The Nexus 7 is my first table and I'm still sitting on the fence about the whole experience. The version of Chrome is superb and it's a pleasure to surf, but there really are a lack of tablet specific Android apps. Some Android apps are also missing features present in their iOS counterparts. For example, the MLB app is very basic compared to the iOS version. I was hoping the 7 would be useful for reading PDFs, but it's merely passable when there's nothing better around.
Android 4.1 is a pleasure to use and is snappy. The hardware is nice, but I had to call for a replacement since my screen started to peel off after about 10 days.
> The Nexus 7 is my first table and I'm still sitting on the fence about the whole experience. The version of Chrome is superb and it's a pleasure to surf, but there really are a lack of tablet specific Android apps. Some Android apps are also missing features present in their iOS counterparts. For example, the MLB app is very basic compared to the iOS version. I was hoping the 7 would be useful for reading PDFs, but it's merely passable when there's nothing better around.
unlike when i bought my Xoom, i'm reasonably optimistic that we'll see tablet applications and updates arriving shortly. as chris dibona has said before, the attractiveness of the platform is basically a direct function of how many are sold. with initial sales at least perceived to be promising, i think we'll see more announcements like EA's in the days ahead:
and if i'm being honest, it was easier to take a flyer on a $250 device that may seem more applications coming than a > $500 alternative.
> Android 4.1 is a pleasure to use and is snappy. The hardware is nice, but I had to call for a replacement since my screen started to peel off after about 10 days.
this is the second time i've heard someone mention this, and depending on how widespread the problem is, it could certainly impact sales negatively. mine has had no such issues thus far, but i guess i'll see what happens in three days.
I had no idea it was an issue until I started to search around about how to send the device back. At first it was just the left side was a bit above the edging, but after another day it was so bad that when I push the left 1/4 of the device it discolors the screen. I thought it was just shoddy hardware so I was really thinking about returning it for a refund, but then I read the reports about it happening to other people. I called support and they said they're going to ship out a replacement.
The screen separation issue is a very widespread issue of the very first batch -- I got such an affected unit. It always seems to be the left or upper left, and clearly relates to the adhesive applicator. I have zero doubt that they've ironed out the issue, fixed the glue machine, and all is well now (it isn't a foundational or design problem. Simple manufacturing).
The version of Chrome is superb and it's a pleasure to surf
I have to strongly disagree with all of the lauding about Chrome on Android.
Chrome on Android was terrible on my Galaxy S2. Chrome on Android was terrible on my Galaxy S3. In both cases perhaps because Samsung heavily optimized the basic, unbranded browser (full hardware acceleration, etc), but also because Chrome has some bizarre rendering behaviors (for instance it separately sizes text on sites like HN or Reddit).
So I got a Nexus 7. Pretty powerful device, and I was used to browsing full sites like The Verge and The Toronto Star with no issue. Load Chrome -- they removed the unbranded browser -- and it is atrocious. Huge, multisecond pauses on either of those sites (http://www.theverge.com and http://www.thestar.com - be sure to go to the full sites and not the gimped mobile version). Scrolling is a hilariously bad affair.
Note these observations online and am given the standard "oh no must be your unit, etc. etc." Only my second Nexus 7 was just arriving (from Google Play, while the former came from Staples, fwtw) -- exactly the same behavior.
I do not understand the expressions of love for Chrome on Android. Perhaps it's the chrome of the browser -- bookmark management, etc? I don't generally use that but instead simply punch in auto-completed URLs and browse sites, and there it is profoundly, catastrophically deficient.
They run beautifully in Safari on the iPad. Indeed, they run quite well in Firefox (beta) on the Nexus 7. They ran quite well in the stock browser pre-JB.
Those are only a couple of sample sites, but there is an endemic inefficiency of Chrome on Android that makes it unusable as a primary browser. Metacritic -- forget about it. I could go on and on.
I have to think that people who like Chrome on Android must actually stay within the ghetto of mobile sites, where its inefficiency is less pronounced and things like the bookmark manager stand out more. The massive delays and largely non-functional scrolling on richer sites just makes it hard to believe that people are praising that browser.
You're a web browsing snob of discerning and demanding tastes, we get it.
It's plainly evident by your own admission that the browser is widely lauded in the first post that Chrome on Android is not unusable. Your self-aggrandizing generalization about "people who like Chrome" and the "ghetto of mobile" sites is ridiculous.
Honestly, you should be happy. If your favorite places on the web keep rendering poorly in Chrome it will surely keep your requests from mingling with those of undesirables in the cache.
"I don't understand how anyone on earth can like this because it doesn't work well for my personal use cases!!!"
Personally, I'm in line with the parent and find Chrome to be a pleasure to surf with. I've found the theverge.com to be a horrible mobile experience regardless of the browser.
The chrome(!) of the Chrome browser is one of the worst aspects. The buttons and tabs are way too small on the top. They are big enough to steal valuable screen space from the page itself but are simply too small to click reliably.
