So... do you like the Nexus 7...?

It's got a 720p 7 inch IPS display, 8GB of storage, quad-core Tegra 3 processor, up to 8 hours of battery life, it weighs 340g, and it starts at $199. You also get a $25 credit in the Google Play store, AND the movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon. And best of all: it's running Jelly Bean. So you can pop one out whenever you want.

You also get other free content I think, though I don't know what. It could just be a small rodent, or something, you never know.

Nexus 7

It's Apple's best iPad so far.

Nice way of blasting it. But it's still cool and cheap. Maybe in another two years I may want to upgrade to it.

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I love how fanboys actually think that Apple invented the tablet concept and keep referring to every other tablet as a copy of iPad.

http://i.imgur.com/8Q6ix.jpg

Picture 1: didn't work as advertised.
Picture 2: worked better than advertised.
Picture 3: won't work as advertised.

The story goes MUCH further back than that. I remember hearing that the tablet PC would be the next big thing back in the early 90s. It resurfaced every few years from then on, and was always a stupid idea. The reason it seems to be catching on now is that society has sunk to the level where the tablet looks good. Our approach to technology appears to resemble dating in the bar scene: The longer we wait, the lower our standards for what we spend money on.

Is it better than a Nexus 6?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSQdEkcm6zs

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Originally Posted by honeybee

Nice way of blasting it. But it's still cool and cheap. Maybe in another two years I may want to upgrade to it.

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I wasn't blasting it, I actually like it. I'd probably buy one if I didn't already have an iPad. It's definitely the best Android slate available today, in my opinion at least. It's a bargain at $199.

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Originally Posted by baja_yu

I love how fanboys actually think that Apple invented the tablet concept and keep referring to every other tablet as a copy of iPad.

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That wasn't what I was saying. I literally meant to convey that I thought Apple had made the Google Nexus 7 -- an "Apple distortion field" joke.

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Originally Posted by abhijit

http://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2012/07/1.jpg

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1) Low powered hardware, heavy weight OS, poor quality display, low amount of physical storage, runs apps designed for a mouse and keyboard, and has shocking battery life. And don't forget the stylus requirement. No doubt expensive. Is heavy and thick.

2) Hardware capable of running iOS, lightweight OS, great quality display, acceptable amount of flash storage, runs apps designed for touch, has brilliant battery life. Not too expensive. And they're able to do that because the technology was in place, but Apple got to it first and had exclusivity for nearly nine or ten months. Is thin and light.

3) Decent hardware, heavyweight OS though better suited than previous versions, great quality display, acceptable amount of flash storage, runs apps designed for touch and normal x86 apps, is heavy and has okay battery life. Thin. Very expensive. ARM version is similar, though lighter and has better battery life.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

The story goes MUCH further back than that. I remember hearing that the tablet PC would be the next big thing back in the early 90s. It resurfaced every few years from then on, and was always a stupid idea. The reason it seems to be catching on now is that society has sunk to the level where the tablet looks good. Our approach to technology appears to resemble dating in the bar scene: The longer we wait, the lower our standards for what we spend money on.

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I think there was a mockup of a tablet PC in the 60's. The reason it's working now is that the technology to build these kinds of devices is present, whereas in 2002 it wasn't.

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

I think there was a mockup of a tablet PC in the 60's.

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That was the Etch-a-sketch.

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The reason it's working now is that the technology to build these kinds of devices is present, whereas in 2002 it wasn't.

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I disagree. The early tablets were all sold with the idea that you could write on it like you would on paper. Every one of them talked about that like it was a great thing. They all foundered because that was actually a fantastically stupid idea. Nobody who can type has any desire to write, because they can type FAR faster than they can write (and they can read what they wrote, too). What that means is that they were being sold on being used for creation, but that's not what they are good at. These days, tablets are all about consumption. While there are a few apps that allow masochists to create on a tablet, the vast majority of uses for tablets are for consumption exclusively. Content creation on a tablet is minimal, at best, which is why the early tablets missed the mark. Content creation was the point of early PCs, but content consumption has become the predominant use, with few people doing any significant creation.

Ahh, so modern tablets are just so much more pap for the masses... like football, lotteries, etc.

