Nexus 7 Tablet Hands-On

So based on this forum alone, a limited data set to be sure, quite a few of us are not intending to get this tablet simply because there is no expansion, me included. I wanted this first google made piece to have expansion, as the ipad doesn't have any, and neither do so many others. Hey Google "think different". teehee:D
 
almost bit until read no expansion. I think I'll stick with my $200 rooted HTC Evo View 32gb + 32gb expansion for a bit longer. (at least until v2 of the Nexus 7 is released)
 
I think that people complaining about the lack of an expansion or data card slot are misunderstanding the Google market. Google doesn't want to monopolize the tablet space from their OEM partners using Android ... they can leave the expansion card space to them. Google, like Amazon and Apple, wants you online and ideally connected to their cloud services (since that is where they make money; not from the hardware itself). I suspect a device like this is definitely a Kindle Fire killer (depending on how robust Google can make their book and video offerings). As others have noted, I think the 10" market will be a battle between Apple and Microsoft. I don't think Android can really be very compelling in that market, although there could be an opportunity for something bigger (12"-13" tablet perhaps). That might be very interesting depending on its specs.
 
Honestly, if you want microSD, the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0" seems to be worthy of consideration - from what I see it plays 1080p high profile well (the main reason I like Tegra 3 in the Nexus 7).

Screen is a bit lower-rez though.

Too bad the Galaxy Tab 7.7" is so expensive...that looks really nice...but not at the prices they want for it.
 
16GB seems like a perfectly ample amount of storage space to me. It's been my experience that, with tablets, it certainly isn't in any way necessary to store the entirety of one's music or video collection on it. It would be nice to be able to do that, but it certainly isn't a big deal to manage media to keep to the storage budget. On the iPad, I sync whatever media I want on it when I want it, and that isn't much of a nuisance.

Besides, as mentioned above, Google is going to be able to stream your entire music library via Google Play and you're going to be able to stream video through Play as well. With Play and Drive, things are pretty well-covered there on the media streaming front. 16GB should be more than adequate for most users for apps, unless Android apps are particularly bloated on average.
 
I equate "cloud storage" about the same as Google Maps on my cell. It's great when you have signal... useless when you don't. In other words.. I'm not relying on it unless there is a backup plan.
 
XacTactX said:
Man it sucks to not have editing on the front page, but I think a dual core with high IPC like Qualcomm Krait seems better suited to something like this, I predict it would give better battery life. Imagine something like the MSM8960A with the new Adreno 320, something like that would be perfect.

But then again I'm not complaining. :)
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There's a shortage of S4s right now. Qualcomm (TSMC really) can't make them fast enough.
 
hardware_failure said:
5-6 movies is a ton of storage? :-/
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Properly encoded, you should be able to store 10 or more HD movies of average length in whatever space is left over on the 16GB not reserved by the OS. That's quite a bit more playtime than there is battery life available on a single charge.

It'd be nice if there were more storage or an SD slot, but this is one of those things I really don't understand being a dealbreaker for so many people here.
 
Why are so many people whining for expansion cards?

The whole point of devices nowadays is to stream music from the cloud. I bought the largest iPhone available back in 2010, back when I synched music myself, but I don't even use a fraction of its storage space any more. Cloud streaming FTW!

And don't give me that lossless bullshit. Anyone with even a fraction of audio knowledge knows that the DACs in these pocket devices are junk. Unless you are running it through a quality dock by Wadia or other quality audio company, trying to play lossless through them is literally a waste of battery and storage space. And no, the Bose/LG/Sony POS you got at Best Buy for $200 is not a "quality dock". :p
 
Sly said:
Please check how how much total space it says on your Nexus. Because i assure you, it's nowhere near 16Gigs.
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It doesn't matter how much space it actually has....as it stands I have a day's worth of videos and still have 4.5 GB free for more entertainment.

My 32 GB touchpad tells a similar story. I use it primarily for video while traveling and have yet to get anywhere near 16 GB of video on it at any given time. On a 7" tablet there is no reason to have a full quality HD video anyway. If I need more I'll add a lossier format an not notice the difference.
 
InorganicMatter said:
And don't give me that lossless bullshit. Anyone with even a fraction of audio knowledge knows that the DACs in these pocket devices are junk. Unless you are running it through a quality dock by Wadia or other quality audio company, trying to play lossless through them is literally a waste of battery and storage space. And no, the Bose/LG/Sony POS you got at Best Buy for $200 is not a "quality dock". :p
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Agreed. The same thing is true of videos. There is no need to slap a bunch of HD videos on a 4.7" phone screen....it's simply wasted size and battery drain.

