
Fred Wilson: My New Nexus 7" - JOfferijns
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/07/my-new-nexus-7.html
======
topbanana
I can't understand how anyone would prefer reading a backlit screen. I find
e-ink so much easier on the eyes, especially after a day of staring at
screens. I hope e-ink doesn't die out.

~~~
randlet
I love the e-ink on the Kindle with the only downside being that reading in
the dark requires a lamp. Battery life is another huge plus in favour of
e-ink.

~~~
bergie
Sometimes I also find it a bonus that you really can't do anything else on the
device than read. Focus on the text with zero distractions...

~~~
jgroome
Absolutely. When I first got mine my friend was shocked that I could be so
enthusiastic about a device that doesn't have social apps and integration or
notifications.

Like what you'd want when you're concentrating on a book is constant reminders
of what's happening on Facebook.

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jgroome
I've been reading as many Nexus 7 reviews as I can in a vain effort to sedate
my excitement for its arrival later this month. I know this is going to sound
ungrateful, but this review seems a bit thin.

The idea of using the Nexus 7 as an ereader seems kind of silly to me - surely
if you're into ebooks (like I am) then you'd be better off with an actual
Kindle. Staring at a backlit screen like that for hours on end can't be good
for your eyes.

And I still haven't seen anybody take photos or video conference with it yet,
so I have no idea how good that 1.2mp camera is.

~~~
mtgx
I think even if you like reading books, unless you know you will do it every
day for at least a year or two, to get your money's worth, you're probably
better off with a multi-purpose device that you can use for a lot of other
stuff, too.

~~~
daeken
I tend to disagree. The best Kindle device out there, in my opinion, is only
$79. That's well into the range of disposable for most people in tech, and it
performs the task (reading) better than anything else out there. It doesn't
take long for that to be a great deal.

~~~
Cloven
Maybe it's just me, but I find the e-paper Kindles to be absolutely terrible
reading experiences. The text is still relatively low contrast, but the real
deal killer is the refresh flash. It's jarring and disruptive and it is
nothing like a page turn.

~~~
Fuzzwah
I disagree strongly about the text, I find e-ink wonderful to read from. When
I 1st used my e-ink kindle and noticed the refresh flash I actually thought it
was a problem. I asked a friend who had one prior to me if his did the same
and initially he said no. Then he went to check and realised that yes, it
does. He then yelled at me for pointing it out as it wasn't something he'd
even taken notice of in the past but now couldn't avoid focusing on every time
he turned a page.

For me, I got used to the refresh flash and it doesn't bother me in the
slightest or disrupt my reading. I don't really see the need for a page turn
metaphor. The fact the next/previous buttons are right where I'm holding the
device is a huge plus in my mind. Devices where you need to swipe the screen
to turn a page seem to be missing out on the huge advantage.

The one thing which I absolutely needed to learn how to hack was the margin
size. It struck me of a waste of space to have a 20mm margin on the screen. I
found a guide to edit a config file on the device and changed to 5mm margin
and love it.

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mscrivo
I find it really annoying how so many people are now praising 7" as the ideal
tablet size when Google puts one out, but when RIM did it a year and a half
ago, everyone said it was too small. Us playbook owners have been saying this
for over a year, but people are too caught up in the destroy RIM bandwagon to
be open minded.

~~~
generalk
I'm sure the same people that were dismissive of the Playbook are also
dismissive of the Nexus 7, at least until Apple releases a 7" iPad. That said,
the bigger complaints I heard about the Playbook had nothing to do with its
size and everything to do with the Blackberry ecosystem as a whole.

~~~
loceng
Agreed. Setting up big expectations and then not meeting them is a dangerous
game to play with your brand.

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foresterh
I'm blown away by how good technical books look on Google Play Books on the
Nexus 7 (and maybe all tablets?). I normally use a 2nd generation Kindle and
can never read tech books on there because of the code wrapping lines and the
monochrome text. But the difference between a tech book on the Kindle app and
the Google Play Books app (both on the Nexus 7) is night and day. I highly
recommend at least getting a sample of a book and trying it.

You can also zoom out far more than you can on Kindle, which probably helps it
look so great.

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mikeevans
I wrote a review too, if anyone's interested:
<http://michaelevans.org/blog/2012/07/03/nexus-7-review/>

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marknutter
It is not a forgone conclusion that Apple will release a 7" iPad.

