Personal Views on the Nexus 7

[morgster93]

Okay, so I'd been following the updates on the release of the Nexus tablet for a couple of months, and now they're being released. Personally, I think it looks a great tablet and it's something I would love, I'm always on the net, and also I do software engineering at uni, and perhaps this could help me out development-wise! Plus I have an Android phone and I do generally think that Android is a brilliant OS.

Put straight, I would buy this tablet. BUT.. no memory expansion?? This is what has left me hesitant! In fairness I think if I were to purchase, I would get the 16GB version, £40 for twice the storage, why not? But is 16 still enough?!

The Android system itself will be stored on it, I'm not sure how big this is but I'm guessing it'll take a fair bit of space.

Apps and Games - both of these are increasing in size as newer stuff is being developed.. and I love my apps! ha! Also some games require extra downloads after they're installed, these can be pretty big! Anyone wanting to use the tablet as a GPS device - unless you tether to, say your phone, for data usage - you will have to use offline maps. I've personally not tried making a Google Maps, map offline, I know it can be done, but I use CoPilot Live, its excellent! But the maps take up more room obviously!

But, then comes CLOUD storage. And I guess this is what Google are trying to get people to do! Pictures, Documents, fine, I currently use my dropbox for these things and it works wonders, but both of these are small in size and fast to download. Anything else such as music/videos, you're going to need a GOOD internet connection and you're going to need it, where you want to have the media.

Music - Yes, there's Google Music, buuut, I'm in the UK, and I don't get this feature!

Anyway, I feel I've pointed out a few things here. I would like to hear your opinion also! Plus, like I've mentioned with Google Music not being available to me in the UK, are there any other services like it? Preferably free. Anything I've included that you think is wrong, please correct me on!

I'll include a poll also.. Are you buying the Nexus 7?

Look forward to hearing others opinion's, Thanks!

 

[Natey2]

BUT.. no memory expansion??

Removable micro-SD cards are responsible for many Android device problems (unexpected reboots, widget issues, lost photos, etc). Especially if your device doesn't like the speed rating of that card.
I don't recall removing my 16GB or 32GB cards from my devices since the time I installed them. I suppose there might be some need to if I needed to do massive high speed transfers to my PC, but I don't...

 

[Tom T]

In my experience the lack of memory expansion is the one serious flaw of my kindle Fire, and it is probably the one thing that will keep me from having an interest in the Nexus 7. Now if they offered a 32gig model, even for $300, it might make a difference to me.

 

[Natey2]

Specs indicate it has a GPS. Does that mean navigation will work without a WiFi connection if the maps are cached?

 

[strider_mt2k]

Yes.
Google Maps offline mode should kick butt on this thing.

 

[Frederuco]

I guess it depends on if you need the tablet for media consumption (watching your movies converted to mp4 format). If so, you may want to go check out a Galaxy Tab in the 7" range (I think that has microSD).

Also, for navigation....you CAN use maps offline, but you have to be ONLINE when getting directions. Yes, you can cache areas for offline use, but it will not get directions even if your entire route is offline. Any directions are cached, and as long as the app does not crash or that you reboot your tablet, you are golden.

But, you can get an app like Sygic or Co-Pilot that will do the trick and you have to download the maps.

My 16 GB TF101 is mostly empty (maybe 4 GB used, but I have a 64 GB microSD and 64 GB SD that are chocked full of movies. Music - I use Google Music Beta.

 

[WVUTampaAlum]

Wait for fire2. Better to see the Amazon offerings first before getting a 7.

 

[vampirefo.]

No I am not even considering getting one, $200 dollars for 7' screen to me is to much, Now if they want to come out with an 8" screen around that price, I might look into it.

 

[ThinkingBrian]

No, I will not be purchasing the Nexus 7 Android tablet because I already recently purchased a 7 inch Acer A100 tablet with 2 year warranty and I don't have any extra money or need two android tablets. However if I didn't own the Acer, then yes I would consider for the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade and its quad-core processor. And I still like it despite the lack of microSD card. I believe I could get away with buying a micro usb to female usb cable and connect a 16gb thumb drive to it and that would give me the added storage I need for photos and videos. Who knows, maybe the microUSB port can host an external HD. There are also other ways not including a cloud to have external storage.

I wonder if there will be a (10 inch screen) Nexus 10 tablet soon?

 

[strider_mt2k]

I guess it depends on if you need the tablet for media consumption (watching your movies converted to mp4 format). If so, you may want to go check out a Galaxy Tab in the 7" range (I think that has microSD).

Also, for navigation....you CAN use maps offline, but you have to be ONLINE when getting directions. Yes, you can cache areas for offline use, but it will not get directions even if your entire route is offline. Any directions are cached, and as long as the app does not crash or that you reboot your tablet, you are golden.

But, you can get an app like Sygic or Co-Pilot that will do the trick and you have to download the maps.

My 16 GB TF101 is mostly empty (maybe 4 GB used, but I have a 64 GB microSD and 64 GB SD that are chocked full of movies. Music - I use Google Music Beta.

Thanks for the clarification! It looks like I oversimplified there, sorry.