Computer guys are archivists which is to say that they're the neighbor who refuses to throw garbage away and has a yard cluttered with junk and cars. They'll spend a year properly tagging, categorizing, and organizing their music/movie collections but won't spend 5 minutes figuring out which videos they'll actually watch on a trip. If it's really that big of a deal get an OTG cable and get a pico usb drive.
 
my boss preordered the 32GB last night. Can't wait to play with it and see if it will keep me going arm/surface
 
Blown 89 said:
Agreed. The same thing is true of videos. There is no need to slap a bunch of HD videos on a 4.7" phone screen....it's simply wasted size and battery drain.

Computer guys are archivists which is to say that they're the neighbor who refuses to throw garbage away and has a yard cluttered with junk and cars. They'll spend a year properly tagging, categorizing, and organizing their music/movie collections but won't spend 5 minutes figuring out which videos they'll actually watch on a trip. If it's really that big of a deal get an OTG cable and get a pico usb drive.
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There are reasons to put HD on a 4.7" phone... especially if you have MHL port or external hdmi. There are other things I feel like doing when traveling than hooking up the laptop and transferring movies back and forth on my tablet. (which takes way more than 5 minutes) Sometimes you want to bring a bunch of movies and let people/kids choose through them later. As a matter of fact, most movies I transfer to my tablet, I've already seen.

I feel it's akin to Bill Gates saying ""640K ought to be enough for anybody." well you might not have a reason but someone else might.

how much more would it have been to put in a sd port? pennies? This is more to do with forcing people to the cloud. (which is useless when there is no cloud available) than saving $$$ by leaving out a feature (that's standard on plenty of lesser tablets.)
 
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InorganicMatter said:
Why are so many people whining for expansion cards?

The whole point of devices nowadays is to stream music from the cloud. I bought the largest iPhone available back in 2010, back when I synched music myself, but I don't even use a fraction of its storage space any more. Cloud streaming FTW!

And don't give me that lossless bullshit. Anyone with even a fraction of audio knowledge knows that the DACs in these pocket devices are junk. Unless you are running it through a quality dock by Wadia or other quality audio company, trying to play lossless through them is literally a waste of battery and storage space. And no, the Bose/LG/Sony POS you got at Best Buy for $200 is not a "quality dock". :p
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I don't pay what I consider massive sums for huge data plans on huge carriers just so I can have internet everywhere. Just so stream my own stuff from someone else's servers (which is silly also). I only use Google music to supplement my 16GB microSD card (niche music that I don't always have on me).

Plus, I don't want to depend on it. I just want music to play without worrying about a cell signal or a wi-fi signal everywhere. SD cards are just plain better than streaming.

I'll be camping next week and I'll have the kids' CM7 Nooks loaded up with some videos - they are used to Netflix at the house. Using the internal storage and microSD I should be fine - I'll probably have to re-encode some My Little Pony Episodes to lower quality though (Nooks can only do 480p video anyway).

The biggest thing is to me that I don't want to sit around re-encoding videos down to 480p or whatever. I want to be able to grab whatever and play it. The new Nexus takes care of that with the Tegra 3 (1080p high profile video playback) but fails on the storage front :(
 
Blown 89 said:
Agreed. The same thing is true of videos. There is no need to slap a bunch of HD videos on a 4.7" phone screen....it's simply wasted size and battery drain.
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It's more on compatibility than actual screen resolution. Some of us doesn't want to spend hours re-encoding video because our media device doesn't support the format. That's primarily why my iPod got mothballed, running a PC overnight and ending up a movie taking up twice the storage space is not practical for a video library. Preferrably, having the same video we play on our 23" monitors should be able to run on the media device straight away. Can you tell the difference between a 1080p and a 720p on a 7"? Personally, i can't. But if my copy of the movie is 1080p, i'd certainly like to be able to just copy the videos onto the device without needing to wait 2 hours for a conversion program to spit out a compatible format.

Right now on my PC, i'm watching a three hour, three episode video, which is 3Gigs. By some people here's recommendation, i'd have to wait six hours transcoding it. When alternatively, i could simply get a media tablet that can play it straight away. 1080p? 720p? 480p? It doesn't matter, but i'd want to be able to just pick one from my library and play it without any hassle.
 
Sly said:
Right now on my PC, i'm watching a three hour, three episode video, which is 3Gigs. By some people here's recommendation, i'd have to wait six hours transcoding it. When alternatively, i could simply get a media tablet that can play it straight away. 1080p? 720p? 480p? It doesn't matter, but i'd want to be able to just pick one from my library and play it without any hassle.
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Or you could redownload it in 12 minutes.... Your math works out to a gig an hour which means you will run out of battery long before you run out of videos
 
Emission said:
7 inches and its only 1280x800.