~~~
freehunter
"The good news for iPad/iOS fans is that Apple is apparently going to come out
with a 7" iPad soon."

sounds an awful lot like the 2009

"The good news for iPhone fans is that Apple is apparently going to come out
with a OSX tablet soon."

Apple speculation has a history of being high profile and also wrong.

~~~
froo
I guess one could say that since iOS is based off OSX that that is indeed
true.

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saturdaysaint
The 7" size sounds great. I basically want something that I can use almost
exactly like how I use my smartphone around the house (ie browsing the
internet while lounging in bed or on the couch) but with a supersized screen.
The 10" form factor fails that test for me, getting fairly awkward if I'm
reclined at all. The fact that Google have gone out of their way to make it a
usable GPS as well (with downloadable maps and functional voice commands even
without an internet connection) is a nice bonus.

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varelse
I brought my Galaxy Nexus and Kindle Fire to Asia last month after my Galaxy
Tab 10.1 died on me the day of the trip. Within 2 days into the trip in Hong
Kong, the Nexus stopped charging itself, leaving me with only the Kindle Fire
for the remainder of the trip. Although it was a mediocre email machine due to
typical android lag in typing, it survived the trip, and let me read web pages
reliably.

Ironically, the Galaxy Nexus magically resurrected itself once plugged into a
US outlet. Go figure...

I noticed that the Samsung Note with its 5.3" screen is really popular in Hong
Kong and Vietnam. This makes me think the 7" pad is going to be a real market
segment - It's big enough to play games and type email/text yet small enough
to stuff in a coat pocket, which is exactly what I saw going on with the
Samsung Note. And wherever I took out the Kindle Fire, people were very
curious about it.

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needle0
I noticed the Nexus 7 home screen uses a "smartphone style" layout, with the
favorites tray at the bottom of the screen, the All Apps button located in the
center of the tray, and the Back/Home/Multitask soft buttons centered.

As far as I remember, previous Android tablets after Honeycomb used a
dedicated "tablet style" layout, with no favorites tray, the All Apps button
located in the top right of the screen, and the soft keys left-aligned.

Why isn't the Nexus 7 using this? Is it because the 7-inch screen was deemed
too small for the tablet style layout? Or has the tablet style layout been
deprecated entirely from Jelly Bean?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Android team member Dianne Hackborn suggests they tried both and liked this
way better for the 7" size:

[https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/6eWwQvFG...](https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/6eWwQvFGLV8)

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yawgmoth
I would love to use the Nexus 7 as a _home phone_. Of course, I would have the
right headset / earplug to go with it.

~~~
simmons
That's a great idea! Home and office phones are just begging to be pulled out
of the 1980's and into the modern world. I'd love to have a stationary desk
phone that runs Android, integrates with my Google contacts, etc.

Unfortunately, the 2.4Ghz spectrum is overcrowded in my area, the Nexus only
supports 2.4Ghz wi-fi, and packet loss is especially annoying for voice calls.
(Although the word on the street is that the Nexus 7 supports USB ethernet.
Hmm...)

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awolf
I disagree. The way I see it the 7" form factor is big enough to be a pain in
the ass to carry yet small enough to be useless for most tablet stuff I'd
actually want to do anyway.

In my opinion, a mobile device should have a keyboard big enough for me to
type using ten fingers, or it should fit in my pocket. Using something in
between baffles me.

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Kartificial
Man, these kind of reviews only make me want the Nexus 7 more. Are there any
dates released on when it's coming to Europe?

~~~
mtgx
I think it's coming to UK around mid-July, too. From there you might not get
it in your country through Google and their partners, but I'm sure there will
be plenty of offline and online retailers getting it from UK and reselling it
in your own country, probably for around 200 euro or so.

