14 November 2012 Wednesday

My Nexus 7 review

I can highly recommend the Google Nexus 7; mine is much a part of my daily life.

My cons on the Nexus 7:

• No notification light. Smartphones have a light that blinks unobtrusively to indicate new notifications when the screen is off; they can blink different/personally programmed colors to coordinate with the different apps sending the notifications. With Nexus 7 I have to turn on the screen to get any sense of updates/notifications.
• Only front-facing camera. Would have been nice to have had the outer-facing camera to take pictures of scenery, use as barcode, etc.
• Lack of vibration/haptic feedback
• Lack of HDMI output potential
• there isn’t a raised bevel to protect it so you always want to put it down on its back rather than on its screen side—unless you have a screen protector or case on it. this isn’t really an issue but something to note
• The way it’s designed, the micro usb cord does not fit deeply and easily comes out. This is not the case with any other device I have, but because of the shape of the Nexus 7, the cord goes in to a slanted port, so comes out easily. This is my least favorite thing about the Nexus 7.

Awesome:

• Fast
• Jellybean — nice foldered icons (a thousand percent better than Samsung’s Touchwiz interface); Google Now is unexpectedly handy and competent
• Excellent form factor (goes with me everywhere), feels good and durable
• I love the texture — the back, specifically; I use a matte screen protector for front and am very pleased
• Etc.

I adore it. Unlike Fire and Kindle reader and different types of phones, it’s almost a sure bet for anyone in terms of versatility and usefulness and niceness.

I use it alongside my cellphone, use each one for different things, sometimes at same time.. tend to keep games on the Nexus 7 and calling/location-related things on Phone.. Nexus 7 also has GPS and works very well with wifi and bluetooth.. I can run mobile hotspot on my phone and can then use internet on Nexus 7 with it wherever I am, then, and don’t need an additional 4g (why 3g?? we’re in 2012) subscription.
Because it has GPS and maps look so good on it, I like to use it for navigation in my car.

Battery life has surprised me with its efficiency too; my phone has to be constantly on charger but Nexus 7 can get by usually full day with regular use (I charge and run it overnight).

Definitely get the larger storage size.. 8gb is not enough (I got the 16gb.. I think I saw they’ll be offering a 32gb soon? I would have died with 8gb. 16 has been solid for me, though, but if you run lots of big games/apps and store movies, then obviously you’ll want more..).