I don't know about you but if my phone's screen is 1280x720 in 4.74 inches then that 7 inch screen is going to look like garbage in comparison.
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New iPad is 264 ppi, the Nexus 7 is 216 ppi, and the iPad 2 is 132 ppi. Not even remotely close to looking like garbage.
 
Sly said:
Right now on my PC, i'm watching a three hour, three episode video, which is 3Gigs. By some people here's recommendation, i'd have to wait six hours transcoding it.
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Or you could simply drop it onto your 16GB tablet, removing some other piece of media you aren't currently watching to accommodate its storage demand if there isn't enough free space.
 
braamer said:
New iPad is 264 ppi, the Nexus 7 is 216 ppi, and the iPad 2 is 132 ppi. Not even remotely close to looking like garbage.
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And the Galaxy Nexus is 316 ppi.

By itself it will look fine I'm sure, but I'm one of those people that turns down the dpi setting in software to get more things to fit on the screen so that it functions more like a normal computer.

I'm crazy, just let it go :p.
 
Blown 89 said:
Or you could redownload it in 12 minutes.... Your math works out to a gig an hour which means you will run out of battery long before you run out of videos
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Unfortunately, it takes a lot longer than that on a spotty 1mbps connection. And your solution is to download every video in your library twice??? On a 1mb line???

Doesn't matter how many hours the battery lasts when you're not likely to watch everything in one sitting. But how much time you end up spending organizing everything just to work around the space limitations.

Contrary to what someone earlier posted, we don't spend half our waking hours organizing and cataloging our libraries, we have a lot of videos, we just want to be able to watch them with minimal hassle. We have a video, we want to watch it. No transcoding, no file swapping, no duplicating. Why do you guys like to make things complicated?
 
wonderfield said:
Or you could simply drop it onto your 16GB tablet, removing some other piece of media you aren't currently watching to accommodate its storage demand if there isn't enough free space.
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20 minutes to move 6gigs, vs 5seconds to swap a 32gig sd card. And on top of that, your favorites get to stay undisturbed on your device while you cycle the consumables through the sd card. No organizing, re-copying, nor planning required. Call me lazy but I don't want to make using a media device a chore.
 
I don't think anyone's arguing for complication, but I think the storage issue is being blown well out of proportion. I certainly don't spend "half of my waking hours" trying to manage the limited storage on my iPad. Am I out of room? Alright, I'll delete something. Do I have enough room? Alright, I'll sync it. Wifi sync, which you'll have on an Android as well, means I don't even have to touch another device to do it.

More storage is obviously better, but I'm not really seeing where limited storage on a cheap little media tablet is catastrophic.
 
There's pros and cons to memory cards, internal storage is a great deal faster, but you can't upgrade it. I get why Google opted for build in storage as they want a fast system to stand out. Personally I would prefer the micro sd card manufacturers to go past class 10.

The size isnt such a major issue, I can live with it plus my phone has 32gigs of storage.
 
Currently diggin' my Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It's sports a 316 ppi 720 x 1080 4.65" Super AMOLED screen with 32 gigs of data storage. I think it's also a cell phone and it fits nicely in my pocket.

Best of both worlds? no...:eek:
 
Emission said:
7 inches and its only 1280x800.

I don't know about you but if my phone's screen is 1280x720 in 4.74 inches then that 7 inch screen is going to look like garbage in comparison.
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And what resolution and size is your desktop monitor? How many PPI in that? I'm sure that'll look like total shit compared to a 1024x768 10" Tablet like the Touchpad by your logic there...
 
Sly said:
20 minutes to move 6gigs, vs 5seconds to swap a 32gig sd card. And on top of that, your favorites get to stay undisturbed on your device while you cycle the consumables through the sd card. No organizing, re-copying, nor planning required. Call me lazy but I don't want to make using a media device a chore.
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Set up a wifi sync and let it swap out while you sleep. I really dont see the crazy reactions over this. Look at the success of the ipad, look at the success of the kindle fire.
 
I'm definitely selling my wife's Kindle Fire toward this. The Fire is laggy as balls when doing almost anything besides reading a book. She likes to watch (flash) shows constantly on my laptop because the Fire isn't up to snuff on it. This tab shouldn't have an issue playing anything :cool:.
 
Disposed said:
Set up a wifi sync and let it swap out while you sleep. I really dont see the crazy reactions over this. Look at the success of the ipad, look at the success of the kindle fire.
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Already doing that for updating the comic book folder and individual MP3s since they're small enough here's a demo i made, but certainly not for videos. Seriously, leaving your PC converting overnight just so i'll have something to put on the iPod the next day got really old, really fast, but i put up with it for a year before i finally got to try an android (I was an iOS user that tried Android and jumped ship). But as i've said, i don't spend time organizing or planning ahead for my videos, nor do i want to. I just want to watch and be done with it.

