This, Android fans, is the tablet you’ve been waiting for. Google’s Nexus 7 finally nails it for Android tablets. It has an inviting design, excellent software, and the right components inside to keep it all running. Even better, it has the right price: $199, and that’s even before the $25 in downloadable media you get if you preorder one.
The Nexus 7 is the Android media tablet the Kindle Fire was supposed to be. When the Kindle Fire debuted in the fall, it was a success because the price was just as right (also $199), but also because it did something Android tablets hadn’t done very well until then: It put media consumption front and center, the home screen serving as a storefront for Amazon‘s many digital services.
However, although buyers flocked to the Kindle Fire like no other Android tablet before, it had issues. Early reviews discovered Amazon’s highly customized version of Android didn’t run so smoothly. It was buggy and slow to respond to a user’s touch, plus it effectively cut you off from the main Android marketplace, replacing it with Amazon’s more limited selection of apps (a hack could get you back to Android central, but few would take advantage).
Now comes Nexus 7: A media-centric tablet from Android’s creator. Instead of buggy software built onto off-the-shelf hardware, Google has crafted a tablet experience around the latest version of Android, 4.1 “Jelly Bean,” and turned to one of its trusted partners, Asus, to build the device. The results are nothing short of amazing.
It starts with the object itself. The Nexus 7 feels great in your hand. Its leather-like backside gives you a solid grip, and its surprisingly lightweight at just 12 ounces (about half the iPad‘s weight). The tablet is superbly portable, but for many that will make them long for an option to add 4G LTE connectivity — sadly not available.
The screen is a 7-inch, 1,280 x 800 IPS (in-plane switching) LCD with durable Gorilla Glass for protection — pretty standard for devices these days. It’s no retina display, but it’s beyond fine.
Like Butter
With Jelly Bean, Google gave Android more than just a few new features; it’s actually upgraded the user experience in a few key ways with what Google calls Project Butter. First, animations — such as how your array of apps moves when you swipe — now move at 60 frames per second. It’s not something you’ll immediately notice, but if you put the Nexus 7 next to an Ice Cream Sandwich tablet, you’ll see the difference.
Besides that, Android can now predict where you’re going to touch the screen, animating the experience around that point. This is even harder to notice — until you realize that you’ve been swiping and tapping for hours, yet the device in your hands hasn’t once annoyed you with its lack of response to your touch. The Nexus 7 just works.
All this leads to a faster and more responsive experience overall. Comparing the Nexus 7′s responsiveness to an Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” device, the Samsung Galaxy S III, the Nexus responded quicker to both the home button and screen rotation. The S III was slightly faster at switching apps, however.
While the improved experience in Jelly Bean is great, credit where credit’s due: It wouldn’t be nearly as good if there weren’t a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor underneath.
Entering the Nexus
Google’s Nexus devices have tended to have a cleaner look and feel than most other phones and tablets based on Android, with less bloatware. That’s partly true of the Nexus 7 and it partly isn’t. Although its menus and navigation don’t go on and on like they do in some Androids (*cough* Samsung *cough*), they’re actually a little too austere in some ways. For example, I had a hell of a time finding the toggle to turn on screen rotation — it’s hidden in the pulldown menu, not in Settings. Huh?
And although there isn’t what I’d call bloatware on this device, Google has taken the liberty of pre-installing apps for many of its services: Gmail, Chrome, Google+, Maps, YouTube, Google Earth, GTalk — even Currents, that wonderful Flipboard clone no one’s using. They’re all in a handy folder, right on your home screen. Don’t everyone email thank-yous at once, now.
One of those Google products that’s most welcome is Chrome, the new standard web browser for Android, starting with the Nexus 7. Chrome looks great on the tablet, and it’s nothing short of a revelation that you can now browse incognito or resume a session you began on another device. Since Chrome is now the most popular desktop browser in the world, the syncing will be extremely useful to many.
A big part of the Google setup package are the media gateways. After setup, the Nexus 7 greets you with a screen that’s filled with book and magazine covers, movie posters and album art. This is the Library widget, and it looks great. Tap on a magazine cover, and it launches your magazine reader/browser app; tap an album, and you’re in Music.
