
Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds - oscar-the-horse
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102150693225130002912/posts/Qj5WnLJXLXX
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mjfern
> I prefer the plain android look, and dislike the various skins manufacturers
> have used (I really don't understand the "pee in the snow" model of skinning
> android to look and act horrible just so that the different manufacturers
> can make their mark on it - I'm pretty sure the majority of people tend to
> prefer plain android).

Tablet and smartphone manufacturers are doing this because they are trying to
differentiate their devices. With the Android OS (along with Android apps) and
the hardware converging to a dominant design (ARM-based processors, similar
form factor), tablets will become commodities (Armdroid). Competitors will be
forced to compete on price. Their margins will collapse.

This is what happened in the PC market. With the Wintel standard, PC
manufacturers had little opportunity to differentiate their products. The OS
and CPU are identical, as are the internal components and peripherals. What's
left? The color of the case? Fingerprint readers? Ultimately, PC manufacturers
were all forced to compete on price. As a result, while Intel and Microsoft
earned margins in the double digits, PC manufacturers' margins were squeezed
to the low single digits.

~~~
charliesome
Why don't manufacturers compete on quality instead?

I can walk into a store and see the Apple computers on one side and the
Windows computers on the other. All the Apple computers look and feel
beautiful, but the Windows computers are plastered with stickers and 'Beats by
Dr Dre' branding. They're made out of what looks like the cheapest plastic
ever. I can understand why Apple is absolutely killing it at the moment - it's
because everything else is shit.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Lenovo certainly does compete on quality, it just aims for a different set of
quality seekers.

Apple targets people who want their computer to look pretty. Lenovo targets
the people who want to get stuff done.

Want to quickly scroll through a document? page up/page down/home/end buttons?
Lenovo's got it. Want to change the volume easily and still have access to
f1-f12? Lenovo's got dedicated buttons for it. Spill your drink? There's a
good chance your drink harmlessly poured out through holes in the bottom
(damaging at most the keyboard).

Need more battery life? Buy a second battery and swap them when the first runs
out. Need more ram? Just open it up and put it in. Same thing if you want a
new HD/etc.

Combine this with great linux support [1] and Lenovo is a clear win for me.

[1] At work we have macbook pros, getting it to work with linux was a
disaster.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Need more battery life? Buy a second battery and swap them when the first
> runs out. Need more ram? Just open it up and put it in. Same thing if you
> want a new HD/etc.

This is one of the biggest factors for me in getting a PC laptop over a
MacBook. When I buy a ThinkPad, I intend to keep it for 5 years. My friends
with MacBooks all replace them every 2-3 years.

> Combine this with great linux support [1] and Lenovo is a clear win for me.

This is another big factor. I tell anyone who's interested in Linux that the
best laptop for Linux is a ThinkPad. Everything works flawlessly out of the
box.

~~~
notallama
the linux thing is not universally true.

i have installed a few different distros on my w500 over the years, and it
runs hot every time. the ati drivers suck, the os can't seem to control the
fans properly, and switchable graphics don't work. tried with opensuse years
ago, and ubuntu a few times more recently.

i imagine it's better with a nvidia card, and no switchable graphics.

~~~
vetinari
T400 here with same results - with Ubuntu (12.04) it is hotter than with W7,
switchable graphics does not work (works in Intel X4500 mode).

------
rwmj
Here's my very quick, nitpicking Nexus 7 review (had mine delivered last
Wednesday):

\- It's a tiny tiny bit too heavy to hold comfortably. It feels like just a
few grams would make the difference.

\- The battery life is fantastic. I've used it for hours and hours and it's
still on 80-90%.

\- Android 4.1 is fast and efficient. I don't notice any difference in speed
or usability from an iPad 2.

\- The screen has an incredible resolution. Some text is slightly too small to
read comfortably.

\- (Not that it matters at all but ...) the box it came in was as hard to open
as many people have said.

\- I bought GTA III with part of the "free" £15 credit and it's a piece of
crap. I haven't even managed to play the game yet because it keeps crashing
while downloading half a gig of data files. So I'll be finding out how well
refunds work in the Google Play store.

Overall: well worth the money.

~~~
roopeshv
i am not sure why everyone is feeling that it is hard to open the box. there
were 2 tapes on the box, which I cut with my room keys and everything was
fine, it wasn't hard. Is it just me that feels everyone is just too idiotic
when it comes to opening boxes?

~~~
Andrenid
Myself and my wife had absolutely no problem sliding it out of it's sleeve and
then slicing the 2 tabs with a knife and lifting the top off.

Only thing i can think of, is maybe there was a defective batch of boxes that
were slightly too tight? The complaints I had been reading for days definitely
confused me once I got it and opened it with ease.