Another way to suck the life out of personal financial resources.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

I disagree. The early tablets were all sold with the idea that you could write on it like you would on paper. Every one of them talked about that like it was a great thing. They all foundered because that was actually a fantastically stupid idea. Nobody who can type has any desire to write, because they can type FAR faster than they can write (and they can read what they wrote, too).

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It's a wonder they don't change the curriculum in school so instead of learning your ABCs you learn your ASCIIs. :D

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Originally Posted by Nightwalker83

It's a wonder they don't change the curriculum in school so instead of learning your ABCs you learn your ASCIIs. :D

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You may be joking, but I think there is an element of truth to that. I think that typing should be taught at a VERY young age. It is probably the single most valuable ancillary skill a person can pick up for the modern world. At one point, typing was taught as a primary skill for secretarial work, but these days, EVERYBODY uses keyboards. While typing isn't a primary skill for most people, it is as valuable as penmanship, if not more so.

Back to Nexus 7. I like what I see and will probably be getting one.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

... At one point, typing was taught as a primary skill for secretarial work, but these days, EVERYBODY uses keyboards.

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I am surprised to see people underestimating this skill just because typewriters have gone out of fashion. They seldom pause to think that they still use QWERTY keyboards.

On a separate note, I can't figure out why the number layout of a calculator is different from a PC keyboard's numpad (or vice versa).

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Originally Posted by baja_yu

Back to Nexus 7. I like what I see and will probably be getting one.

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This ain't fair. You can't come back to the original point before thirty posts. This is Chit Chat!

But yes, at $199, even with the depreciating Rupee, it looks sweet.

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"the number layout of a calculator is different from a PC keyboard's numpad " -- it is not... I even pulled up a calculator jsut to check... top row on both: 789 second row: 456 third row: 123 .... now on a PHONE... the layout is flipped, with 123 on the top, 456 on the second and 789 on the third... which is a little confusing sometimes when I'm trying to use the keypad when dialing on my VoIP system...

-tg

If you take the dialpad of a phone in question, it's 2 to 1, so the numpad is the odd man out.

EDIT: Hah! Good catch tech, I too forgot the layout of a calculator. So a phone is the black sheep here.

well, if you think about it.... calculators were built for bean-counters... which have always been an odd bunch... the numeric key pad is an extension of that, so it makes sense those are the same... the phone on the other hand was built for the common person, which thinks in order, 1,2,3,4,5,6....

-tg

Actually it was probably adapted from rotary dials, where 1 is first.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

That was the Etch-a-sketch.

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Haha no, this was much bigger and black with a thin bezel. Essentially an iPad the size of a newspaper page, but with a smaller bezel.

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I disagree. The early tablets were all sold with the idea that you could write on it like you would on paper. Every one of them talked about that like it was a great thing. They all foundered because that was actually a fantastically stupid idea. Nobody who can type has any desire to write, because they can type FAR faster than they can write (and they can read what they wrote, too). What that means is that they were being sold on being used for creation, but that's not what they are good at. These days, tablets are all about consumption. While there are a few apps that allow masochists to create on a tablet, the vast majority of uses for tablets are for consumption exclusively. Content creation on a tablet is minimal, at best, which is why the early tablets missed the mark. Content creation was the point of early PCs, but content consumption has become the predominant use, with few people doing any significant creation.

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Oh I agree with that, but even if they were sold as such they could still be used for other purposes such as content consumption and light use, but the hardware just wasn't there to support any of it. And the software wasn't either -- it's not practical to use apps designed for a keyboard and mouse on a small touch screen.

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Originally Posted by baja_yu

Back to Nexus 7. I like what I see and will probably be getting one.

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Yep. It's the only Android slate I've ever seen that I'd actually buy in a heart beat. Great display, SoC, weight, battery life, price, it's almost perfect.

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

1) Low powered hardware, heavy weight OS, poor quality display, low amount of physical storage, runs apps designed for a mouse and keyboard, and has shocking battery life. And don't forget the stylus requirement. No doubt expensive. Is heavy and thick.

2) Hardware capable of running iOS, lightweight OS, great quality display, acceptable amount of flash storage, runs apps designed for touch, has brilliant battery life. Not too expensive. And they're able to do that because the technology was in place, but Apple got to it first and had exclusivity for nearly nine or ten months. Is thin and light.

