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 real highlight of the new Nexus 7 is of course the much higher resolution display. At 1920x1200 the Nexus 7 is now the highest resolution 7-inch tablet. This new IPS panel is made by JDI (Japan Display Inc) and boasts better viewing angles, 30 percent more gamut than the previous one, and of course better dot pitch of 323 PPI. Alongside that the new Nexus 7 also doesn’t have the always-on dynamic brightness and contrast (NVIDIA Prism / smartdimmer) that many including myself found frustrating with the original Nexus 7. On the new version the equivalent functions are enabled only during full screen video playback. This is a huge improvement since with the feature enabled on the previous Nexus 7 I always felt that greens were undersaturated and some dynamic range clipped.
I did a lot of asking around about how Google calibrates its panels, and was told that in the case of the Nexus 7 there are two stages. The first is the calibration done by JDI on the panel at a high level, the second is an additional calibration at time of manufacture, per device. This sort of thing is relatively standard, but I’ve always been curious about what stages cost extra money – certainly it’s a baseline expectation for the panel supplier to supply a close-enough LUT, but getting Delta E even lower I’m told requires additional expenditure.
It turns out that the new Nexus 7 is actually very close to sRGB this time around, with overall gamut being just a bit bigger than the sRGB color space. In the GMB Delta-E and saturations Delta-E measures, arguably the two most relevant for color accuracy, the new Nexus 7 is second only to the iPad 4, and better than the iPad Mini in color accuracy, a significant step forwards from its predecessor.
The new Nexus 7 also goes very bright, up to 583 nits, with excellent contrast of 1273. This is again not achieved using any dynamic contrast cheating since those functions are thoughtfully disabled.
On the display side of things I’m very pleased with how far the Nexus 7 has come, and it’s obvious that display quality was a big focus for the 2013 model.
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bznotins - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
My video library is 8TB. Since this doesn't have capability for 8TB of SD storage, it's not an option for me.deathgod1 - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
I'm sorry, what's your point?deathgod1 - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
Ignore above, typed in the wrong window.phillyry - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
he's probably being sarcastic:People harp about not being able to fit their entire media collection on their smartphone or 7" tablet and it seems that he's pointing to how ridiculous it is.
user777 - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - link
It is possible to share any folder or external HDD at your laptop and to use like WiFi Network LAN storage using ES File Explorer. It is possible to play any movie using streaming (without downloading) from the Network LAN storage (MX Player or BS Player). It is even possible playing movie from WiFi FTP server.bleached - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
I have a 8GB Nexus 4 and have a couple GB free. Google music or other streaming options for video and music make storage space unnecessary. I can save a couple GB of music for the rare times I don't have a connection and don't really watch videos on my phone because that sucks 16GB on my tablet is fine because I mostly use it at home and can save a few movies on it if I am going out with it and will need them or can tether my phone for Netflix.superflex - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
He asked about replaceable memory, not storage.You're not too bright.
phillyry - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
no. removable storage. memory is RAM, which is never user accessible in a table or smartphone.phillyry - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
*tabletjt122333221 - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
In my opinion, this one isn't missing anything - it's got one of the best displays for a tablet it's size, one of the best processors available (quad core based on the S300 Krait core), a pretty good graphics processor, and it's going to get constant updates from Google. Some people don't agree with it not having a Micro SD card, but there are services you can use so you don't need one (cloud combined with 32GB of storage can greatly stretch your data).