

Leaked Nexus 7 specs and price  - jbk
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/06/this-is-googles-new-nexus-tablet-the-nexus-7/

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napoleoncomplex
"Details are scarce on Jelly Bean, but the slides tell us that Google will
handle operating system updates from now on, which could address the
fragmentation problem."

This is the most interesting line in that article for me. Please let it be
true.

~~~
objclxt
I suspect it refers to the Nexus Tablet. I really can't see Google offering to
maintain manufacturer specific Android front-ends like Samsung TouchWiz, and I
can't see manufacturers dropping them for 'vanilla' Android.

~~~
falling
They could be "encouraged" to only use public APIs and not change the base OS,
which would make porting much much easier.

This is of course assuming the problem is really a technical one and the
carriers/manufacturers care at all about supporting last year's devices.

~~~
joenathan
Device drivers are the big issue, just look at how long it took Google to get
ICS on the Nexus S 4G and at anyone trying to port Cyanogenmod over to a new
device. I can't ever see Google providing updates for all devices, it would be
way too time consuming and costly.

~~~
falling
Device drivers are Linux device drivers, while not the most stable, that
interface is quite mature and people have been mantaining device drivers for a
decade. In my experience UI code gets messy much faster and easier than lower
level.

No, there is no way Google is providing updates for hundreds of devices.

~~~
tadfisher
They will be shipping kernel updates, however; they'll just include upstream
changes from the likes of Nvidia, TI, and Samsung (although the latter doesn't
like to give back very much).

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clumsysmurf
If this tablet is a commercial failure with such great specs at such a
reasonable price, this does not bode well for Android as a Tablet OS.

I have been developing for Android full time 2 years. I am waiting for some
indication that Android is doing well on tablets and there is a return on
investment (ROI) optimizing for this platform / form factor combination. So
far that ROI has not been there for me.

~~~
thechut
As a young, much newer Android developer I would be interested in your opinion
on the ROI of developing for Android phones, specifically supporting lots of
devices.

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suprgeek
This is what Google should have done a year and a half ago. Totally different
from the iPad (size/price) and well differentiated in the consumer's mind.
Instead they went with a lot of "mee-too" expensive 10.1" tablets that have
been utter failures. For avg. consumers the thought process was "Its not an
iPad, has less Apps, and is COSTLIER????"

At this price point and not having the "cheap crap" label is going to drive a
LOT of sales (in my opinion). Unfortunately "Android Tablet" has gotten a
slightly bad rap by now...

~~~
joenathan
What are you talking about? This is Google's first Nexus tablet, not only that
but there have always been Android tablets at that size, even before Google
had a tablet ready OS(Honeycomb), like the original Galaxy Tab
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Tab> and the Nook Color, just to
name a couple.

~~~
suprgeek
Google threw their weight behind a bunch of 10.1 tablets before this [1],[2].
Both these were priced higher than the iPad at launch. I Never said there was
a previous "Nexus" branded tablet or that there were no 7" Androids at all.

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/samsung-galaxy-
tab-10-1-l...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/samsung-galaxy-
tab-10-1-launching-in-about-a-month-google-giv/)

[2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Xoom>

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jsz0
Isn't a 7 inch tablet kind of redundant when most Android phones are 4.5-5
inches these days? It doesn't seem like an extra 2-2.5 inches is going to make
a big difference especially when you are running the exact same applications
scaled up a bit. I believe this is one of the reasons the iPad has been so
successful since Apple draws a clear line between a small phone and a large
tablet. Consumers can immediately see the benefit of a larger device. When
you're dealing with 2-2.5 inches even $200 seems hard to justify. That's about
$100 an inch!

~~~
tomkarlo
4.5 - 5" phones are still pretty new, and they're still not remotely the
majority of units being sold. Not to mention lots of folks out there have 1-2
year old phones they're not about to replace (and may not want a 5" screen.)

At least for reading, a 7" device like the Kindle Fire is a huge improvement
over a 4" phone screen, much more than the simple size difference would
indicate. At similar (smallish) font sizes, I can get about 5-7 words across
the screen on a phone, whereas I can get 9-12 words on a 7" device.

For books, news and movies, a size increase of about 75% is a big deal.

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Achshar
I am inclined to think 7 inch will be a let down. Not much different from
other big phones. A 10 inch is the least. The 7 inch tablet really has to die
IMO. I am looking for a tablet and will get one but never a 7inch. My phone is
already almost 4 inches. I don't need a mildly bigger phone. I need a nice big
screen which is a joy to watch videos or use flipboard on.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
"The 7 inch tablet really has to die IMO."

Because you don't want it, it needs to die? So you "need a nice big screen",
good for you; I don't. The seven inch tablet is great for me. I'm in the over
forty crowd and my iPhone is hard to use accurately with my fingers, to the
point of frustration. I need something to use as my pocket computer that's
easier than my smart phone, allows me to configure it to my convenience,
allows me to insert portable storage, uses standard ports, such as USB, and to
change the battery when it wears.