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That's the difference that 8 years of hardware and software innovation makes. The fact remains that the tablet wasn't Apple's idea, much as they might like to claim otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

And the software wasn't either -- it's not practical to use apps designed for a keyboard and mouse on a small touch screen.

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It's worse than that. When I think back on all that has changed since the early 90s (when I was in grad school, so it doesn't seem all that long ago to me), I'm just amazed. Pretty much all that is in our technological vocabulary has arrived in the last decade. All the social media, the fact that no ad exists without www on it somewhere, the very concept of streaming content, and so on.

A person in the 80s watching a movie from the 40s would think that the techology in the movie was a bit quaint, but still quite recognizable. I was just watching a movie from the 70s. The whole plot couldn't work today. If one person wanted to call another, they had to find a payphone that worked, and they couldn't call from the road. That meant that people went silent for long periods of time, and entire plots could develop while a person was driving from one state to another. These days, we expect a MUCH higher level of communication. It's pretty jarring. Somebody who has grown up in the last decade might not be able to quite grasp the plot of a movie just a couple decades old.

That's nothing new. The plot to Jacobs Ladder was as unfathomable 30 years ago as it is now.:rolleyes:

I know what you mean though. The funniest this is looking at old films set in the future and seeing how wide of the mark they were.

I recently saw a SERIOUSLY old film that was remarkably on target. At the moment, the name eludes me, but it came out just after WW I, and speculated quite a long time into the future. It started with a war that dragged on for 20-40 years and largely knocked humanity back to the stone age from which it built up and entered the space age. They missed the whole miniaturization, since they speculated on MASSIVE machines, which made sense for that time, but some of their scenes (and most of the clothing) would have fit pretty well in the 70s.

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Originally Posted by InvisibleDuncan

That's the difference that 8 years of hardware and software innovation makes. The fact remains that the tablet wasn't Apple's idea, much as they might like to claim otherwise.

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They weren't the first to think of it and they weren't the first to make it either, but they were the first to make it the right way. Using ARM processors and mobile software built from the ground up for touch. They re-invented it and made it viable.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

It's worse than that. When I think back on all that has changed since the early 90s (when I was in grad school, so it doesn't seem all that long ago to me), I'm just amazed. Pretty much all that is in our technological vocabulary has arrived in the last decade. All the social media, the fact that no ad exists without www on it somewhere, the very concept of streaming content, and so on.

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Indeed. My folks tell me about when they were in their 20's and 30's and there were no mobile phones, few computers, etc., it's mind blowing. Even looking back at the GPUs available ten years ago... they were shockingly weak. They've improved so much... CPUs, storage, all of it... all in the last decade really like you say.

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A person in the 80s watching a movie from the 40s would think that the techology in the movie was a bit quaint, but still quite recognizable. I was just watching a movie from the 70s. The whole plot couldn't work today. If one person wanted to call another, they had to find a payphone that worked, and they couldn't call from the road. That meant that people went silent for long periods of time, and entire plots could develop while a person was driving from one state to another. These days, we expect a MUCH higher level of communication. It's pretty jarring. Somebody who has grown up in the last decade might not be able to quite grasp the plot of a movie just a couple decades old.

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That's true. It's crazy :p

I forgot my cell phone today on my 27 mile bike commute to work. I realized I had forgotten it about half way to the office (about an hour into the ride), and was temporarily perplexed. Without the cell phone I didn't know more than one or two numbers of ANYBODY. I couldn't even call my office, though I could call the office I used to work out of. Therefore, if I broke down, I realized I would be hard pressed to do anything about it. I could walk to a store and hope that they had a phone book, but since phone books don't print cell numbers, there would be a fair chance that I STILL wouldn't be able to reach any of my friends.

Very strange world we live in.

I saw 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' today on cable. The empty soft drinks bottle dropped into a Bushman pack creates so much trouble. That's the kind of life which actually may be better than the rat race we are living in. People spend so much time on phone and facebook they will soon forget the art of face to face communication.

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Originally Posted by honeybee

I saw 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' today on cable.

