The Google Nexus 7 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on July 26, 2012 11:35 AM ESTFinal Words
The Kindle Fire was great because it married decent software with decent hardware, at a reasonable price. Previous attempts at ~7-inch tablets made sacrifices in one or more of those areas. Amazon knew what it was doing and the Kindle Fire apparently sold quite well. The Nexus 7 executes the same formula, but with better components. The OS is miles better than what you get with the Kindle Fire, and as a Nexus device built by ASUS it's likely to be the first in line for major Android OS updates so long as Tegra 3 is up to snuff. The hardware is better as well. OMAP 4 was good for its time, but Tegra 3 is just faster. While the usefulness of those extra cores is debatable, clock speeds are higher and the added cores definitely don't hurt performance.
Finally the price point remains unchanged, at $199 the Nexus 7 is a tablet for those who are on the fence about owning a tablet. If you're able to carry around and use the iPad in lieu of a notebook, its $499 price tag is easily justifiable. If, however, the iPad is just an augment to your computing life then spending $499 becomes a tougher pill to swallow. The Nexus 7 brings that commitment level down considerably. For years Android tablet makers have gone after the iPad with comparable hardware, at a comparable price. While there have been some successes, the market for $499+ Android tablets will likely be cannibalized by Windows RT tablets come late this year. The Nexus 7 takes Android into a space that it's quite comfortable with. Subsidized $199 Android phones sell all of the time, and the Nexus 7 delivers a mini-tablet experience at that same price point.
The screen isn't big enough for everyone, but if you're fine with (or better yet, really want) a 7-inch tablet, the Nexus 7 is great. It's well built, has good hardware and is priced perfectly. The only downside is really the limited (and not expandable) internal storage. The lack of expandable storage keeps the Nexus 7 from winning a higher level accolade, but the rest of the package is enough to earn our bronze Editor's Choice award.
The Nexus 7 isn't just a great Android tablet, it's a great tablet.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
118 Comments
View All Comments
dcollins - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
Not everyone is like you.All my music lives in Spotify and I stream the vast majority of the movies/tv shows I watch. Plus, 90% of my tablet time is spent reading or browsing anyways.
Expandable storage is nice, but it certainly is not a blocking issue for my usage.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 29, 2012 - link
I love that how all the screaming for future proof options is out the window.Steve Jobs loves it too.
robinthakur - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
Agree. I think the Retina Macbook is the poster boy for this though. Not having upgradeable ram on a £2500 laptop is pretty inexcusable. What if I need more than 16GB to run virtual machines etc? It's the only thing which keeps me from buying one.dmyster - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
well, I have a pretty good set up at home for streaming most media to tablets and media devices. The extra 50 bucks for 16 gig was not worth it to me since I will not be traveling with it. I can watch all my movies, listen to all the songs in my library and read books. There are some decent apps - stock ticker, netflix, skype to mention a few. For 200 bucks it is a good deal if you can do without the extra storage or a sd card which I can...Impulses - Friday, July 27, 2012 - link
Root it, install Stickmount, use any removable media with a USB OTG cable. If there was a better 7" alternative for $50 more or even $100 more that comment might make more sense... But as it is, the Nexus 7 is still a fantastic device and unless you're very tech averse the lack of expandable storage out of the box really isn't a big deal...I'd even take a gamble that most people who'd balk at rooting the thing will probably never store enough media or games on it to really have an issue with 16GB, the 8GB model will be tight if you start to download big games left and right tho.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 29, 2012 - link
Boy you have no clue on the public and general end users.Let me help.
They are utterly clueless, and when faced with storage constraints, they have no idea what to do, and deleting for space is above their user skills.
That's the vast majority of purchasers.
TheJian - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
Don't confuse apple users with Android users :)We don't call them SHEEPLE for nothing ;)
A large portion of Android users are above the norm and believe in using their devices for more than Steve Jobs every believed you should get away with.
NoNeedForMonkeys - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
Perhaps you should burn every iOS device for not having expandable storage.lunarx3dfx - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
http://www.androidcentral.com/why-nexus-devices-ha...That article talks about the lack of SD cards, and honestly it makes sense to me. Also, keep in mind that they do have a 16 GB Nexus 7 available for purchase. Although, I think it's currently sold out.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 29, 2012 - link
Of course it's sold out.