The Google Nexus 7 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on July 26, 2012 11:35 AM ESTBattery Life
The Nexus 7 has an integrated 16Wh battery, which despite its size delivers extremely good battery life. Our WiFi browsing test saw the Nexus 7 deliver 9 hours of battery life on a single charge, that's roughly half an hour less than the new iPad.
The Kindle Fire comparison is even more impressive - the Nexus 7 outlasts the Fire in this test by nearly 70%.
Battery life while playing back locally stored video is just as impressive. Here the Nexus 7 clocked in at over 10.5 hours on a single charge, 82% longer than the Kindle Fire. Of course with only 8GB of local storage you're going to be forced to stream a lot of content to the Nexus 7, where it will get worse battery life.
Our 3D gaming battery life test shows how bad things can get on the Nexus 7 if you really stress the SoC and display: 4.08 hours. This is actually the only test where the Kindle Fire does better on battery. Do keep in mind that the Nexus 7 is technically doing more work (higher resolution and frame rate), which contributes to the delta in battery life here.
With 4 hours on the low end and 10.5 hours on the high end there's a pretty wide dynamic range for battery life on the Nexus 7. Keep that in mind because depending on your usage model you may end up closer to the lower end of that spectrum than you'd otherwise think. The big problem is without tons of local storage, you're going to end up relying on WiFi for content streaming needs a lot more than you would otherwise - which does have a tangible impact on battery life.
The Nexus 7 does take a good amount of time to charge its relatively small battery using the supplied 10W (5V, 2A) charger:
You can expect a full charge to take 3.35 hours, and about 3 hours to hit 90%.
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chrnochime - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
Great product for those who don't mind reading on a 7" screen, but for me even the 10" gets tiring after a while, though considerably less so than a 7".I am amazed at those who are able to read the tiny texts on a 7" for a prolonged period of time. Tried that with a 10" and couldn't last more than 1hr. Uh.
amdwilliam1985 - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
Tell that to the girls who are reading on iPhone with 3.5", I can barely see the tiny texts on their screen.Going from 3.5" to 7" will 4x their reading area, will make a heavenly difference for them.
jamyryals - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
What does being a girl have to do with it? I read books on my 4s quite often when traveling. Last time I checked I was a man... Yup, still am.amdwilliam1985 - Friday, July 27, 2012 - link
Sorry to bring girls into the topic.I'm only saying that because I see a lot of girls in NYC subways with iPhone 4/4S. Most guys I saw in NYC subways are with bigger phones. Just reporting my observation.
And the point of the topic is that if people can read on 3.5", then reading on 7" will be a dramatic(4x) improvement.
Akilaehunter - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
Every buy a paperback with uncomfortably small lettering? Or even a hardcover that tries to look artsy by using an inconvenient font?All (worthwhile) e-readers and e-reader apps allow for margin size, text size, and font style changes.
Argument is invalid; You can read a book on a 4" screen as optically comfortably as on a 10" screen, you'll just wear out your fingers flipping resized pages.
chrnochime - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
It's not invalid; I'd rather not have to enlarge everything and scroll a whole bunch just to read one 8" x 11" webpage.Yes I can actually see the texts all shrunken on a 7", but I have no intention to torture myself in doing so. Rather spend that time on something more productive.
Besides I *did* say it's a great device didn't I?
And not all e-readers are stuck in 7". The Amazon DX is 10" which I also have, so.
Akilaehunter - Friday, July 27, 2012 - link
Webpages, you're 100% right. I don't own a 10" tablet and even in landscape mode on a 7" many webpages can get uncomfortably small. Plus the scrolling.Still, if the nook/kindle app is uncomfortable to read books with it's one's own fault for not making it comfortable with the many combinations of size options.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 29, 2012 - link
It's never comfortable as the screen needs to be closer so the eye fry syndrome overtakes any blurry eyed goon who can't read small text.I suspect a far sighted elderly person with bifocals can hold it at arms length and "telescope" in to the text, but then, have never seen that.
Next we'll have a flurry of articles analyzing peeps with facial skin cancer then we'll have the scare articles that quote the hidden study.
In the mean time the tiny teens and teeny texts can increase corporate visine profit margins.
They should call these devices "fryballs!"
Super56K - Monday, July 30, 2012 - link
Yes, because before e-readers/tablets all the books I purchased were 10" + in physical size, and I had to hold mass market paperbacks 5" away from my face to read the tiny words. You're a feisty one Cogburn.Akilaehunter - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link
First off, this is my first article response, though I've been lurking since 2004.A nitpick to start things off: I know this site tests a ton of mobile hardware so why are some models shown for some tests in an article and not others -in the same article- as comparisons? For instance, my Droid Razr Maxx is in a few comparisons (not this article) but not all. Should maybe be a database cataloguing them all, ala the gfx card benches section? (Or if there is I'm too dense to see it...)
Otherwise, excellent article as always. Especially interested in how the flash storage is the main bottleneck now. Tegra 3 could be a beast at multitasking if all its cores are accounted for, but would then get strangled by IO as soon as it is told to multitask- something a multi-core cpu should be amazing at.
Lot to think about. :D