Miscellaneous issues that are shared with chrome on ios also abound. On page open, the focus doesn't manually switch to the address/search bar and requires a separate click. What a disaster. The last closed tabs are buried under the top sites that manage to be insanely hard to customize. The bookmarks cut off text and don't have any way to switch to a list view.The only redeeming feature is the ability to swipe across the screen to switch tabs.
On large pages the browser performs slowly and crawls along while Firefox beta scrolls admirably and doesn't deliver blank white spots. This way fine back in 2007 on the iphone but in 2012 it is a little ridiculous. Firefox Beta is pretty good although I would like a new tab button and some way to swipe across the screen to switch between tabs.
Flash also works fine and hq video isn't painless at all.
I second your observation about Chrome randomly choosing text sizes for each paragraph on HN and Reddit, it is horrible enough I decided to get apps for those two on the Nexus 7 while on my android phone I preferred visiting the websites in the stock browser (for reddit, I used the mobile version of the website, which is great).
>Q: How do you use the Nexus 7 differently than you used your Xoom?
>A: Mostly, I use it more. It’s just small enough that it will fit in my shorts pocket (though admittedly sagging them to dangerously teenage levels), so if I’m walking over to lunch at the sushi bar, I’ll bring it. It’s replaced my Galaxy Nexus as the device I carry around the house or the property for browsing, Twitter and so on. And once I start traveling again, it will be making every trip, not just the long haul ones the Xoom was relegated to by the end. And it will replace my MBA for the short duration visits, an up and back to NYC, let’s say. In short, I think Tim is correct: the 7" form factor is the correct one for personal use. My personal use, at least. Portablility might be its most compelling feature.
> Twitter has yet to release a tablet specific Android application.
Why would you use the official Twitter client on Android when the incomparable Twicca[1][2] is available? I'm not sure how well it works on a tablet but its UI is the best Twitter UI I've seen anywhere. This is especially refreshing given the significant disagreements I have with Twitter's designers on what makes a usable site. It also has quite a large number of official[3] and unofficial[4] plugins, my favorite being the Google+ cross-poster[5].
Note: the author's English is charmingly bizarre (it used to say "retweeted by 1 people" and "retweeted by 2 peoples"), so "twicca is lightweight but it is not cheap" means it's not "cheap" on features. It is a free application.
i'll check out Twicca, but the primary reason i use the official client over nice alternatives like Tweet Lanes [1] is the integration with Android itself, i.e. notifications, and so on. they just keep sucking me back in. but i'm more than willing to give it a shot.
that was actually one of the things i didn't like about the tablet, now that you mention it: Google Talk got turned on by default. probably just a personal preference, but i really don't want to receive IMs on a tablet.
but if you do, then you're right: the Ifttt recipe is your solution.
My brother and I imported one each from the UK. After 4 days of use I am very, very happy with the hardware (display, sound, weight), but still have to get used to the software (changes in 4.x seem to confuse me, my phone still doesn't offer it. Sidenote: Never ever buy a phone from LG if you can avoid it).
Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?).
Even after this short time I'm confident that I'll bring this thing with me wherever I go and it already feels _wrong_ to look at the phone display again.
Do yourself a favor though and install Firefox Beta. Give it a shot against Chrome - for me the experience is so much better that I'd wish for a way to uninstall Chrome.
> Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?).
this is interesting, because for my usage, Google Now was one of the most useful additions in Jelly Bean. i use it all the time, and love the notifications about nearby public transit, time and distance notifications for appointments from my calendar and so on.
it's pretty basic at present, but it's already useful for me day to day and if they were to open the API could be dramatically more so.
> Do yourself a favor though and install Firefox Beta. Give it a shot against Chrome - for me the experience is so much better that I'd wish for a way to uninstall Chrome.
several people have said this as well, so i will definitely be giving it a shot.
re: Google Now. The only ways I've seen it noticeable function is when you leave your current "home location" and if you turn on your Google web history (on the account that is tied to Chrome on the Nexus 7).
Since I neither leave my home location often nor want to turn on web history, for either of my accounts, it's relatively useless for me.
Here I don't know where it takes the address from. In the beginning it listed a couple off-by-one addresses for friends and family, by now (how..?) it resolved two of these addresses to contact names, so I have now a travel plan to visit my brother, dad or my company. It also includes a wrong address of my in-laws.
This is impressive, technically, but a little creepy and totally, 100% useless for me. I _was_ at these places, but I really don't plan to go there again anytime soon.
Why is this listed?
- The weather, for the local town I'm in. The Standard Thing (tm)
- A Google Translate widget to translate between German and English. I .. feel insulted. ;-) I used Google Translate a lot, in Israel, for Hebrew <-> English. German <-> English? I can do that myself, thank you very much.
Why is this listed?
- A widget that lists the exchange rate between EUR and ILS. Yes, I used to be interested in that, up until I moved back to Germany more than a month ago.
Why is this listed?
- The time and day of week. Off by one hour.
Again - no clue why. But this at least gives a hint:
Somehow Google decided that I'm still living in Israel. It shows me currency exchange rates, the time at 'home' and a translator widget (why between english and the local language though?).