~~~
mmagin
In recent memory, I haven't needed a knife to open an apple box easily. (Not
counting brown outer shipping boxes.)

~~~
roopeshv
he cut open a tape with a knife. if you have nails, you can take off the tape
with it, but I bite my nails, so I had to use my keys, and it's easier to do
it with cut tape along a crevice anyway.

------
redthrowaway
Completely OT, but I'm really starting to like G+. I deactivated my FB account
(reactivated because of a girl--go figure), and found myself browsing G+ for
the first time in months. I was shocked by the difference in content quality.
My FB newsfeed is full of inane posts by family and a few friends, whereas my
G+ feed is almost a reddit/HN replacement. Quite impressed, although I don't
see it replacing FB simply due to the family and distant friend aspect.

~~~
maayank
"whereas my G+ feed is almost a reddit/HN replacement"

any suggestions for people like Linus who post well and often to G+ publicly?

~~~
mtgx
You should probably do a Google search for what you have in mind. Since Google
allowed "sharing circles", much like sharing lists on Twitter, a lot of people
have shared their "tech circles" or whatever.

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jonny_eh
That's actually a really well done short review. It was well paced, and he did
a good job of not just sharing his opinions, but explaining them so that I
could tell if they would apply to me or not.

~~~
klawed
This is a actually a great, succinct review of Linus' short review. Short,
compact and does a nice job explaining the components that will make the
review helpful to readers.

~~~
jonny_eh
For some reason, my lame throwaway comment got more karma than any of my other
brilliant and insightful comments on HN. Maybe I just said something that lots
of people were thinking?

------
hrktb
> _You'd look like a complete dork trying to take photos with a tablet anyway_

"The best camera is the one you have with you" as we say, looking like a dork
is irrelevant. The ipad camera is actually usable and if that's what you have
in your hand you just take the photo with it. Now I agree at 200$ a super good
camera would be asking to much for what seems to be an already very good
device.

~~~
Kilimanjaro
A thousand times my sister has facetimed me from New Zealand laying in her
bed, chatting incessantly about her new life as a mother, then all of the
sudden she flips the camera (not the iPad) to show me her little angel
sleeping in her cradle.

Thanks Apple.

------
fsckin
Quick Google+ comment - it crashes Mobile Safari like nothing else. I can't
even get to the content here.

~~~
ddunkin
Crashes Chrome on IOS too, even better.

~~~
lucian1900
It's the exact same rendering engine, but with the JIT turned off. It's likely
to behave the same.

------
bconway
_But the %^$_ thing still cannot be set to send just plain-text emails. Why,
google, why? Good technical mailing lists all know that html email is just
spam or marketing people, and auto-delete html crap. Just give me the option
to send text-only, ok?*

I have the opposite problem: My Gmail app only sends in plain text, and I have
no way to change that on my Galaxy Nexus. Perhaps it's taking the default from
my web Gmail sessions?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I don't have a problem, I never need to send HTML emails on my 2.3.6
Gingerbread phone with atrocious battery life (thanks, Samsung!)

------
scorpioxy
His comment about 10-inch tablets being too big got my attention.

I am in the market for a tablet that I am going to replace my dead Sony
e-reader(6 inch I think). But i think the 7-inch ones are just too small for
reading. Has anyone tried to compare both sizes?

I am mainly interested in using it for reading tech books and the occasional
email. Currently leaning towards a transformer.

~~~
notatoad
for reading fiction, ~7" tablets or e-readers are the sweet spot. if you're
reading technical stuff with diagrams, the ipad really is the best option. a
10" 16:9 screen sucks for anything but movies, you really will appreciate the
4:3 screen.

~~~
ableal
Right on all counts. Fiction on 6 inch e-ink works well - think paperbacks.
Technical PDFs need more, and even at the same screen size, really work better
on the iPad than on the old Kindle DX.

I also much prefer the 4:3 ratio - the narrow 16:9 devices give you much less
area for the same diagonal measure, as this chart accurately points out:
<https://twitter.com/trojankitten/status/221270669273468930> (or
<http://a.yfrog.com/img615/4234/6j2n.png> for just the image).

