iPad-junkies Mike and Dan both purchased 8GB Nexus 7s. Mike took one for the team. He put away his iPad and is in the midst of a week-long Nexus Challenge. In other words, he is going full in with the Nexus 7 for a few more days. Dan also got a Nexus 7 so the two jumped on video to talk about the tablet, Mike’s challenge and how two devoted iPad-users are finding the newest Android tablet.
As mentioned, this was the third attempt to get our first video-podcast put together, and as such there were a few things that we had discussed in the other attempts that didn’t make it into the final version.
Build Quality
In the first couple of days after people began receiving their Nexus 7s there were a flood of complaints about the sloppy build quality. Loads of devices with non-functional or blown speakers, tons of dead pixel complaints, light leakage, glass lifting, poor fit & finish and so on. It is more than an isolated occurence, so it is something to carefully study should you buy one.
Personally, neither of us had an issue – and I had been looking. Since I have now lived night and day with the Nexus 7 for several days, I DO find the glass fit could have been better as the gap varies around the perimeter of the device. But everything else has been functioning perfectly.
Touch Precision
One comment on my gaming post for the Nexus noted that the different scaling likely messed with hit-targets from the original build. It is an instance where the developer tried to proactively address fragmented hardware, but didn’t anticipate higher resolutions at smaller screen sizes.
In the video Dan remarked that the Nexus has a better touch-screen resposiveness and feel than ANY Android device he has ever touched. I wholeheartedly agree. Whether it is the multi-core processor really helping divide the UI and core processing as has been noted in the past, ‘Project Butter’, advances in the Android OS for Jelly Bean or whatever … this IS the best Android touchscreen response yet.
Aspect Ratio
This is a subjective topic, but I noted a long time ago that I got to play for a long while with the original Motorola Xoom when it released. I had been ready to buy, but the aspect ration made me eventually realize that it was too skinny in portrait mode and that landscape was only useful for watching movies.
As I type this I have the charging cable plugged into my Nexus, so it is in landscape mode and I only get to see a few lines in WordPress. Switching to Portrait I see more lines … but about the same amount of content. I remain convinced that for anything other than content consumption 16:9 is just plain wrong. And since I need to do more productivity tasks on a tablet, that is a big negative for me.
Let us know what you think about the Nexus, and about our video!