~~~
Kartificial
OK, unfortunately I'm not in the UK.

I guess it's not possible to pre-order in the US/UK and then ship it elsewhere
in Europe?

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watmough
Just ordered one.

It looks great, and at $200, you can now regard the iPad as a different class
of device.

Really looking forward to getting mine, and hopefully looking forward to
developing a few apps for it.

~~~
thoradam
I've been wondering if I should get the Nexus 7 as my main and only
development device. I imagine it could be great to test both mobile and tablet
layouts on the same device.

~~~
fidotron
It could prove very good for that. If you root the device it's possible to run
apps (from Google Play) allowing you to modify the reported screen density,
which you should be using to alter the layout of your apps.

Given the screen res, price and capability if you're going to have one dev
device it looks like the one to get.

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aw3c2
The Kindle app screenshot shows a huge margin on the sides of the text.
Readability feature to make the lines shorter or what is the purpose of that?
Is that configurable?

~~~
etherealG
it's a margin setting and is configurable yes. both the margins on the sides
and top/bottom and the line height is.

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vidarh
The one thing that really annoys me is that in the UK there's a 40 GBP
difference between the 8GB and 16GB version. I'd rather pay extra for an SD
card slot when I can get a 32GB class 10 SD card for around half that.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
It seems like Google's deprecated external storage in Android. I'm under the
impression they don't want to force the average user into seeing the
filesystem, and they couldn't find a way to make ext. storage seamlessly
coexist with onboard (apps, etc.) without showing the FS.

~~~
Spearchucker
If I'm not mistaken (it happens often) the exclusion of external storage was
to avoid paying licensing costs for FAT/FAT32. So really just to keep the
price down.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Here's[0] a relevant thread (morrildl == Android dev).

[0]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/mg14z/whoa_whoa_ics...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/mg14z/whoa_whoa_ics_doesnt_support_usb_mass_storage/)

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jwwest
I'm torn between getting a Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. I have a lot of Kindle
books, but also a lot of video content purchased through Amazon as well. I
feel that the Nexus 7 is a better device as it's not locked down to Amazon's
eco system, but the lack of a Amazon video player for Android (without having
to sideload the apk that is) leaves me in a weird predicament.

My wife has a Kindle Fire, I love the form factor -- my iPad 1 is getting long
in the tooth and isn't as "portable" as the KF -- but I'm still bothered by
the lock-in of the device.

~~~
GFischer
I haven't seen a Nexus 7 personally, but from my experience with the Kindle,
it looks like it will be a better and more flexible device (I appreciate the
Play store and other benefits of stock Android).

Not that the Kindle Fire would be a bad choice, but I'd personally choose a
Nexus 7.

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jordibunster
"If you look at the bottom of the home screen you'll see a yellow icon next to
the Chrome browser".

Yeah, that and also Fred Wilson's foot.

~~~
Supermighty
Now it's all I can see.

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espeed
How is the size for reading PDFs?

~~~
ConstantineXVI
The higher-res screen might change things, but I've never found reading
letter/A4-sized PDFs particularly enjoyable on anything under 9". PDF is a
print-focused format to begin with, it's never quite handled varying screen
sizes well.

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nickpresta
"It is lighter and more comfortable being held in one hand."

More comfortable, perhaps, but lighter? The Nexus 7 is 340 grams [1] versus
652 grams on the new iPad [2].

It might feel lighter, but it is all in your head.

[1]: <http://www.google.com/nexus/#/7/specs> [2]:
<http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/>

~~~
masklinn
I'm sure I must be missing something, but how is 340g not lighter than 652g?

You can probably criticize a lot of things about the review, but a 7" tablet
being lighter than a 10" one is more of a "well... duh?"

~~~
gnarbarian
He's gotta be making a reality distortion field joke.

"There are four lights!" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_eSwq1ewsU>

