wow.
Device: 5/5
There have only ever been 3 tablets that have ever been appealing. The iPad, The Asus Transformer Pad, and now the Nexus 7.
I was dubious about a 7 inch tablet but my hunger and urge to buy a 7 inch tablet got the best of me. I've only ever seen 7 inch tablets but I have used the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.0 whatever and the Droid Xyboard 8 inch model and they were comfortable, so I assumed the Nexus 7 to be similar. I'm now surprised at how little of 7 inch tablets there are and why Apple has been so reluctant to make one. The 7 inch screen size is super comfortable for media and games. I'd say I was the one who would believe that games would look better and play better on a 10-inch but wow, after playing Dead Trigger and Asphalt 7: Heat, I would say that games are more fun on a 7 inch, especially games that make use motion (Temple Run on a 10 inch is hell, but on a 7 inch it's great!) As far as video, I watched some YouTube videos and WOW the screen quality rivals the quality of the retina iPad (While it's not on par with the iPad's resolution, it is still very very good, and the Nexus 7 would be worthy of the "retina" term. HD video was stellar and beautiful. The build quality of the tablet was also wonderful too. I will admit I caught myself several times looking for a hold switch and a physical home button. Coming from the iOS universe that's expected, but I still do feel that buttons are still essential. I do like the sleep/wake button on the side, however coming from the iPhone I found myself always feeling the left side for the volume buttons. The device is comfortable and doesn't start to feel heavy until quite after a while, even in only one hand. As far as camera quality goes, i'm not impressed, and I would have enjoyed a rear facing camera. The speaker was okay, but wasn't working wonders for me. One thing that is interesting (and always happens to me with EVERYTHING I get) is that it seems buggy, like I got a developer model or something, because sometimes things just glitch (when I played Dead Trigger for the first time it locked up and played a long buzzing tone, and sometimes the OS does feel laggy, especially when browsing Tumblr on Chrome) but almost every tech device I get always has some problem, and it's probably due to Jelly Bean so new, but I'm not letting it give me a bad impression on Android because I truly do enjoy this device
Interface: 5/5
WOW! Android has REALLY changed. Last time I really sat down with an Android device and got to spend time playing with it was when I was holding on to my cousin's Galaxy S i9000 and my how Android has changed. One thing I will say though is that this stock android is what is appealing. While HTC does have a really beautiful interface, stock Android is what it's all really about. The features and interface of Jelly Bean are really convincing enough for me to trade my iPhone for a Galaxy Nexus (of course I wouldn't though). The OS is just so pretty and I really do enjoy the customizable home screens. One thing about Android is that it really feels more like a tablet's OS than a Phone's. I never saw the use of widgets beyond a basic clock or weather widget but on a tablet it's something I couldn't live without. While there are not many tablet optimized apps and Android doesn't handle those non-optimized apps as well as the iPad does, it's still really nice, and did I mention how pretty stock Android is?
Apps: 3.5/5
Here's where I feel the Nexus and Android as a whole starts to fail. While the Google built apps are AMAZING (Maps is beautiful! Gmail is amazing and I love Chrome!), many apps that I were hoping would be a good experience on a tablet (Twitter, Facebook & Facebook Messenger) were just overly stretched versions of the phone app, which was a big disappointment. I'd HATE to see what they look like on a 10 inch stretched out like that. Some apps like Pandora still looked good stretched but the open space made me want more out of them. Games looked AMAZING with the Tegra 3 and were a blast on the 7-inch screen. Of course the tablet optimized apps like Spotify and Flipboard also looked beautiful. One irk was the magazine mode. I was honestly hoping for a more Newsstand experience rather than just a PDF viewer experience, so that was somewhat of a letdown.
Overall: 13.5/15 A
This tablet is an amazing device. The Nexus line and Android as a platform is becoming more and more appealing.
Device: 5/5
There have only ever been 3 tablets that have ever been appealing. The iPad, The Asus Transformer Pad, and now the Nexus 7.
I was dubious about a 7 inch tablet but my hunger and urge to buy a 7 inch tablet got the best of me. I've only ever seen 7 inch tablets but I have used the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.0 whatever and the Droid Xyboard 8 inch model and they were comfortable, so I assumed the Nexus 7 to be similar. I'm now surprised at how little of 7 inch tablets there are and why Apple has been so reluctant to make one. The 7 inch screen size is super comfortable for media and games. I'd say I was the one who would believe that games would look better and play better on a 10-inch but wow, after playing Dead Trigger and Asphalt 7: Heat, I would say that games are more fun on a 7 inch, especially games that make use motion (Temple Run on a 10 inch is hell, but on a 7 inch it's great!) As far as video, I watched some YouTube videos and WOW the screen quality rivals the quality of the retina iPad (While it's not on par with the iPad's resolution, it is still very very good, and the Nexus 7 would be worthy of the "retina" term. HD video was stellar and beautiful. The build quality of the tablet was also wonderful too. I will admit I caught myself several times looking for a hold switch and a physical home button. Coming from the iOS universe that's expected, but I still do feel that buttons are still essential. I do like the sleep/wake button on the side, however coming from the iPhone I found myself always feeling the left side for the volume buttons. The device is comfortable and doesn't start to feel heavy until quite after a while, even in only one hand. As far as camera quality goes, i'm not impressed, and I would have enjoyed a rear facing camera. The speaker was okay, but wasn't working wonders for me. One thing that is interesting (and always happens to me with EVERYTHING I get) is that it seems buggy, like I got a developer model or something, because sometimes things just glitch (when I played Dead Trigger for the first time it locked up and played a long buzzing tone, and sometimes the OS does feel laggy, especially when browsing Tumblr on Chrome) but almost every tech device I get always has some problem, and it's probably due to Jelly Bean so new, but I'm not letting it give me a bad impression on Android because I truly do enjoy this device
Interface: 5/5
WOW! Android has REALLY changed. Last time I really sat down with an Android device and got to spend time playing with it was when I was holding on to my cousin's Galaxy S i9000 and my how Android has changed. One thing I will say though is that this stock android is what is appealing. While HTC does have a really beautiful interface, stock Android is what it's all really about. The features and interface of Jelly Bean are really convincing enough for me to trade my iPhone for a Galaxy Nexus (of course I wouldn't though). The OS is just so pretty and I really do enjoy the customizable home screens. One thing about Android is that it really feels more like a tablet's OS than a Phone's. I never saw the use of widgets beyond a basic clock or weather widget but on a tablet it's something I couldn't live without. While there are not many tablet optimized apps and Android doesn't handle those non-optimized apps as well as the iPad does, it's still really nice, and did I mention how pretty stock Android is?
Apps: 3.5/5
Here's where I feel the Nexus and Android as a whole starts to fail. While the Google built apps are AMAZING (Maps is beautiful! Gmail is amazing and I love Chrome!), many apps that I were hoping would be a good experience on a tablet (Twitter, Facebook & Facebook Messenger) were just overly stretched versions of the phone app, which was a big disappointment. I'd HATE to see what they look like on a 10 inch stretched out like that. Some apps like Pandora still looked good stretched but the open space made me want more out of them. Games looked AMAZING with the Tegra 3 and were a blast on the 7-inch screen. Of course the tablet optimized apps like Spotify and Flipboard also looked beautiful. One irk was the magazine mode. I was honestly hoping for a more Newsstand experience rather than just a PDF viewer experience, so that was somewhat of a letdown.
Overall: 13.5/15 A
This tablet is an amazing device. The Nexus line and Android as a platform is becoming more and more appealing.