{"id":43295,"date":"2012-08-20T11:44:37","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T09:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=43295"},"modified":"2012-08-20T16:20:50","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T14:20:50","slug":"google-nexus-7-tablet-pc-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/43295-google-nexus-7-tablet-pc-review","title":{"rendered":"Google Nexus 7 tablet PC review"},"content":{"rendered":"

In February 2011, the Motorola Xoom was announced alongside Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) – the first tablet-optimised release of Android – and it subsequently became the first Android 3.0 tablet.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s important to note here is that it didn\u2019t carry the Nexus brand. Google was comfortable enough to release Honeycomb to manufacturers, but they didn\u2019t want to put their own brand on hardware that ran Android 3.0. The time wasn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n

That time is now over.<\/p>\n

The Nexus 7 is the first Nexus-branded tablet. It was co-developed by Google and ASUS and it makes a few bold moves. Too bold, perhaps? For the answer to that, you\u2019ll have to read on!<\/p>\n

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Google Nexus 7<\/p><\/div>\n

Design and build quality<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first look, the Nexus 7 has a generally understated design. It\u2019s certainly not one that will jump out at you in a crowd, but there\u2019s a lot of function in the design choices.<\/p>\n

On the right side, in portrait orientation, is the power\/wake button with the volume rocker below it. On the bottom edge, you\u2019ll find the microUSB port and 3.5mm jack. On the left-bottom edge are four pogo pins, leaving the rest of the left edge and entire top-side empty.<\/p>\n

The ports and buttons are made in such a way that you can\u2019t see them when looking at the Nexus 7 from the front and, more importantly, are out of the way, meaning that you won\u2019t be pressing anything at an inopportune time.<\/p>\n

We initially found that the buttons were placed a little close to each other, but quickly got used to them as they are fairly easily found and make a nice \u201cclick\u201d when pressed.<\/p>\n

The back edge is bare except for the speaker at the bottom and the tastefully engraved ASUS logo just above it, and Nexus logo at the top.<\/p>\n

The back itself is a dimpled, soft-touch plastic, but it almost feels like leather. It feels fantastically solid, and is both grippy and fingerprint-phobic.<\/p>\n

On the front is the 7\u201d screen with an asymmetric border around it and a hard, silver plastic along the edge. At the top is the front-facing camera.<\/p>\n

The borders around the screen are interesting. In portrait mode, there\u2019s just enough of a border for your fingers to rest on, while keeping them close for scrolling or page turning. In landscape, there\u2019s ample room for your palms to rest on, which makes for very comfortable gaming.<\/p>\n

There are two things missing on the Nexus 7. The first is a rear-facing camera. I can honestly say that it\u2019s not a great loss to me – I\u2019ve never wanted or needed to use my tablet\u2019s camera. The second is a notification light, which is really more of an annoyance rather than a great loss.<\/p>\n

The Nexus 7 has a clever design and is well-constructed. It\u2019s something that both ASUS and Google can feel proud of.<\/p>\n

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Google Nexus 7 front, side, back<\/p><\/div>\n

Internals and performance<\/strong><\/p>\n

At $200 – $250, what can the Nexus 7 really offer internally? A lot, it turns out.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an NVIDIA Tegra 3 SoC with a quad-core CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, with a special, 1.3GHz, fifth \u201ccompanion-core\u201d. The latter is used on its own and is intended for less intense operations.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s 1GB of RAM, and either 8GB or 16GB of on-device storage. Unfortunately, there\u2019s no SD-slot for expandable storage.<\/p>\n

WiFi b\/g\/n and Bluetooth provide connectivity. There\u2019s no 3G variant of the Nexus 7. Some rumours suggest that it\u2019s a way to circumvent carrier-control with software updates, while others suggest that it helps keep the cost down.<\/p>\n

The Nexus 7 measures 198.5mm x 120mm x 10.45mm and weighs an almost paltry 340g.<\/p>\n

However, it has been said that it’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.<\/p>\n

Though we couldn\u2019t run our usual benchmark (it appears that AnTuTu is not yet compatible with Android 4.1), we can attest that the Nexus 7 is fast. There were few complaints to be had between the nippy Tegra hardware and the performance enhancements in Android 4.1.<\/p>\n

The limited storage and lack of expansion slot, along with the absence of 3G, may be enough to deter some potential buyers. However, the solid performance and low price will help swing the deal back in the Nexus 7\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n

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Nexus 7 specs<\/p><\/div>\n

Screen and responsiveness<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Nexus 7 gets part of its name from the 7\u201d, 1280×800, back-lit IPS display.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the biggest tablet screen in terms of both size and resolution, but that doesn\u2019t make it bad. It\u2019s a good screen – great, even.<\/p>\n

Its relatively small size and high resolution, means that the Nexus 7 worked great as an e-reader. Good colour reproduction and excellent viewing angles made viewing videos on the Nexus 7 a pleasure.<\/p>\n