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The sequel is pretty good too. Lots of lessons for us all there, and some good laughs along the way. Sexy babe doesn't hurt either.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

The whole plot couldn't work today. If one person wanted to call another, they had to find a payphone that worked, and they couldn't call from the road. That meant that people went silent for long periods of time, and entire plots could develop while a person was driving from one state to another. These days, we expect a MUCH higher level of communication. It's pretty jarring. Somebody who has grown up in the last decade might not be able to quite grasp the plot of a movie just a couple decades old.

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I do quite a bit of travel where there is no cellphone coverage for good stretches of highway or back road and often none at all at my destination. You could use the same plot devices by dealing with location.

What country? Much of the state I live in has no cell coverage, but most of the US is not like that.

A lot of upper and even parts of lower Michigan are still dead spots. Wilderness, government forests, or just too small a population.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

You may be joking, but I think there is an element of truth to that. I think that typing should be taught at a VERY young age. It is probably the single most valuable ancillary skill a person can pick up for the modern world. At one point, typing was taught as a primary skill for secretarial work, but these days, EVERYBODY uses keyboards. While typing isn't a primary skill for most people, it is as valuable as penmanship, if not more so.

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I was actually thinking they should give it a shot.

With Windows 8 spelling the end of conventional computing anyway, maybe all they need to learn are flicks and gestures.

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Originally Posted by dilettante

With Windows 8 spelling the end of conventional Windows computing anyway, maybe all they need to learn are flicks and gestures.

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Fixed :p

I rather suspect that the world will provide a gesture, based on what I have heard about Windows 8.

Oddly, System 8 spelled the demise of the original Apple OS, as well.

At $199, the Nexus 7 is interesting for sure.

However, such low internal storage (without the option to expand it via microSD) will ultimately deter any plans I had on purchasing it.

I realize Google is an internet company (duh!), but they don't seem to understand that there are people out there that don't want to stream everything. Wi-fi is not nearly ubiquitous enough to reasonably assume people will have an internet connection wherever they go.

As such, there should have been a more ample storage option. I can fill up 16gb with my music collection alone. What if I want to take a couple of movies with me? Photos?

Further, there is a Tegra3, which means it should play some pretty sick games. Unfortunately, these games can take up massive amounts of space (1gb+), so now you are restricted there as well.

Looks like I'll be hanging on to my Motorola XOOM (32gb internal + microSD slot) a while longer.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

I rather suspect that the world will provide a gesture, based on what I have heard about Windows 8.

Oddly, System 8 spelled the demise of the original Apple OS, as well.

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I can definitely think of a few gestures that suit Windows 8 lol...

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Originally Posted by Blakk_Majik

At $199, the Nexus 7 is interesting for sure.

However, such low internal storage (without the option to expand it via microSD) will ultimately deter any plans I had on purchasing it.

I realize Google is an internet company (duh!), but they don't seem to understand that there are people out there that don't want to stream everything. Wi-fi is not nearly ubiquitous enough to reasonably assume people will have an internet connection wherever they go.

As such, there should have been a more ample storage option. I can fill up 16gb with my music collection alone. What if I want to take a couple of movies with me? Photos?

Further, there is a Tegra3, which means it should play some pretty sick games. Unfortunately, these games can take up massive amounts of space (1gb+), so now you are restricted there as well.

Looks like I'll be hanging on to my Motorola XOOM (32gb internal + microSD slot) a while longer.

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I think they've done this to restrict it. It seems to be a book reader / web browser to me, with enough room for a movie or two or a few games.

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

I can definitely think of a few gestures that suit Windows 8 lol...

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Yeah, I kind of expect the world to unite in one gesture for that one.

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

I think they've done this to restrict it. It seems to be a book reader / web browser to me, with enough room for a movie or two or a few games.

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Well, the conventional wisdom is that Google is essentially trying to position the Nexus 7 as a Kindle Fire replacement. So, the initial selling point is that it's more powerful and runs pure Android.

The problem with this is the integration with Amazon's content. If Amazon only sold digital music, it'd be easy to switch. However, Books (I realize there is a generic "Kindle" app for Android), Mags, Movies/TV shows, etc. all have DRM, and most of that stuff cannot just be (at least, not easily) transferred to a different device.