The Library widget looks great and gets the point across in the most obvious way that this tablet is meant to be a media powerhouse. As you “consume” your media, the covers move and change, though it can sometimes take a while; i had to get halfway through Transformers: Dark of the Moon before the widget showed it on the home screen (I was popping in and out of playback to write this review). If that bothers you, it’s easy enough to adjust its size or get rid of the widget altogether — this is Android, after all.
Media Machine
Let’s get to it, shall we? The Nexus 7 is positioned as a media-consumption device, so how it delivers movies, music, books and magazines is where it lives or dies.
The Nexus 7 is an excellent video player. After downloading Transformers, I had a hard time stealing myself away from it to write this review. The player is very responsive, and the download looked very good — although it’s not as sharp as what you’d see on a retina iPad, and blacks weren’t quite as black as you might like. Still, perfectly fine for most.
The magazine reading experience is satisfying, but it has some room for improvement. The main issue is that magazines seem to be rendered as mere pages, as opposed to the highly interactive digital magazines that many titles feature on the iPad. Text gets a little fuzzy when you zoom in close, and you can’t do things like tap on headlines on the Contents page to advance to the article.
However, the app gives you a View Text option for every article, which renders them like a Google Currents article. Pages advance smoothly and photos look great.
The Book reader is better, featuring adjustable text size and a slick page-turning animation. And it’s a subtle point, but I absolutely love the library page, which isn’t a shelf at all but an array of covers on a white background. It’s a much classier and more inviting design than Apple’s silly bookshelves.
Music is a little confusing, with the home screen pre-populated with a few random titles. However, it’s not that clear whether you’re playing a download or a music stream, which isn’t too bothersome — unless your Wi-Fi quits. Overall, the experience is nowhere near as intuitive as iTunes, and the player wasn’t as responsive as I would have liked. The onboard speaker is horrible by the way — don’t ever think you’ll use it except in an emergency.
Nexus Extras
If you’ve ever emailed yourself a photo to get it from your phone to your tablet, you’ll be grateful for Android Beam, which now lets you send photos and videos from device to device wirelessly, just by tapping them together. The connection is made via near-field communication, and the file is transferred via Bluetooth. Your battery can breathe a sigh of relief, though: You don’t have to leave Bluetooth on for it to work. The catch, however, is that it only works with Jelly Bean devices.
Although the feature works, Android Beam could do with just a little more polish. While the “giving” device lets you know when it’s ready to beam, the notifications on the receiver are barely noticeable. You’re often left wondering, “Did it work?” Thankfully, it usually does.
The Google search app has gotten an upgrade, too, with improved voice search and a great, clean layout that doesn’t bombard you with too much information. I also love how you can launch it from the home screen — just slide your finger up from the bottom, through the app-list icon, and you’re in Google. Pretty neat.
Searching via voice on the tablet feels slightly less natural than on a phone, but Google’s done well here. Very rarely did the search mishear me, even for homynyms like “tie” and “Thai.”
Ultimate Nexus
The Nexus 7 isn’t as large as the iPad, and doesn’t match its retina display, but make no mistake, this is the tablet that gets Google in the game. It’s the only Android tablet I’ve used so far that delivers an experience that’s comparable.
That experience isn’t something you can reduce to a single feature or spec of the Nexus 7 that stands out. Google has really thought about the device in its entirety here — from the basic response of the OS to little things like how Chrome zooms in on menu items.
As a media consumption device, the Nexus 7 is the best Android has to offer, although it still falls short of the iPad. Obviously, the iPad has an edge in the larger screen, but the retina display makes a difference, too (not just for pixels, but color as well). Also, media apps for the iPad apps (like Netflix) tend to have more polish than their Android counterparts, since developers can better tailor them to the device. And iTunes still holds a lot over Google Play: Besides legacy, Apple has all four major music labels signed on, while Google has only three (Warner is still a holdout … sorry, Nickelback fans).