~~~
Achshar
My point was that the phones are moving closer to the 7 inch mark. There is
now just about 2 inch difference b/w a high end phone and a tablet. So if you
need a 7 inch tablet, in most cases a 5 inch galaxy note will suffice. Except
maybe a USB port, but there are micro usb to USB converters out there that are
tiny. The 7 inch model does not make sense because there isn't much to
differentiate b/w a 5' phone and a 7' tablet. What can be seen on 7' tablet
can most certainly be seen on phone, best example being desktop websites. They
will look very similar on a 5' and a 7' screen. 10' will make a difference
though, both because of screen size and higher resolution.

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Shivetya
It would be better with a rear facing camera. After originally not caring I
have found that kids and grand parents both loved being able to take pictures
and email them. The number of times I have ever used the front facing camera
can be summarized with, demonstrating photo booth apps.

~~~
CrazedGeek
See, and I'm the opposite. I never use the back camera on my tablet (too low
quality, no flash), but I frequently video chat with friends and family with
the front camera.

Also, I'm not too sure the lack of a back camera would be a deal breaker for
most people -- the Fire's sold pretty dang well without one.

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StavrosK
$200? How the hell?

~~~
gosub
Decent 7" tablets based on the Allwinner A10 arm cpu can easily be found
around 100/150€. <http://tabletrepublic.com/forum/cortex-a8-allwinner-a10/>

The performance is not at Tegra3 level, but they provide smooth scrolling and
browsing. A cheap google tablet in this segment is a very tempting buy.

~~~
StavrosK
Sure, but a Tegra 3 tablet in that range is surely news, no?

~~~
fpgeek
Yes, before this I think the cheapest Tegra 3 tablet was the ASUS TF300 at
$399/32GB and $379/16GB.

Knocking $120 off of that (16GB vs 16GB) is pretty impressive, especially
since I'm not sure that a 7" screen at the same resolution is actually
cheaper.

That being said, cheap is not enough. It's just a starting point. The real
question is: What can Jelly Bean do on this? And is it enough to compete with
the iPad and Windows tablets (not to mention inspire Android OEMs to do
better)?

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stevenwei
If the price point is correct, this puts it in direct competition with the
Kindle Fire, which has sold reasonably well (despite being a rather mediocre
device).

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dmm
That phone is ridiculously big. The $200 price is pretty good though.

~~~
JOfferijns
"Nexus 7: This Is Google’s New Nexus Tablet"

It's marketed as a small tablet, not a big phone (similar to Amazons Kindle
Fire).

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noarchy
As I look at these Nexus Tab specs, my first-gen Nook Color is looking very
feeble by comparison. I've been running CM9 (ICS) nightlies on the Nook, and
the hardware just barely manages. I'd love to grab a powerhouse 7" tab at that
kind of price point (~$200).

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programminggeek
Funny story, I was at Sam's Club the other day checking out the tablets and I
noticed two important things.

First, the iPad is always out front - highly visible and ready to play with.
People are always stepping up and using it. The android tablets (including the
Kindle Fire) were around back.

Second, a customer was playing with a 10" Android tablet and his wife came
over. He commented to her something like "I like the tablet over there better"
and he pointed to the Kindle Fire. The hardware is obviously not as good on
the Fire, but the UI/UX and form factor seem to suit non-geeks a lot better
than Android 4.0.

Also, my mother-in-law just got a Kindle Fire and loves it.

A couple data points don't mean much, but it's always interesting to see how
normal people view and use these devices.

~~~
conradev
The Kindle Fire is the only non-iPad tablet I have seen in the wild.

~~~
thoughtsimple
I've also seen a ASUS Transformer in the wild. The woman who owned it had just
received it and didn't really know what she was going to do with it. She
didn't buy the keyboard. She seemed happy with it though.

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athalius
12 core GPU? Am I missing something here? I thought even the IPad was only
quad core?

~~~
densh
Please never consider such characteristics (number of cores or their
frequencies) as an advantage when buying any mobile gadgets. Mobile technology
varies highly and such characteristics are usually can't be easily compared
between different hardware vendors (e.g. two 400mhz GPUs might have completely
different performance profile.) I don't know what kind of hardware they have
there but it might be anything — from a plenty of slower cores to having many
specialized cores. Also a lot depends on software and it's integration with
hardware. Do test real devices and measure real-life performance. That's the
only way to tell if there is any improvement whatsoever.

~~~
MSM
I would expand this to say don't just compare speed across brands on PC
either- if you compare a quad core Intel to a quad core AMD, you'll see quite
a difference. It's all about how those cycles are used!

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quattrofan
Want

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rsanchez1
ICS is on less than 10% of devices, and already they're moving on to Jelly
Bean? The rumor is that Google will handle OS updates to address the
fragmentation problem, but that will be hard to do when you update your OS
with less than 10% of devices using ICS, and over 60% of devices STILL using
Gingerbread.

<http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html>

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epo
Oh look! It's an iPad clone. At least Microsoft tried something different with
the Surface FUDevice. Google just seem to have outsourced their industrial
design to Apple.