The only group this device will appeal to is that group that want an Android tablet and either A.) Don't already have one with more features or B.) Have a Kindle Fire that is only used for web browsing and listening to music.

The market for the Nexus 7 is very small, and it makes me wonder if Google is really doing enough product, market and consumer behavior research before coming out with these devices.

I've got the Nexus 7, and I am in fact typing from one right now.

The device is lovely. Nice and small so that one can easily hold in one hand. Typing is ridiculously easy nine portrait mode, landscape mode however required me to get SwiftKey for tablet app since Google's very own keyboard doesn't split in landscape mode, while SwiftKey does. Reading media on it is pleasant enough as it feels about the same size of a book.

I can understand why people are going nuts over tablets now, as I'm one of those people who turn on the computer to read rss feeds, and as far as I'm concerned, it is a fantastic media consumption device.

Battery life is wonderful. I've managed to get a full day out of the battery with a quarter of the battery life left. The storage space is, admittedly, somewhat limited without a sd card expansion, but it doesn't spoil the Nexus 7 for me. I currently have the 16gb model, so that's perhaps why.

Funnily enough, I haven't seen too many apps that aren't designed for the tablet. The area is feel that needs improvement on the android store is reddit apps, as they either do tablet optimisation horribly (reddit is fun) or not at all (reddit sync). The other apps I've seen that haven't catered for Android tablets is funnily enough the guardian app, which blasted the Nexus 7 and then gave it 4 out of 5 stars (???) and the BBC news/iPlayer apps. Not too fussed as I could probably browse iPlayer on chrome instead.

Speaking of chrome, it looks like the real deal on the tablet. It actually looks like the desktop application, which makes it incredibly familiar to use. It also comes with adobe flash, especially when adobe went on record to ditch flash on android, so that's nice. I will be able to watch nostalgia critic videos and zero punctuation vids!

Videos are nice in hd. The speakers aren't going to shake the house down, but it's loud enough to hear your videos in a noisy room.

Gaming is fantastic on the Nexus 7. It actually made me realise how uncomfortable playing gta3 on my phone was, as half of my hand was covering the phone. With the Nexus 7, the screen is large enough not to be engulfed by my hands, but small enough to be able to hold and enjoy games on.

Reading books is a nice, standard affair. Nothing too amazing, but it does what you expect it to do. Reading comics with the comixology app is a lovely experience, as you can read the page like normal or if you find some text hard to read, and you can pinch and zoom, unlike my phone, which always needs pinch to zoom in order to read anything.

If I had to say one bad thing about the Nexus 7, it would be the lack of 3g can dampen the fun of wanting to carry the Nexus around with you, but I can imagine the Nexus battery life would be dead rather quickly and have a higher price.

For the price, if you are an android fan and haven't got a tablet or want a new one, I cannot recommended this enough. It is just a bundle of joy that I've become obsessed with, constantly stuck to the Nexus 7 like a bad habit. I honestly don't know if some apple fans may like this since there might be something that they are used to on iOS that they might be different or in fact missing from Android, but if you are interested, give it a go whenever you can.

Thanks for the info! It sounds pretty good.

Though I'm afraid flash won't work for long I think, as it's being discontinued for mobile devices.

In Jelly Bean, Adobe Flash is completely unsupported, but somehow it is bundled with Chrome. I'm not really expecting (or hoping) it will last too long. I'd prefer to let the browser do the work now that browsers have come a long way from the times when we needed plugins.

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Originally Posted by kregg

In Jelly Bean, Adobe Flash is completely unsupported, but somehow it is bundled with Chrome. I'm not really expecting (or hoping) it will last too long. I'd prefer to let the browser do the work now that browsers have come a long way from the times when we needed plugins.

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Ah yeah, I see, thanks. How does it feel? Comfortable to hold? Temperature when gaming or in general use?

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

I can definitely think of a few gestures that suit Windows 8 lol...

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Oddly if they do bring out decent tablets running Win 8 (and not astronomically high prices), it would be a good alternative to the notebooks carried by many managers. All desktop apps would work seamlessly, plus I expect there would be some cloud computing to boot, and the whole experience would be much more seamless than today's world of berries and apples one can only see out of the windows. Everything would be within the windows, a truly integrated environment.

