store installed, plus a direct link to download and install the latest firmware. Yes, the startup comes up in Chinese, but hey, after that it's rather nice.
a plug? well, yeah, but then, I'm pretty sure it's better than what they sell at Maplins. And I didn't even say where to get it.
Ordered mine on the 27th and had no emails or anything from them, even though it showed complet Monday...
pre-ordered from Currys on the 29th as I could get the 16GB for nearly the same as the 8GB with a voucher etc and recieved it today.
Google are not looking good with this lack of communication, I sent a total of 6 requests to cancel starting on the 29th and still have not heard anything about that.
The tablet itself is a dream to use with Jelly bean but the experience of ordering through Google Play Store is a joke.
EBuyer.co.uk was slapped by google for sending out Nexus 7 early. Now we are told today that no stock has arrived and shipment won't start till atleast next week. Sounds like they had there deliveries stopped once google heard they shipped to early. They seem to go from one side of the date over to the other. How hard is it to store the stock against a number of pre-orders and ship it only the day before release?
On the phone yesterday for two hours (takes an hour of holding on to get thru) trying to get google to send me a replacement as mine is fucked up - the speaker buzzes to the extend you can't hear anything else and the screen is lifting on the left hand side.
They are the worst company EVER to deal with. Send you a replacement straight away? Fuck no. Has to be passed to some other team and I have still heard nothing. What a bunch of idiots. Total fail.
Half an hour in on hold trying to return mine (Made multiple cancellation requests prior to shipping acknowledged but not actually cancelled).
Unimpressed. Will stay firmly in the Apple walled garden from now on; N7 was the first attempt at venturing out since 2003.
The Nexus 7 launch has been a fiasco.
I was wary of pre-ordering one because I knew what hassles happened to those who'd bought a Nexus 1 direct from Google back in the day, but stupidly thought that now Google offer a phone number they must have jacked up their customer relations. Haha, not a chance.
The message here is clear - do not, EVER, buy anything direct from Google. They simply don't have the first clue about handling retail.
By all reports the actual tablet is pretty nice - it damn well better be after the amount of garbage they've put me through.
Wish I had checked here earlier I might have stood a chance of getting it today, instead I had to call TNT at 5.30pm and ask them where it was only to be told that Computer2000 had not put the complete address on the shipment... Thing is I thought you had to have a complete address to actually ship these through the system.. Seems now eh? Anyway got something else arriving tomorrow so not too bad, of course pretty annoyed to think I could have bought it down the Tesco store and saved money to boot..
Ho hum... Hope my speaker and screen are ok not liking the reviews on them at the moment!!
The TNT delivery driver managed to find my flat, but of course I was at work. I drove 20 miles to their local depot this evening to pick it up, but they could not find it. The worse thing was that four smug bastards came in and walked out with theirs while I was waiting. Apparently they have about 200 sitting in the depot, but not mine.
Hi,
I just received my Nexus 7 today and it seems to be running Android 4.0.3 and is reporting a serial number of 1111111111111111 . Any one else found that? I cant believe this is a one off fault.
Tried to phone the support line 3 times but gave up in each case because it took too long.
come on Google!!
Apart from getting my early pre-order about 4 days after I could have bought one in a shop (and saved on the shipping) I was puzzled to find that Auto-rotate was turned off when I turned the device on - I actually had to read the manual to figure out how to turn it on!
No Flash in the browser means some of the streaming media websites I use regularly don't work.
And every time the screen turns off, and I turn it back on, it starts at the Google app, rather than the web page I was looking at when the screen turned off. Oh, and I accidentally pressed the Google+ icon - you can't back out of it, you either agree to sign up for Google+ or you turn the device off.
I also have one stuck pixel - luckily it's only noticeable when the screen is all black, like at the start of a video. You can sometimes "massage" a stuck pixel on an LCD screen, but I'm not sure that will work when it's behind the hard glass of a tablet.
Battery life has been a disappointment so far - Is that 300 hours of "standby" only available if you actually turn the device off?
Text on the screen looks lovely, but I was surprised that the Google Book app makes changing the font size so hard - no pinch and squeeze.
All in all, I might actually have to study the manual to actually figure out if there's anything special about this device after all.
"No Flash in the browser means some of the streaming media websites I use regularly don't work."
Yes, Adobe have scrapped Flash on new versions, and in a week or so's time (I think) will remove it so it cannot be installed, although devices that already have it will apparently still get updates? Bit weird, but they clearly want to scrap it. Annoyingly BBC iPlayer also won't install or run, as that appears to require Flash. Hopefully they'll fix that very soon as the Nexus will be a great device to watch videos on.
"And every time the screen turns off, and I turn it back on, it starts at the Google app, rather than the web page I was looking at when the screen turned off. Oh, and I accidentally pressed the Google+ icon - you can't back out of it, you either agree to sign up for Google+ or you turn the device off."
If on the unlock screen you drag the unlock icon onto the obvious Google button, it fires up Google Now, which seems to be what you're seeing. If you drag the unlock icon anywhere else it just unlocks and returns to where you are. Took me a couple of goes on that.
And when I accidentally went into Google+ and was asked to sign up, I just clicked the 'no thanks' button and carried on.
