Tablets Does anyone else miss the Nexus 7?

[Charlie Carcinogen]

I was just thinking back to when I had a Google Nexus 7. It was my first tablet and it worked really well for me. It had a good sized display in a small form factor which was great, especially in comparison to the tiny iPhone that I had during that time. I mainly used it for surfing the web and light media consumption. I remember it being a pleasant device to use, I liked it a lot. I ended up giving it to my niece or else I would’ve continued to use it for a long time.

I remember it fondly, it was just an inexpensive device that served it’s purpose well. I wonder why Google quit making them?

 

[Frankras]

Miss my Nexus 7. Had 2 of them back then. Handy size and all. If they make new with modern hardware and memory, then We are talking.

But on the other hand I’m loving my Mini 5 for accurate the same thing I loved my Nexus 7 for.

 

[Charlie Carcinogen]

Yeah, I have a new iPad Mini and love it.

But I remember certain nice things about the Nexus 7, I believe I paid only $179 for it. I liked the way it had the rubbery-plastic body that I never had to worry about scratching or marring, it was also easy to hold. I refused to take my super expensive iPad Mini out of the box until the case that I ordered was delivered lol.

 

[noobinator]

I still have one ?

 

[DaveOZ]

Yes, we had 3 of them in our house. I still have one but not used it for years.

I’d love a 8” Tab S8 with pen please.

 

[frank.deale]

Yes, we had 3 of them in our house. I still have one but not used it for years.

I’d love a 8” Tab S8 with pen please.

I agree and still have my Nexus 7.

 

[Mark Stone]

I was just thinking back to when I had a Google Nexus 7. It was my first tablet and it worked really well for me. It had a good sized display in a small form factor which was great, especially in comparison to the tiny iPhone that I had during that time. I mainly used it for surfing the web and light media consumption. I remember it being a pleasant device to use, I liked it a lot. I ended up giving it to my niece or else I would’ve continued to use it for a long time.

I remember it fondly, it was just an inexpensive device that served it’s purpose well. I wonder why Google quit making them?

I LOVED my old Nexus 7. It was so practical and useful for its time - I used it for games, web surfing, etc. The screen was perfect, not too large and not too small. Ironically, it is now owned by my 10-year old niece and still going strong. Google sure got that one right!

 

[Awesomesince86]

It was a great device. Sadly mine stopped holding a charge. It was a perfect tablet for my kids. After it died I had to switch them to a Fire HD and that’s been absolutely awful. Unfortunately there’s no tablets in the $100-300 range that have decent specs, storage, and support time. It’s either buy a crappy Amazon tablet or spend up for a galaxy tab or iPad mini.

 

[Charlie Carcinogen]

I LOVED my old Nexus 7. It was so practical and useful for its time - I used it for games, web surfing, etc. The screen was perfect, not too large and not too small. Ironically, it is now owned by my 10-year old niece and still going strong. Google sure got that one right!

I’m surprised it’s still going. Have you updated the operating system at all? I figured they would bloat it so much that it would no longer be able to run.

 

[Mark Stone]

I’m surprised it’s still going. Have you updated the operating system at all? I figured they would bloat it so much that it would no longer be able to run.

No, updates for that model stopped coming down a long time ago. But it still works!

 

[Killbynumbers]

Last time I ever tried powering mine on, it was incredibly slow. The battery life also sucked. I actually don't miss it. I had bought mine used on Craigslist. Can't remember how much I paid for it back then.

 

[Pezimak]

I had the first gen one as a gift, and stupidly I sold it for a Sony 8” tablet that hasn’t lasted too long, it’s battery is bulging, it is still to this day the thing I regret selling the most. Hindsight and all that.. I loved the thing and took it everywhere. I plugged in my controller by OTG to play game emulators on it. Thought it was cool playing those Tegra exclusive games. I very nearly got the new Nexus 9 instead of the Sony tablet at the time, should have done that. I’ve long since moved over to iPad though.