However, is the iPad really $300 better than the Nexus 7? That’s a really tough case to make, even considering the superior screen, music catalog and app selection. Think about it — for the same price as an iPad, you’ll get a Nexus 7 — plus one of these: 75 HD movie rentals, 150 TV episodes, 232 songs, 23 books, or between 75 and 300 magazine issues.
The Nexus 7 may not be the best tablet ever built, but its media savviness and low price make it a crowd-pleaser. For the vast majority of people, it’s more than good enough, and if you aren’t yet married to the Apple platform, you should be pre-ordering one now.
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5 
But to get it right google have to lose a lot of money? Seriously how can they afford to sell this at $200!
Just like Amazon — deliver a device that connects to their services where they earn a percentage from all ads, app and media purchases, etc.
Asus is the one making money, not Google. They probably won’t make a lot on each one, but I bet they will be OK overall.
i hope its a good hit. i’m not much of an android guy, but i can see this getting big. for now, i’ll stick with my ipad :) Good work google!
The biggest con of this product is its limited availability. This would be my first tablet if only it was available for sale in Europe.. And the UK is not Europe, it is only the UK.
I reckon they don’t think the other markets as big as the UK. UK has the highest population density in Europe.
That is not correct, as http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+density+europe clearly shows. It’s population density is 10th. Apart from that, the Euro market is WAAAY bigger than the UK market.
If you’re one of the 400 million people with an Android phone all your content – games, books, movies and whatnot – that you’ve bought already is already paid for on the Nexus 7 tablet. Just log in to your Google Play account and download it again.
This makes another Android device an easy choice for Android fans over an iOS or Windows device, where you would have to start over again.
What are you talking about?
Everything I’ve ever purchased or downloaded lives in iTunes. All I have to do is plug in a new device and everything is still there. To put everything from one iPad to another is as simple as selecting the restore from backup option.
And, there is no ‘downloading it again’ either. There is merely copying the content to the new device.
This was ‘revolutionary’ for Apple when they finally did it.
It’s still terrible when compared to Android.
you don’t have to re-purchase anything with your windows phone / device either ..
Nope , don’t want it. Too small for me. Need a 10 inch display . Nothing less.
I think what the author and Google seem to be missing is that the mass market, you know, the really big numbers don’t care about a “pure Android experience”. They’re looking for something that just works. Sure, they’ll sell a Nexus 7 to a geek like me, but if they really want to sell a lot of them they’d be wise to design it for my wife and mom.
The Kindle Fire succeeds because it gives the most people the features they’re looking for while demanding almost no effort at all. Want to get a better understanding? Read:
http://www.epinions.com/review/amazon-kindle-fire/content_592298479236
I think he addresses this here when he states:
” It’s the only Android tablet I’ve used so far that delivers an experience that’s comparable.”
this is in comparison with an iPad.
The Nexus 7 is 4G LTE capable… via your 4G LTE phone and wifi hotspot….
Why should I have to use a phone to get 4G on my tablet?
What’s next? Needing a truck to tow my car?
probably because cellular network == battery hog.
That is not 4G LTE capable, that makes it wifi capable. By that logic, anything able to connect to a wireless hotspot is 4G LTE capable.
Disclaimer: I am an iPad user I have owned every version of the iPad that Apple has made and I have loved each one more than the previous one.
Having said that I hope this tablet gains some popular acceptance it seems to have the right ingredients with out the crap that most companies seem to add to their android tablets so hopefully this one will have the legs to go the distance.
I may buy one I haven’t made my mind up on that one yet but the iPad needs something to push it forward I think most will agree the new iPad should have been release last year and with its display and excellent connection options and the variety of apps available iPad is a tough act to follow but with out competion innovation will be hard to come by and as much as I love Apple we need more than one tablet to choose from. Of coarse if the rumors of a 7in iPad turn out to be accurate it may be an uphill battle for this tablet and any other tablet that may be on the drawing board as we speak.
This one will be one to watch and cheers to Google for choosing and outstanding hardware partner in Asus.