 

[Tom T]

One other thing about ext storage, I just bought a 32gig class 10 SanDisk microSD for my new HTC phone, It was actually advertised as a class 4 but I was shipped a class 10, sold by Amazon themselves so no worry about fake cards, for $21. With storage this cheap it seems a shame that someone wouldn't be able to take advantage of it.

 

[Androidfonefan]

Yes.
Google Maps offline mode should kick butt on this thing.

Why cant Google just make a Off Line app for GPS. If they had something like that I would probably take one of my 7 inch tablets and make it a dedicated GPS unit.
I prefer Google Navigater over every GPS system I have seen to date but Google has never made a dedicated GPS app.

I would even pay for the app so long as it was a reasonable price and included lifetime free updates.
Question is, will Google ever wake up and realize they have a market for it and then produce the app. Seems to me like they have 99% of the work already done.
They have the maps and they have the Navigator App, all they need to do is update the system to allow downloading of the maps and saving to the SD card, rather than having GN download the maps from the data link as you drive.

 

[morgster93]

Removable micro-SD cards are responsible for many Android device problems (unexpected reboots, widget issues, lost photos, etc). Especially if your device doesn't like the speed rating of that card.

This is something I hadn't thought about when wondering why Google had decided to not support an SD slot! Very true though, and I guess as Google were wanting to "eliminate lag" as they point out in their introduction video of the Nexus7, this was probably a factor which if removed, increased the chances of no lag. But I could be completely wrong there!

In my experience the lack of memory expansion is the one serious flaw of my kindle Fire, and it is probably the one thing that will keep me from having an interest in the Nexus 7.

Can I ask what kind of stuff you use on your Fire? Do you store movies or alot of music etc?

Also, for navigation....you CAN use maps offline, but you have to be ONLINE when getting directions. Yes, you can cache areas for offline use, but it will not get directions even if your entire route is offline.

Thank you very much for pointing this out! I was actually unaware of this and simply presumed that you would be able to use directions with it, but no! To me that sort of makes the 'offline maps' a bit pointless!

Anyone that is wanting to use this as a GPS device, as I mentioned, I use CoPilot and I would really recommend it, has some really good features and the offline maps AND directions mean it'll work on this thing! Frederuco mentions Sygic, I have not tried this, or and others to that matter, but I know there are a few available. Map size... for me in the UK, the maps were 180MB on CoPilot, which isn't too bad really!

Wait for fire2

Interesting. I had not thought about this at all! A quick Google search shows me it's due for a release next month?!

No I am not even considering getting one, $200 dollars for 7' screen to me is to much

Yeah I can understand this putting a few people off too actually! I've watched videos and it doesn't look TOO small to me, it actually looks quite a comfortable device to hold, but then again maybe it's best for me to get a feel of one, before purchasing this.. if I do.

I believe I could get away with buying a micro usb to female usb cable and connect a 16gb thumb drive to it and that would give me the added storage I need for photos and videos. Who knows, maybe the microUSB port can host an external HD. There are also other ways not including a cloud to have external storage.

I had read one person's post on a forum saying that USB-On the go storage was not supported by the device but a quick Google and I found this...

"USB-OTG is indeed supported on the Nexus 7, however as anyone has used USB-OTG knows, whether peripherals or devices work is a function of the host OS and drivers. On the Nexus 7, using a mouse and keyboard is supported, and I saw Google using an Ethernet to microUSB adapter with the Nexus 7 (which I borrowed for my Galaxy Nexus) as well. Unfortunately mounting USB storage natively is not supported on the Nexus 7. Hopefully rooted users will be able to use StickMount with the Nexus 7 and make this work."

With storage this cheap it seems a shame that someone wouldn't be able to take advantage of it.

I also agree with this, storage is becoming cheaper and cheaper! And the people at Google must know that by including the SD slot, this would most probably sell a lot more!



Thanks for everyone's replies so far anyway!

 

[Androidfonefan]

While there are a great many things to be said for the iPad 1 2 or 3 The fact that it lacks a SD card slot is cause to not cosider it.
Paricularly when there are lesser tablets both in price and hardware specs that work just fine and do have expansion slots.
Googles desire to go the Apple way with the hardware will make sure I never buy one of their products.
Already have a iPad2 and its lack of SD port and the fact that there is no back button on the pad are probably the two things that make this device a less than 10 rated device

Sent from my D50 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Frederuco]

Why cant Google just make a Off Line app for GPS. If they had something like that I would probably take one of my 7 inch tablets and make it a dedicated GPS unit.
I prefer Google Navigater over every GPS system I have seen to date but Google has never made a dedicated GPS app.

I would even pay for the app so long as it was a reasonable price and included lifetime free updates.
Question is, will Google ever wake up and realize they have a market for it and then produce the app. Seems to me like they have 99% of the work already done.
They have the maps and they have the Navigator App, all they need to do is update the system to allow downloading of the maps and saving to the SD card, rather than having GN download the maps from the data link as you drive.

Not to mention you can also cache the maps for offline use!

I can download up to 80 MB per area of offline map data. If I am completely offline it will show my position in the cached area. They just need to get the ability to give directions if you are in a cached area when offline.