Crank the brightness up a bit and using it in sunlight becomes possible but, as can be expected, it\u2019s not exactly the most pleasant experience.<\/p>\n

We had no issues with the Nexus 7\u2019s responsiveness. Swipes, touches, and presses all registered easily and accurately.<\/p>\n

The Nexus 7 may not be able to say that it has the best tablet screen on the market, but it can certainly hold its own.<\/p>\n

Sound quality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Audio was good enough and loud enough for a small quiet room. You\u2019d think that breaking out some headphones would fix the loudness problem, but it turns out that those come out awfully soft as well.<\/p>\n

Cameras<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already mentioned that the Nexus 7 doesn\u2019t have a rear-facing camera. In fact, there\u2019s not even a camera application.<\/p>\n

However, on the front is a 1.2MP camera for video calling, and it fulfills that role well enough. It also works quite well for the oft derided \u201cFace Unlock\u201d feature.<\/p>\n

Battery life<\/strong><\/p>\n

With regular daily use – watching videos, reading articles and\/or books, browsing, and gaming – we managed to get well over 3 days of use out of the Nexus 7. With slightly less use, we would have managed 4.<\/p>\n

In our video looping test (looping 720p video at 65% brightness with WiFi on), the Nexus 7 managed to get closer to 11 hours than 10. This easily bests the Motorola Xoom 2\u2019s 8.5 hours and creeps quite close to the iPad\u2019s 13 hours (though the latter was measured with 1080p video).<\/p>\n

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Nexus 7 screen quality<\/p><\/div>\n

Software<\/strong><\/p>\n

Along with the Nexus 7 comes a new version of Android: 4.1, codename Jelly Bean. While it doesn\u2019t bring as drastic an overhaul as did 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) before it, it brings some welcome additions.<\/p>\n

The homescreen UI on the Nexus 7 is slightly different to other Android tablets (from 3.0 up) – it\u2019s closer to the phone UI.<\/p>\n

The lockscreen, homescreen, and launcher are all portrait-only, which is mildly irritating. The homescreen also features the shortcut bar at the bottom, though the total number allowed increases to 6 – 3 on each side of the launcher icon.<\/p>\n

Notifications are accessible from the familiar pulldown, though it doesn\u2019t take up the full screen and only slides down about 3\/4 of the way. In landscape, the notifications pull down on the left of the screen. Strangely enough, this method seems to work quite well on the 7\u201d form factor, though we did sometimes miss the corner-based navigation that other Android tablets use.<\/p>\n

The Android team declared war on lagginess, and with that started \u201cProject Butter”, which uses touch anticipation, triple buffering, extended vsync timing and a fixed frame rate of 60fps to create a fluid and “buttery” smooth UI. Our experience with Android 4.1 on the Nexus 7, as well as the Galaxy Nexus and venerable Nexus S, certainly falls in that category. Hopefully, this continues to be the case.<\/p>\n

Notifications are now expandable by a simple 2-finger pulldown gesture, giving you some extra information about whether you need to deal with it now, later, or whether it can just be dismissed. Notifications can also be actionable, meaning that you can share something or reply directly to a message in the notification bar.<\/p>\n

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Nexus 7 applications<\/p><\/div>\n

Another big announcement was Google Now – a personalised search application that finds things before you\u2019ve asked for anything. It took some time, but Google Now eventually learned to distinguish between work and home. From there, it brought up cards at times that it guessed we would be travelling to either one, which showed a planned route along with some traffic information.<\/p>\n

Cards can also show up to give you weather information; for appointments (which may then give you directions if necessary); travelling cards may appear offering to help you translate to the correct language; to convert to the correct currency; or to give you the time back home, though we didn\u2019t get the chance to test the latter two.<\/p>\n

Public transport and sports information don\u2019t appear to be active in South Africa yet.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s important to note about Google Now is that it\u2019s already showing usefulness and that it promises to get better and even more useful over time. Some may find it slightly creepy to see how much it knows and can guess from that, but it is an opt-in service to begin with, and you can turn it off at any point.<\/p>\n

Apps-wise, you\u2019ll find all the usual suspects, though Chrome now takes the place of the generic \u201cBrowser\u201d app. Play Movies, Books, and Magazines don\u2019t appear on the Nexus 7 when activated in South Africa, and getting them to do so seems to be a process that would deter most, if not all, average users.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Nexus 7 offers an excellent tablet at an outrageously competitive price. It\u2019s easily the best Android tablet we\u2019ve used and it clearly shows that the 7\u201d form factor is relevant.<\/p>\n

There are, of course, a few things missing (large and\/or expandable storage, rear-facing camera etc.), but we think that the low price-point will be enticing enough.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, Google and ASUS will bring the Nexus 7 to our shores officially, but until then there are other ways to get your hands on one. If you have the opportunity to get one, we\u2019d certainly recommend it.<\/p>\n