Where i was converting animes overnight almost every other day when i was still using the iPod to watch something while commuting. On the android (Archos101), the only effort i did in the morning was selecting something from my server, copying the files over to the memory card, and it would be done by the time i finished brushing my teeth. No preparation needed, the thing just worked. The onboard memory has my favorites, and the bulk that regularly gets cycled was in the memory cards, that's all the organization i'd ever want to do.
 
dgz said:
Why would google put expansion slots, replaceable battery and all that when their goal is to lure you with price. You don't really need those, the cloud is so much better anyways hehe

I ain't gonna bite.
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You said it without sticking to the point, it is ALL about the cloud. Google is a purely cloud based company who mines your data, if your data is not in the cloud they cant mine it. So obviously they want you to grow dependant on things like google drive. Eventually all these companies want to sell us monthly services to access our own data as well.
 
LoL

It's ok guys, we understand, have to grasp any straw to stay the course. Weeks ago the decision had been made to not care about this release. Then I saw the specs. This of course evoked immediate application of "fork to hand" to stave off involuntary CC# recital on the 10 key. I then clicked to the lack of expansion, whew, that was close.

All is well.

Carry on.
 
Looks pretty damn good for the price. This is the first tablet I've ever seriously considered buying.
 
Just for comparison, all 13.3" Macbook pre-retina displays are 1280x800. So having that same resolution at 7 inches is pretty darn good, IMO.
 
Below are the specs right off the Google Play site.

Personally I have been sitting back waiting for a tablet that would "fill the bill" for what I would need it for. The #1 "cool" thing would be to preview HD video right from the camcorder and assemble/edit clips. With Tegra III this tablet has the horsepower but NO SD SLOT?? That is plain stupid in my opinion. :mad:
The $89.00 knock off tablets you buy at Walgreens has an SD slot!
I would say Nexus 7 is a winner in every respect accept that. Time for the Nexus 7.1 that will include a high speed SD slot.

Tech Specs

SCREEN
7” 1280x800 HD display (216 ppi)
Back-lit IPS display
Scratch-resistant Corning glass
1.2MP front-facing camera
SIZE
198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm
WEIGHT
340g
WIRELESS
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
MEMORY
8 GB internal storage
1 GB RAM
USB
Micro USB
BATTERY
4325 mAh (Up to 8 hours of active use)
OS
Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
CPU
Quad-core Tegra 3 processor
FEATURES
Microphone
NFC (Android Beam)
Accelerometer
GPS
Magnetometer
Gyroscope
 
Dr. Righteous said:
Below are the specs right off the Google Play site.

Personally I have been sitting back waiting for a tablet that would "fill the bill" for what I would need it for. The #1 "cool" thing would be to preview HD video right from the camcorder and assemble/edit clips. With Tegra III this tablet has the horsepower but NO SD SLOT??
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I know I'm a Microsoft fanboy/employee and all but this particular task really would be best done on an x86 Windows tablet. I've actually done this particular task a few times on my tablets, just plugged my camcorder into my tablet, copied the video over and used Windows Movie Maker. Granted not the most touch friendly app in the world and so I did use my pen to control Movie Maker. I'm hoping that Windows 8 will have some nice Metro video editing tools. Everything is there to do it and the performance on anything above an Atom device would be much better than an ARM tablet.
 
Its $500+ worth of hardware for $200 and people bitch about missing an expansion slot...

Comparing it to knock off $89 tablets is just plain stupid.

Do a real comparison.

That $89 tablet will get you your microSD slot along with a blazing fast 500MHz processor, 256 megs of ram, a garbage resistive touch screen, super outdated android.

You get a quad core tablet packed with up to date hardware and specs for $200... Its subsidized people... Get a grip they are selling it at this price probably just breaking even on the hardware itself to get you into their services. Just like the nook tab, just like the kindle fire. Its not about the hardware itself its to get you into their ecosystem. You want your microSD slot pay for a tablet at normal price.

It honestly just amazes me that people look at the impressive hardware this thing has for a cost thats so low its ridiculous and STILL find something to piss and moan about. Yet Apple sells a locked down machine with no external storage for 3 times this much and its the greatest thing since sliced bread.
 
Disposed said:
It honestly just amazes me that people look at the impressive hardware this thing has for a cost thats so low its ridiculous and STILL find something to piss and moan about. Yet Apple sells a locked down machine with no external storage for 3 times this much and its the greatest thing since sliced bread.
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This is the true magic of Apple.
 
Disposed said:
It honestly just amazes me that people look at the impressive hardware this thing has for a cost thats so low its ridiculous and STILL find something to piss and moan about.
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Look to the URL bar for an explanation as to why.
 
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