 

[mi7chy]

Not as memorable as the original 2012 Galaxy Note 10.1.

GN 10.1 > Nexus 7 > Nexus 10

 

[nickdalzell1]

I had the original one. If I am not too mistaken, there was a fatal flaw in some of those that caused the screen to fizzle out (literally, as in it got all snowy and died outright afterwards). Mine was one of the bad ones and eventually wigged out and went blank, never to turn on again. Could still use Google Now but no screen. At all. Never had it long enough to love or hate it. It was stock Android, and that was about all I ever knew. I watched Netflix for a month then the screen died.

Not as memorable as the original 2012 Galaxy Note 10.1.

I still have one! I got it on Amazon used a couple years ago, 3G Cellular/Wifi too. Still works (I know AT&T was supposed to kill it in Februrary 2022 but it still works!) I keep it in storage but tend to power it on and enjoy it from time to time. It's a really neat tablet. It really does a lot more than my newer ones, but it takes a day to recharge the battery and only goes about 6-7 hours of video/gaming before needing one, while my Tab A8 has a 12 hour battery and charges much faster. The Note 10.1 just decided one day the battery was too old to charge more than slowly, as it show an 'X' inside the battery icon when plugged in, and does charge, but it takes a whole day if you run it down to 25%. If you only watch 2 hours of YouTube, it takes 6 hours to charge.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Had the 2013 Nexus 7 and used the heck out of it. After a little over 6 years, it just wouldn't turn on anymore. I didn't care about official updates, cause I would always load a custom rom with the latest Android version on it. This was almost the perfect tablet for it's time. I say almost, cause Android back then still had issues with stand-by battery life. But onscreen life was excellent.

Another tablet I really liked was the Blackberry Playbook. Besides the lack of 3rd party apps, it was better than iOS on the iPad back then. The Playbook was the first tablet with a mobile OS that I thought to myself, with a little more work this could possibly replace a desktop.

 

[nickdalzell1]

It was a bit of an historical irony that everyone loved the textured back of the Nexus 7, but absolutely hated the very same style back on the Galaxy S5.

I wanted to like the Playbook as well, but the lack of even an email app was pretty bad, to say nothing of lacking third party stuff.

 

[slitherjef]

Yeah I sure do! I've had some back luck with them, I think my mom still has one. I'd probably buy a refreshed one. Hmmm perhaps run an iPhone and a Nexus 7 tablet? Hmmm might have a nice ring to it ?

 

[Zaft]

I had it back then for a couple of days. It was terrible.

 

[tbayrgs]

I had both of the Nexus tablets and liked that they were ‘stock’ Android, but looking back objectively, they weren’t really very good tablets. The aspect ratio made it easier to hold one handed but in reality, it was too tall and skinny as a portrait device, too squashed in landscape and had huge bezels. The LG G Pad 8.3 I picked up to replace it was a much better tablet (though still not great) with far smaller bezels and larger screen in a device that wasn’t that much larger and also had expandable memory.

The shortcomings of Android tablets then were predominantly the same that they have now—terrible software and lack of developer support.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Nexus was originally intended to be a developer test bed for Android apps. They never intended them to have things such as expandable storage (only seen on the Nexus One phone) or IR blasters or even stereo speakers. The Nexus 10 was a worse version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1.

Android tablets would have had an edge if Tablet UI had been kept intact, and we'd likely have far more tablet-specific apps. Tablet UI was during the Android 3.0-4.2 era. Bottom navigation bar, tablet oriented apps--even a dedicated Market section for tablet apps. Today, everything is a blown up phone app, with Samsung and perhaps a tiny portion of Google apps (YouTube, Gmail, Calendar) still being developed with a tablet UI. If anything, Google has been trying hard to kill the idea of Android tablets, and probably thinks Apple is nuts for sticking with the iPad. Google probably thinks a smartphone can do it all. Lord knows they're being designed to fit only a basketball player's hands these days.