Play Store needs a refresh badly. I tried using Google music but it sucked, it needs to be fixed. A tablet specific app section is needed to making Android Tablets popular. Right now I think the perception is Android has no tablet optimized apps. When Apple says 250000 Ipad apps that gets people interested. Android? Not really. HUGE mistake by Rubin to refuse to do this in the play store. He needs a lesson in Marketing
Google Music works fine for me. What is it not doing for you?
#iphone >
Im chasing down reviews on the Nexus 7 and still have not seen any mention of Google Drive or Google Docs, maybe Im missing it, I use an Iphone and an Ipad and use Macbook Air and a Chromebook for my laptops… I preordered and really hoping for a strong integration wirh Drive/Docs. I want to not only view but also edit all of my files…
You should go view the keynotes. They mentioned all of that.
I bet apple is trying to figure out how to sue to block this as we speak
You better believe it.
It’s a flagship Android device. They’ve already worked at murdering Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and they’re hard on the case of the Galaxy Nexus and S III. There’s absolutely no way they’ll let the Nexus 7 slide. And it’ll be over the same handful of ridiculously general patents — unified search; date/phone number recognition and linking; probably even the damn slide-to-unlock farce again.
At first I thought that this Nexus 7 Tablet not having a microSD card slot was a deal breaker for me, but the more and more I think about this including already having Android 4.1 and a quad-core processor, the more I actually would consider selling my Acer A100 and paying $200 right now to pre-order/buy this Nexis 7 tablet plus $20 case.
This would actually be a wise decision. The A100 won’t see Jelly Bean any time soon if at all, and the TFT screen in the A100 is a nightmare, not to mention the very mediocre battery life and overall uglier look, as well as the unnecessary hardware home button.
We got the A100 for my mom for xmas because it was only $250 and she didn’t want a 10″ device.
If acer merely would have bumped up the battery by at least another 800mAh, and included a screen that wasn’t sh*t, especially when using it in portrait mode, the A100 could have been a killer tablet in 2011. I even want my mom to sell her current A100, but with her blue leather case on it already etc, she would be too stubborn to upgrade to a Nexus 7.
I like my Acer A100 (that I bought with a 2 year transferable warranty) and use it daily for web, email, video (stored on the microSD card), the works. But your right on the battery life, its 4 hours for me which does include playing videos for some of the time.
And it begins. The biggest impact this will have is that it will spur every Android manufacturer to put out a quad core tablet at $200. That is gold. This is how the tablet market goes mainstream.
http://www.techiecop.com/tablets/google-tablets/google-nexus-7-tablet-review.html
Preordered! I need something for the bus and train. The ipad form factor is horrible and the weight is horrendous for public transport. Nexus 7 has the right size, Google and other/open eco system, and at that price it makes the isheep look like elitists. Sorry guys, watch apple follow Goggle into the mini-tablet market soon.
why would you want apple to follow and take away a huge chunk of the market?
Because Apple is only interested in killing Android in any way it can, seeing as how they haven’t innovated for quite some time.
interested in seeing how this renders comics. My main concern with the music playing is also reflected in the google play UX, it’s just one of those things the company doesn’t seem very good at designing. Maybe just stop focusing on making every single product imaginable and start getting better at the app side? I don’t expect retina quality on a $200 piece of hardware, but I DO expect SD storage at some point. I also have no interest in paying 4 bucks for a digital rental when Redbox is $1.50 and in every 7-11 within a 10 mile radius. Come on.
Very Nicely written review, thanks
Am waiting for it to be launched soon. Google is reliable brand lets see how it competes with tablet giant Apple.
Aakash
(http://t.co/SRHe4yDy)
If you’re disappointed by the size, then the device isn’t what you were looking for in the first place. A 7″ Tablet is another segment of the market entirely.
Ripped off kindle? If android didn’t exist would kindle exist at its current price point. I’ve been a long time apple user, but I’m seriously questioning getting an android phone. I will wait to see what the iphone 5 looks like, but I use google products for everything, and I’m not getting the best experience with apple products when using google apps. I have an IPAD 1 and iphone 4, but I’m anxiously awaiting my pre-ordered nexus7 …my 1st android device.