My problem: I don't want _any_ of that. Mostly not because I don't feel that they add anything of value (they don't, for me), more because ~everything~ listed there is irrelevant/wrong. Since the whole idea of Google Now seems to be a magic sauce trying to find stuff that you want to be informed about, I'm unable to 'fix' my data set here.
I wasn't able to follow your instructions (I tried finding a setting like that on my mobile or the tablet, but failed), but the location history (that clicked!) website's dashboard allowed me to redefine 'home'.
you can also occasionally correct Google now via the non-obvious settings icon in the card, but i'm hoping they'll allow for more explicit settings in future. it's technically impressive that they can reasonably intuit locations and so on, but i'd be happy to make it easy for them by setting it myself.
It's not technically impressive and odd they would be getting it wrong. They know where your hits are coming from and the WiFi/GPS information on mobile. If a Maps app can it get right 100% of the time why can't Google ?
GPS location is, agreed, not technically impressive. but successfully leveraging location history alongside of real time traffic data to intuit home and work addresses and the drive times between them with zero user input and an acceptably high level of accuracy seems somewhat impressive here.
Hmm.. Those settings on the cards seem (so far, as far as I can tell, insert disclaimer about being new to the tablet and all) only affect the parameters of this _type_ of card. So I can say when ('before commute' and other opaque event like names) a card should show up, how important the content is .. but I haven't found any setting in Google Now that actually allows me to change the content (remove that listed location, add a different one, change my home address..), the data itself.
Sorry if they're off, apparently it's different on phone then tablet and I extrapolated from what I've heard. On phones, usually 'location history' is a drop-down menu in maps (the upper left button that says 'maps' is actually a drop-down).
I don't know why he mentions recommending to pure apple households. Surely if every computer (/phone/tablet) in your house is made by apple, you don't really care what anybody says about the competition.
Or they evaluated the competition and decided that, for right now, especially in the context of the other devices they already own from Apple (which tend to work well together), those purchases were likely the best for them.
I don't know, the nexus is attracting a lot of apple users. I for one have only got apple devices in the house. The nexus 7 is the sole exception to this.
Q: So would you recommend the Nexus 7 overall?A: For straight Apple households, probably not.
Haha, I'd say I'm in a pure Apple household (though I run a personal Ubuntu server... perhaps I'm disqualified). I'm still considering the Nexus 7 even with the iPad "mini" on the horizon. I think there's something to be said from having familiarity with the different devices/eco-systems (especially as a developer). The reviews are also hard to ignore.
They are pretty common from what I've been noticing.
I think a lot of it is people replacing older PCs with new Mac laptops, picking up the AppleTV because it is so cheap then finally buying an iPad as more of a curiosity.
A lot of them didn't really pay much attention to the competition because they weren't serious, considered choices.
I'm mostly wearing cargo pants (or whatever you call these things with pockets on your legs as well).
It fits in one of those easily enough. You don't that I carry it, it's about the same weight as my (too stuffed) purse on the other side and barely noticeable.
it will fit in the front pocket of my jeans, a pair of adidas shorts and another set of khaki shorts.
the fit is tight, however, meaning that while i'm fine walking to a coffee shop with them in there, i'm not walking around all day or going for a hike with them pocketed.
I haven't been terribly impressed with the Nexus 7, and it certainly hasn't changed my opinion of the 7" form factor. To get an idea of the size of this thing, hold your iPad in portrait orientation and then cover the top 55% of the screen. There's your Nexus. It's tiny.
One problem with this 7" form factor is that the portrait orientation isn't wide enough to display most regular web pages without having to zoom in and scroll around; it's just like browsing on your smartphone. I'm also struggling to find any software that wouldn't look and work in exactly the same way on a regular sized smartphone. It makes for a better e-book reader than a regular smartphone, but that's just about it.
There are some good things. This device exists almost solely to tie you into Google's on-line services, so if you're a Google user then the integration with their services is slick in a lot of places.
But I'm mostly interested in the quality of the software, and unfortunately it isn't that great, at least when compared to iOS. The browser is particularly poor, which surprised me. It's difficult if not impossible to reliably tap on small links. There's no visual indication of what you've tapped, or the indication is delayed, or that indication is completely hidden under your finger. Often you will tap on a link and a magnifier winder will pop up instead; I still haven't figured out how to trigger that. Taps may not register at all, and there's virtually no visual indication that the browser has begun loading a new page. It makes the browser seem fussy and unreliable, and consequently is not a joy to use. As a result, if I need to look something up then I'll grab my iPhone before I grab the Nexus. The browser is also missing some important iframe performance and usability improvements that appeared in iOS 5.
It's hard to argue with the price, but if you already own an Android phone then I'm not sure why you'd buy this device. And if you want to see the best of what modern tablet software can offer, you won't find it on a 7" 16:9 screen.
The magnifier pops up only when you click on a spot that's very close to two links, you then disambiguate on the magnified links. It's perfect, I love it.
It doesn't work for me, the hotspot isn't listed on the Nexus among the many local networks, and without other wifi equipment I'm unsure where the fault may lie; so many possibilities.
Android 4.1 is a pleasure to use and is snappy. The hardware is nice, but I had to call for a replacement since my screen started to peel off after about 10 days.
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