My manager could then be running the latest demo of our product on the tablet, my CEO can browse through emails on a single device instead of worrying about sync-ing it between the Exchange folder, his laptop and the mobile, we could write so many productivity apps for the sales and marketing teams without having to worry about the apps running on every conceivable mobile platform. And my IT team wouldn't have to worry about implementing any additional security measures for non-Windows devices.

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

Ah yeah, I see, thanks. How does it feel? Comfortable to hold?

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The device has a certain weight to it that doesn't feel too heavy; you can hold it, but it's not lighter than air. The back feels like a smooth golf ball, so it's really comfortable to hold. The bezels on the side are skinnier than at the bottom, but that's because if you hold it in landscape, your palm can fit snuggly on the device within the bezel comfortably. The back edges is tapered off, unlike the Kindle Fire, which is just this rectangular block, so it feels a bit thinner than it really is.

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

Temperature when gaming or in general use?

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My personal experience is that it never gets more hotter than slightly toasty, and I've played:

• Grand Theft Auto 3
• Shadowgun (the one I paid for hasn't got Tegra 3, and to be quite frank, I really cannot be bothered to fork out money for the same game but fancier water and physics)
• Minecraft
• Modern Combat 3 (utter rubbish, knock-off COD clone for mobiles)

I've got other games like World of Goo, Max Payne, EDGE, and Canabalt HD which I briefly tried, and it's a comfortable experience where you can actually use the touch screen controls nicely, and the screen size is big enough where your hands don't engulf the entire screen. It's actually quite a pleasant experience from the Galaxy Nexus where the screen was huge, but not quite huge enough for playing games or watching TV/Films/Youtube etc.

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Originally Posted by honeybee

Oddly if they do bring out decent tablets running Win 8 (and not astronomically high prices), it would be a good alternative to the notebooks carried by many managers. All desktop apps would work seamlessly, plus I expect there would be some cloud computing to boot, and the whole experience would be much more seamless than today's world of berries and apples one can only see out of the windows. Everything would be within the windows, a truly integrated environment.

My manager could then be running the latest demo of our product on the tablet, my CEO can browse through emails on a single device instead of worrying about sync-ing it between the Exchange folder, his laptop and the mobile, we could write so many productivity apps for the sales and marketing teams without having to worry about the apps running on every conceivable mobile platform. And my IT team wouldn't have to worry about implementing any additional security measures for non-Windows devices.
.

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That's true, but the problem is these tablets will always be expensive, and heavy, and have much worse battery life than an ARM based tablet. It's the nature of what they are. On top of that it can be difficult to use apps designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse on a ~21 inch display, with only a touch screen and a 10 inch display.

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Originally Posted by kregg

The device has a certain weight to it that doesn't feel too heavy; you can hold it, but it's not lighter than air. The back feels like a smooth golf ball, so it's really comfortable to hold. The bezels on the side are skinnier than at the bottom, but that's because if you hold it in landscape, your palm can fit snuggly on the device within the bezel comfortably. The back edges is tapered off, unlike the Kindle Fire, which is just this rectangular block, so it feels a bit thinner than it really is.

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Ah that sounds pretty good...!

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My personal experience is that it never gets more hotter than slightly toasty, and I've played:

• Grand Theft Auto 3
• Shadowgun (the one I paid for hasn't got Tegra 3, and to be quite frank, I really cannot be bothered to fork out money for the same game but fancier water and physics)
• Minecraft
• Modern Combat 3 (utter rubbish, knock-off COD clone for mobiles)

I've got other games like World of Goo, Max Payne, EDGE, and Canabalt HD which I briefly tried, and it's a comfortable experience where you can actually use the touch screen controls nicely, and the screen size is big enough where your hands don't engulf the entire screen. It's actually quite a pleasant experience from the Galaxy Nexus where the screen was huge, but not quite huge enough for playing games or watching TV/Films/Youtube etc.

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Yeah that sounds fine. Thanks for the info!

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Originally Posted by Icyculyr

That's true, but the problem is these tablets will always be expensive, and heavy, and have much worse battery life than an ARM based tablet. It's the nature of what they are. On top of that it can be difficult to use apps designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse on a ~21 inch display, with only a touch screen and a 10 inch display.

