Nexus 7 (2013) - Mini Review
by Brian Klug on July 27, 2013 12:54 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Snapdragon
- Qualcomm
- Android
- Mobile
- APQ8064
- Nexus 7
- Android 4.3
The lack of a rear camera on the original Nexus 7 was always a bit of a downer. It clearly had the space for a module inside, but including a camera didn’t align with the efforts to drive that device into the price point that made it successful. With the new Nexus 7 we finally get a camera, and a 5 MP one with autofocus at that. Inside the camera is an OV5693 sensor, which best I can tell is a 1/4" format sensor with 1.4 micron pixels. It might not be the world’s best camera, but it’s no slouch either.
I took a handful of photos and videos with the Nexus 7 (2013) to gauge camera quality, and even if this isn’t necessarily a device with focus on imaging it’s not bad at all. I came away pretty pleased for what kind of camera it is. Even though I still strongly believe that you shouldn’t be using a tablet to take photos you intend on using for anything more than sharing on social networks, in this brave new era of mobile devices it’s a feature every tablet and smartphone does need.
I’ll save you the discussion once again about how the Android 4.3 camera UI continues to present a 16:9 aspect ratio crop of the 4:3 image captured by the sensor, which results in a smeary looking, inaccurate preview.
Video on the Nexus 7 (2013) is 1080p30 at 12 Mbps, H.264 Baseline with 1 reference frame, and 96 kbps 48 KHz single channel AAC audio. I've uploaded a sample I took in SF to our servers as well as YouTube. Again I’m dismayed why more OEMs don’t use the full encode capabilities of APQ8064 (20 Mbps H.264 High Profile) but that’s what it is by default on the new Nexus 7.
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darkich - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
*notebookcheckHere:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Notebook-Laptop-Revie...
RyuDeshi - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
Oh man, the Verge's review was a mess, and the video review was even worse.ScruffyNerfherder - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
Heh, yeah, TheVerge is less of a tech site than it is a hipster site that covers tech and gadgets because it is now in vogue. But I don't think most of its readers and readers if other tech-porn sites know any better and mass confusion and lack of tech understanding ensues. I appreciate Anandtech's thoroughness even if it means I have to wait a few days longer to read about it.darwinosx - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
Verge reviews are of pretty uneven quality and the Nexus 7 reviews was just odd.speculatrix - Thursday, August 8, 2013 - link
Indeed. I trust anandtech.com to give accurate information, honest and fair opinions.Also, I trust anandtech to correct errors and respond to comments.
I wouldn't buy a gadget without checking if anandtech had a review or were likely to do one.
fteoath64 - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
The SoC is mis-labelled apparently to not offend handset customers (possibly for the lower prices that Google negotiated). These are Krait 300 cores clocked at 1.5Ghz while the S600 is exactly the SAME cores running at 1.7Ghz. I would say minor speed dip but gpu is quad Adreno 320 which are pretty fast units with OpenGL ES 3.0 support. Great deal on the whole package plus a superb screen!. Shame the bezel on top and bottom are so thick.relativityboy - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
Google will be 'doing right' when they stop creating devices with a super-limited lifespan.No removable memory? Going to be out of space in just a couple years.
No replaceable battery? 300 or so recharges - call it 2 years until your device lasts for about 1hour not tethered to a usb plug.
Google is making stuff that even in the short term, harms the environment far more than better competitors.
Until batteries and memory are user-replaceable, google products are loosers right out the gate.
aNYthing24 - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
This is ridiculous. How many tablets do know that have replaceable memory and replaceable batteries?fokka - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
it's not about how many tablets you know that do these things. sure, making the battery replacable on a tablet may not be the most important thing and an engineering challange, but not putting a simple thing like an microsd-reader in it is just a no go in my opinion.Impulses - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
On a phone it's debatable IMO, on a tablet it's nowhere near as egregious an omission IMO... USB OTG works well enough and it's more flexible than a microSD slot in some cases anyway.