Jelly Bean ingredients
The only buttons on the shell are for power plus a volume rocker. A 25W strip speaker is built the bottom of the back shell that provides enough volume to be really annoying on public transport – although there's also a headphone jack in the bottom right corner of the tablet.
A minimalist approach to hardware controls
In an unofficial drop test performed by my cat jumping on the table, the Nexus survived 32cm fall onto a wooden floor. It suffered little damage beyond the casing popping open slightly on one corner, which clicked back together easily. The front of the device is equipped with Corning scratch-resistant glass and it's good at not picking up smudging.
The Nexus 7 is going to be the only tablet running Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean, in the near future, which is both a blessing as a curse. The new operating system is noticeably quicker than its predecessors, with much smoother graphics and less jerkiness. Yet it's also dependent on Google finding enough developers to tweak apps for the new build, at a time when most Android devices haven't even made it to the Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 build. Incidentally, Jelly Bean wouldn't allow AnTuTu to instal, reporting that it was incompatible, so no benchmarks here, alas.
Portrait-only for the home screen
Curiously, Google has made the Nexus home screen portrait mode only, with the landscape setting reserved for applications. There are seven application start buttons along the base of the screen, along with the three navigation buttons for the back function, go to homepage and view currently running apps.
The notifications bar – traditionally a strength with Android – has been beefed up further, so that it looks more like a social networking news feed. Tapping results can open menus within the notification, add in news sources and offer some sample replies to messages. There's the usual mapping and navigation function, with free downloadable street and transport maps.
Next page: Sweet talk
COMMENTS
Re: 3G
Why would anybody want an additional 3G card to pay for when they can tether it through their mobile and use it's data allowance? (Unless it's because they have to pay £20/month for that anyway as an iPhone owner.)
Not bothered about SD myself
Personally I just want something on which to surf the web while sat on the couch - I have absolutely no need or desire to watch films or listen to music on a tablet. My fire-sale Touchpad (which I'll be glad to get rid of for a Nexus 7) has 32GB of storage and all of it remains empty to this day.
Obviously there are people that will see the lack of SD as a deal breaker, but I also think there are a lot more people with a use case closer to my own who will think the 8GB of the base model is perfectly adequate and more than enough storage.
Who cares about the SD slot, can I have a car craddle please
7 inch is exactly 2DIN on a car.
If someone starts printing out simple "amplifier only" units that take this as a screen + controls were are going to see some very interesting jitters in the last place where the AV industry continues to charge insane amounts of money for an abysmal 10+ year old near-obsolete set of features.
problems with the word "virgin," which was a pain when trying to book a flight
Yeah, of course that's what you were doing.
Re: SD slot
It's not the lack of SD that concerns me on this product, it is the general move away from local storage on both Nexus devices and high end options such as HTC One X. Maybe this makes "Sense" (sorry) in the States where Google music is free, large data allowances come with contracts and 4G is rolling out, but where I am in Scotland with patchy 3g at best and a move to smaller / more expensive data then it does not do. Not for me anyway.
People always suggest that no-one forces you to buy a product and to vote with you wallet. That is why I will not buy this device. Even though I want it so bad.