"If on the unlock screen you drag the unlock icon onto the obvious Google button, it fires up Google Now, which seems to be what you're seeing. If you drag the unlock icon anywhere else it just unlocks and returns to where you are. Took me a couple of goes on that."
I thought it might be something like that - I'll have to check that out when I get home.
I ordered mine this morning from Tesco for 179 quid and am planning to root it and flash the Modaco ROM fairly shortly after it comes - see:
http://www.modaco.com/topic/355705-jr4-jro03d-411-modaco-custom-rom-for-the-nexus-7/
The flashed ROM gives you Flash (and therefore iPlayer), a launcher that actually bleeding rotates the home screen when you rotate the tablet, a camera app, Amazon (is that working in the UK yet?) and Getjar app stores and several other useful enhancements. Heck, I root Android on tablets just so that the Clocksync app can keep the time correct (without 3G, you need to time sync your clock regularly).
It looks like the Nexus7 does the time update OK without ClockSync - at least I didn't have to set the clock on mine.
That's always been one of the drawbacks of Android on previous tablets - the phone dependent bots of the OS were still there, even when the hardware wasn't. Hopefully Google cleaned up the JellyBean codebase a bit as they know there's no phone bits in the Nexus 7.
Got mine on Wednesday (ordered it on 28/6)... smooth as silk delivery by FedEx from HK to Australia. Once I got a shipping notice from Google on Monday I could track the parcel from HK to Sydney to Melbourne.
As for the device itself... very happy with it... the screen is great.. the device is fast and jelly bean is certainly a nice refinement of Android.
Almost immediately after booting it announce a system update was downloading! HOOORAY ... one of the big advantages of getting a Nexus!
And that packaging is some sort of Chinese puzzle box designed to frustrate!!!!!!
Kindle app works fine and sync'd with all my previous purchases. Overall, joy to use.
Found the screen orientation lock at the top of the notifications screen. No music other than downloading an iTunes library, so I set up Spotify instead. Films mainly Bollywood in the UK at this stage. Would like to have the "Save web URL to icon" as easy to achieve as it is on the iPad. BBC iPlayer not in the Play store, and Sky Go promised for Ice Cream Sandwich (one version behind Jelly Bean) in the next month.
Apart from those, a fantastic, impressive, snappy experience.
This for me is one of the biggest complaints I have. there are people who ordered 28th+ who haven't had any confirmations but people who ordered like you at a later date got them within a few days.
Delays due to lack of stock, high demand I understand but for newwer orders to be processed before existing preorders if shamefully incompetent.
Glad for you that you benefitted from googles incompetence though.
And as an apple fanboy (7 mac inc airs, iMacs, minis, iPhone, etc) I offer this:
It's great! Far better than my kindle fire. I didn't want a big iPad (or a small iPad) as the tablet is more a 'cut down air for me in that I want to root, play mkvs, etc, etc).
lovely screen. very very fast. plays 1080p content nice.
today I'll be rooting it and adding OTG support for my 64gb usb stick! :-)
Pre ordered on the 18th of June. The paperweight arrives on the 18th of July. Finally receive return/replacement details today, and now the Play Store is showing the 16GB version as coming soon with now shipping estimate.
I'll probably wait a week for a replacement, then ask for a refund. In a month or two they'll probably be piled high in Tesco, or something better will come along.
If, like me, you pre-ordered in good faith expecting to receive your device early or at the very least at the same time as standard retail channels and feel as let down by Google's additional postage and poor service as I do then please allow me to make a suggestion. Wait for them to deliver it and then promptly return it. Under the distance selling regulations they must refund your entire order including postage costs and they can't charge you a restocking fee. You are responsible for the cost of returning it but this works out as about a fiver so well worth givimg them a kick in the spuds. The cost to google to restock the device (considering that they are being charged for logistics by a third party) will probably exceed the profit on the device and will serve as a reminder to the chocolate factory that we are not to be trifled with.
27,152,150,49,135,227,127,161,17,251,39,229,58,233,134,45
You should never deal with Google directly. Their customer support has always been abysmal and despite the fact they're an internet company and should be showing people how much better it is to use the internet, it's clear brick and mortar still rules and I suspect they're giving them preferential treatment.
Fanboys are more likely to have ordered online so it's not like they're going to switch so they can wait.
Picking mine up tomorrow from my local Tesco, Tesco direct have (had?) stock. £189 as voucher code still works.
When the one I bought from Google Play turns up it will be going straight back, heck I will just refuse to sign for it.
Fail icon for Google Play, when I ordered it nearly four weeks ago they said 2 weeks for delivery.
Pre-ordered from EBuyer. They said delivery would be onetime, then delayed to Friday and now there stock delivery from Thursday (yesterday) has been pushed back to end of next week at the earliest. So much for their next day delivery! Looks like unless you got it early from EBuyer, you won't be seeing it til almost August if not later :s, I'm never Pre-Ordering from EBuyer ever again.
... ask a few questions in reply to their spam like e-mail requests for quite a lot of personal information and that's it....
http://furbian.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/my-google-walletplaycheckoutwhatever.html
So I can't even buy one, I tried and failed because they 'were unable to verify the information of', me.
So all you Nexus 7 fans out there perhaps you're happy to send them (Goggle, the worlds most privacy respecting company) photocopies of your passports and bank statements etc. in response to badly written e-mails,. I am not.
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