Incidentally, the Archos G9-80 is a nice 8 inch Android tablet sporting a
1024x768 screen, currently selling for around 200 euros. I think the rumored
mini iPad will be the same form factor.

~~~
erichocean
For the ratio _not_ reflecting the actual screen area, IMO, manufacturers
should reference screen sizes with four numbers: resolution (e.g. 1920x1080),
aspect ratio (e.g. 16:9), and area (e.g. 22 in^2). I would drop the diagonal
measurement, as it is completely misleading. I'd be willing to drop the actual
resolution in favor of DPI.

As a consumer, you generally want a high DPI screen, with a specific aspect
ratio, and a certain amount of screen area. The current spec reporting is not
helping people out in this regard.

------
TechNewb
Taking photo and video on a retina iPad is an awesome experience. It is
literly the best evf in the world. Being able to see a 1:1 live view of the
resolution is amazing for video, and is equally impressive with photos.

------
guelo
My main disappointment is with the lack of Flash. Flash is still needed on a
lot of websites and every time I've needed it it's a reminder that Adobe has
cost Android one of its big advantages over iOS.

~~~
Zirro
This just made me realize that Android-users of newer devices may currently be
in a worse spot than iOS-users when it comes to lack of Flash-support.

Since iOS has always been shipped without Flash-support, many popular sites
target iOS specifically with HTML5-video. Android however, only recently lost
support for Flash and is still likely getting the Flash-versions of videos
instead of the HTML5 ones.

~~~
Andrex
I doubt this is the case since Flash hasn't been bundled with the stock
browser in quite some time (if ever, I'm having trouble remembering.) The real
world websites I've seen and even worked on just serve HTML5 to both Android
and iOS since you can't count on Flash being there for the former, and of
course the latter doesn't have it.

------
zem
my kindle has kind of spoilt me - i know it's unreasonable for a tablet to
feel as light in my hand as a kindle, but subconsciously i'm noticing the
weight all the time.

~~~
progrock
To be fair, some books can be difficult to hold aloft. The tech will
miniturise in time (probably not long either.)

------
drivebyacct2
I'm a long time Linux and Android fan, but had no interest in a tablet. I
recently had not one, but two Android disliking friends buy a Nexus 7 and one
even sold his iPad shortly thereafter. Needless to say, I wound up pulling the
trigger.

It's really quite nice how well Android 4 and up work n multiple form factors.
This just reconvinces me that there are a host of people that would adopt
Android if they gave a more modern version a chance. I took the night off for
some drinks and some TV shows and this has been nice to have over my Macbook
Air for casual chatting.

~~~
Andrenid
I'm another linux fan that just did NOT see the appeal to an "oversized
phone", and also got burned by how crappy earlier versions of Android were.

I've ignored all the tablets that came out, iPads, Android tablets, all of
them... then when I saw this one, I figured "at that price, i'll give it a
shot"... I'm SO glad I did. Absolutely loving my Nexus 7, and it has 100%
converted me to being a tablet fan.

~~~
progrock
I'd almost buy one. No HDMI out, no SDMicro slot, and no USB support, has put
me off until the next thing better comes along. I'm annoyed that Google has
crippled this device.

~~~
jebblue
Same here, I wanted to buy one then found out it had no USB device support.

~~~
ars
Hu? It has USB support - get an OTG adapter.

It won't mount USB Flash drives out of the box, but that's why you root it and
install stickmount.

~~~
jebblue
My Nexus One phone let me install a 32 Gig chip, no root needed. Which reminds
me, why would I want a tablet that even in the largest storage size is still
1) half the storage my Google phone has and 2) fixed, can't add larger chips
or use an external usb device without rooting the phone?

I think Google is trying to force feed us using them as the cloud since people
aren't buying Chromebook paperweights in the numbers they had hoped.

------
bicknergseng
Linus, man... the number of people who auto delete html emails is on the same
order as the number of people who disable javascript or run desktop linux and
don't know how to program.

~~~
antidoh
He has a good technical reason for not liking html mail, but the number of
people who care about this are vanishingly small and a device maker doesn't
really need to care about them. There'll be an app to come along soon I
imagine.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's not the device-maker, it's a fault of the GMail app.

Ironic.

The people who would know and care about this stuff are exactly the kind of
people who would have wrote the app: programmers.

------
Danieru
> You'd look like a complete dork trying to take photos with a tablet anyway.

Wow, I just got called a dork by linus. This is going on my resume.