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Today, there aren't many laptops with a battery life of more than four hours. So the tablets don't necessarily have to have a great battery life. Plus in case of the scenario I talked about you are most likely to find some way of charging it somewhere.

As for the keyboard, I can always use a portable keyboard plugged into the USB or through bluetooth if I can't make it work with the onscreen one. Most likely the tablets will also work with the standard USB keyboards you find for a couple of dollars here.

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Originally Posted by honeybee

Today, there aren't many laptops with a battery life of more than four hours. So the tablets don't necessarily have to have a great battery life. Plus in case of the scenario I talked about you are most likely to find some way of charging it somewhere.

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That's true, but it could yield even less battery life than that. Perhaps even as little as two hours.

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As for the keyboard, I can always use a portable keyboard plugged into the USB or through bluetooth if I can't make it work with the onscreen one. Most likely the tablets will also work with the standard USB keyboards you find for a couple of dollars here.
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That's true. If you connect a keyboard and a mouse then you'll be fine, but that stuff also makes it less portable if you've got to take them with you. A better solution than using a touch screen though.

I just ordered a Nexus 7. It should be here in a few weeks.

With solid state drives in the tablets, you can get near-instantaneous startup/shutdown times. Heck, you could probably just switch it off by powering it off and then when you power it back up, everything is restored instantly. It might take some time to get this right, but that would be one feature I am willing to pay for.

I must have said this earlier too, a Windows 8 tablet with a fast processor, enough RAM, ability to output to a projector/screen/HDMI display, ability to connect an external keyboard through USB and a built in SIM slot for 3G would be a deadly combination - if priced right. The tablet will be able to do just about everything required, and the extra connectivity options are to enhance the productivity without limiting the user. That's something I am almost willing to pay for.

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Mine arrived a few days ago. And, it's fantastic. I have an iPad 2 as well, and to be honest, even if they cost the same I'd still go with the Nexus 7. It's very light, the screen size is just enough for all my needs and the wide form factor is much easier to use and handle than the boxier iPad. I do have bigger hands and I can type easily while holding it with both hands, though I think someone with smaller hands wont be able to. The screen is not as crisp as the retina iPad, but it's very good otherwise. The speaker isn't as good as the one on iPad and you sometimes hear distortion when it's at the loudest setting.

Software wise it's brilliant. The Jelly Bean Android is marvelous, iOS-smooth, lightning fast, with the new notification center, resizable widgets, Google Now predictable search etc. Voice commands and typing are fenomenal, very few mistakes, and it's lightning fast. Even works offline unlike Siri. Sometimes I have a feeling it types the word before I finish saying it. It has NFC, Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi, but no 3G. Some may find this to be a problem, but I wouldn't buy the 3G model anyway, same as my iPad. I have a unlimited data plan on my cellphone which runs Android and I just fire up the Wireless Hotspot app when I need to connect something else, so I'm not paying for two or more plans either.
Battery life is great. I've been using it extremely heavily, as it's a new toy, and I've yet to manage to drain the battery in a day. So with regular use it will be even better. Because of it's weight and form factor it's great for reading, but still a backlit screen so can't compete with the Kindle there, except if you read color books/magazines or PDFs. The number of available accessories is rather poor compared to Apple, but maybe it will catch up later.

On the app side, the Google+ app is fantastic, too bad I, and few others, will use it. Shame that FB can't make a decent mobile app. Google Play Music is great as well, but it has a serious issue as of now. Even though my music files are immaculately ID3 tagged, for some reason it groups songs into albums just by album name, disregarding the artist. So I have three artists crammed into one Greatest Hits album. This isn't an issue when using Winamp app, but it's not as good as Play Music.

Regarding memory, I don't plan to lug a lot of files on it so I got the 8GB model. A note on that, it's shared by the OS. So out of the box you're left with 6GB of usable space. For some this will definitely not be enough. Oh, and a small issue, if I put the screen on automatic brightness, it's a bit darker than I'd like so I keep it set manually. An option to set the sensitivity of the sensor would be nice. Oh, and the camera is a bit crappy. I like the idea of just having the front camera, but still it could have been better.

Overall 4.5/5

Short and sweet! Nice review there.

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