While everyone waited on an iPad mini 2
with retina, Google and Asus went ahead and did one better. Presenting
the new Nexus 7, an affordable 7-inch tablet with beefy specs and more
pixels per inch than you can shake a 1080p jpeg at.
Whether you call it the Nexus 7 2 or just the Nexus 7, it hurdles right over the iPad mini in both parts and price. For just a little more money, it offers a lot more functionality than a Kindle Fire HD. It so surpasses the original Nexus 7 that Google has swept last year's tablet under the rug; it seems to be retired from the Play Store altogether. Internally,
the new Nexus 7 packs a 1.5Ghz quad core processor, 2GB of RAM and
comes with either 16GB or 32GB of storage. Those models go for $229/£200
and $269/£240, and there's also an LTE version selling for $300, but
its fate in European markets seems unclear, and we've yet to get word on
Australian pricing.
While microSD slots now feel like a relic of a
bygone era, since neither Nexus nor Apple devices offer them, we have
to bemoan storage space a bit here. The Android 4.3: Jelly Bean
OS found on the Nexus 7 takes up a whopping 6GB. Our 32GB tablet came
out of the box with 26GB available. Those planning to go for the 16GB
model need to brace for having only 10GB to play with. Still,
no matter how you slice it, the Nexus 7 is a lot of great tablet
hardware for the money, all packed in unassuming, plastic package. That
pockmarked white rubber backing from the first Nexus 7 has been ditched,
replaced with an all plastic black backing. It doesn't feel as slick or
look as premium as the metal backing of an iPad, but it'll surely hold up against scratches better than Apple's tablet.
Price
separates the new Nexus 7 and the iPad mini, as do their different
aspect ratios. Apple's 7-inch tablet is 4:3, while the Nexus 7 is the
more film friendly 16:9. So while the mini is wider, that extra screen
space usually fills with black bars when watching movies or reading
comics; not so with the new Nexus. Not
as wide as an iPad mini, the Nexus 7 is easier to hold in one hand.
That, combined with its pixel dense 323 ppi display make it great for
reading. Text is newspaper crisp, and so far we've seen it do an
excellent job of regulating screen brightness, though we're looking
forward to testing it in direct sunlight.
The Nexus 7's skinny
design and cinematic aspect ratio does leave it with a ton of bezel. On a
small 7-inch display, that feels like wasted space, but at 16:9, the
device would need to widen in order to accommodate a taller screen, so
it's a bit of an impasse. Although it leaked weeks ago,
this new Nexus 7 is the debut device for Android 4.3, the latest
iteration of Jelly Bean. It's mostly minor tweaks, not the sort of major
overhaul that comes with a new dessert name, like Key Lime Pie.
Among
Android 4.3's few notable new features you have separate user accounts.
At the tablet's lock screen, you're able to choose from different
profiles all with their own login pins. These accounts can be setup with
restricted access, letting an admin user pick and choose which apps
other accounts have access to. It's a nice feature is you plan to share
the tablet with a child. In
basic performance, the Nexus 7 is extremely snappy. Moving across home
screens is like butter, and switching between apps is nearly
instantaneous. The only hiccup we've seen is stuttering while scrolling
in Chrome, something Android has never been able to iterate away.
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