A recent sale at Dick Smith had the 32GB WiFi Nexus7 (N7) on sale at AU$279. I was hoping to pricematch this (and get the 5% difference discount = $329-$279 * 5% = $2.50 off!) from Officeworks, however the closest store had a problem with their barcoding system so the backroom staff member wasn't able to determine where the stock for the device was located. He also appeared to have a cold so I decided to head to the next closest store and discovered they had already discounted to $279, which meant I couldn't get a pricematch discount, but still saved me a 20minute drive to the nearest Dick Smith.
Pretty soon I had the device unboxed and downloading the latest Android update off my home WiFi. This took around 10 minutes and another few minutes to sync my Google profile to the device.
If you want the full specs for the N7, just google it. My reviews tend to be more subjective so you're getting a feel for my experience with the device, and hopefully some insight from a user that you don't get from a dedicated gadget review site.
In the hand, the soft-touch plastic on the back is extremely comfortable and just feels nice to hold. It's a different experience than the all aluminium unibody of an iPad, although apart from the size, the heft is very much like that of an iPad2 (I wish Apple would just call it that rather than calling each new one "The New iPad" each iteration). Embossed in the soft-touch is the nexus logo and a small ASUS logo. For some reason I like them there and think the back would feel a bit bland without. The tall, skinny dimensions of the device basically forces a 2 hand hold in landscape and a one hand in portrait, and the thickness and weight don't impinge on this.
In portrait, the headphone jack is on the top and well placed to be out of the way when in either orientation. Bottom centre is the microUSB port. There are dual speakers facing backwards on the rear and these can get quite loud, enough to vibrate the device on a hard table surface.
I believe the screen is Gorilla Glass 3 but double-check that on google. It picks up fingerprints quite readily, but you don't really notice any smudges when an image is being displayed (unless very dark such as a scary movie). Images and text are very crisp and has a very high resolution. Even so, I don't notice any lag or tearing when swiping to other screens. The GPU in the N7 is definitely up to the job in 2D apps, but in 3D, I've noticed some lag and stutter when there are a large number of object edges on the screen or lots of shadows/effects. Coming from a Galaxy S2, this is like the polar opposite of that phone where the low resolution and great (at launch) 3D performance meant never hitting a processing ceiling. In terms of touch, for me at least, the accuracy almost seems too fine. On-screen objects that I would touch on my phone don't seem to register on the N7, or would miss by a very small distance. I expect I'll get used to it in time and then curse my phone for being so innacurate (until I get the Nexus 5 :D ).
Leaving the screen on auto-brightness I don't really notice the changes in brightness when moving from room to room at home and honestly, as a WiFi only device you can probably set the brightness to a static value and leave it there. If you get the LTE/4G version, the auto-brightness will be infinitely more useful when outdoors, where the screen is able to go VERY bright when needed. Colours are good but I do notice a shift in both colour and brightness when changing viewing angles.
Overall performance is snappy and apps launch quickly. The back of the device does get hot during gaming, but in casual use you won't notice anything.
Battery life is excellent and I can watch a ton of YouTube content @ 1080p without making much of a dent in the battery. Games drain quicker but you can get a good couple of hours gaming in and still have enough left for the rest of your daily usage such as email, youtube, music playback, and ebook reading. Charge time is really good and a quick stint plugged in will give you enough to be away from power for a good while, although this is only from the wall plug, not over USB.
The Good:
- Value. For the price you get a lot of bang for your buck. ASUS and Google have cut corners to get the price so low but they've done it mostly in all the right places and you generally don't notice. It feels a lot more premium than slightly cheaper no-name brand devices and definitely performs better.
- Ergonomics. The dimension and weight of the device make it easy to hold and portable enough to take anywhere you could take a large phone. I'm able to lie in bed and hold it straight upwards with both hands in landscape at arms length away from my face and still get good visuals and audio without getting too tired.
- Stock Android. As with all Nexus devices you get no 3rd party skin overlay on top of the OS. I've had a ton of fun activating apps and initiating google searches with just my voice. I haven't turned on Google Now just yet as it seemed to deactivate my voice control options but if I get it working I might try using it.
- Display. The display resolution is great and even small text is easy to read.
- Battery life. My battery widget reports about 1 and a half days left of light usage. I think I could probably get about 6 hours of solid gaming before having to recharge.
The Bad:
- Build quality. While overall the device feels solid, it's still a plastic device. You can ever so slightly twist it when holding in landscape with two hands and I wouldn't want to sit on it. The power and volume buttons are also plastic and feel wobbly and insecure to the touch. This is probably the cheapest feeling aspect to the N7. I wish they had done something closer to the nexus 5 and had ceramic buttons.
- Button placement. I also wish they were slighly further apart. I keep hitting the power button when I want to increase the volume.
- Heat dissipation. When it does get hot, you can feel the heat concentrated to the top (headphone side) section. This is slightly worrying as it indicates limited or no heat sinking and the imbalance of temperature make holding the device less comfortable.
- No expandability. As with all Nexus devices, there is no removable battery or memory expansion slot. In saying that, I haven't found this a problem and would still have a lot of space left, even on a 16GB model.
- Speakers are rear-facing. A major dissappointment is the lack of frontfacing speakers like in the HTC One, especially when there is so much real estate for it in those large landscape orientation handholds.
- Camera placement. I would have liked the rear camera slightly more centred than in the corner where it is now. Also the front facing camera needs to be tilted slightly downwards to give the user a more centred appearance during video conferencing. I also hate that you have to longpress and slide to the camera switch option to toggle front/back camera. They already have permanent buttons taking up room on the interface so why not put it there, or at least give the option to put it there.
- Camera quality. I haven't transferred any photos to my PC but looking at photos taken by the rear-facing camera only look good when zoomed in. As soon as I zoom in any amount I start to see artifacting. There doesn't seem to be any compression options for photos in the default camera app.
Overall:
I have to say, since getting the N7, I'm liking it more and more as I use it. I'm finding out little things that make it so much more enjoyable than using my SGS2. As of now, I've moved 90% of my games to the N7 and only kept the ones such as Simpsons Tapped Out on my phone that store data online so I can play from both devices. I've also turned on Forced 4x FSAA for OpenGL 2.0ES apps as I prefer a better image over smoother frame rates in the slow paced games I tend towards.
Another unexpected bonus with the shift to a tablet is that my phone no longer needs charging every night. As most of the media consumption and mobile gaming is handled by the tablet instead of my SGS2, I can get away with going to work with a ~50% charge and make it to bedtime without the phone dying on me.
I haven't even used the NFC or wireless charging aspects of the N7 so I'm keen to get into that also. I really hope someone mounts this in the console of a car and puts a video up on YouTube. It seems like the perfect budget alternative to an in dash iPad. At the current price I would recommend this tablet to anyone who can do with using a device smaller than 10inches. If your phone has portable WiFi hotspot functionality, then you could probably do with the WiFi only version, but if all you want to bring is the tablet itself and you are away from WiFi, the LTE version is an option, but it's more expensive. It may not be worth it given the Nexus 5 just got released.
Score: 9/10
If you read this far and have any questions/comments about anything I may have missed that you think is important, please let me know and I'll try to answer.
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