Wednesday, August 01
Nexus 7
So I picked up my Nexus 7 from where it's been sitting at my office.
(Windows goes for consistency at a given size over accurately representing the font weight, so you don't get that effect. Instead, if you scale up a font on Windows, at some point it will pop all at once to what looks like a heavier weight, so that it goes regular, regular, regular, demibold.)
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So I picked up my Nexus 7 from where it's been sitting at my office.
In short: It's good. Doesn't feel like a cheap device at all; it's fast, responsive, solidly constructed, and the screen is very sharp and clear. Colours are a little muted; they certainly don't pop the way they do on my notebook (which is great in that respect, but is just a TFT, not IPS like the Nexus).
It came with $25 credit on Google's Play store, which allowed me to pick up the latest Laundry novel by Charlie Stross, Angry Birds Space HD, Wolfram Alpha (worst interface ever) and a bunch of 99¢ quicky second-string JRPG ports.
The Google Reader app is very nice, but shows that "retina" resolution (the Nexus 7 is about the same resolution as the new Macbook and just short of the iPad-without-a-name) is not good enough. I can't speak for other versions of Android or other devices, but Jelly Bean on the Nexus 7 doesn't use heavy font hinting or anti-aliasing, relying on raw DPI, and you can see the effects in the varying weights of the verticals of different characters as you adjust the font size.
I'd like to see at least 1920x1200 at 7", and 2560x1600 at 10". But it is possible even for a fussbudget like me to find a font size that is small enough to display a sensible page but still clear and highly readable.
Problem is, Google Reader can only read books bought from the Google Play store, and their selection is pathetic compared to Amazon. I have about 40 books in Kindle format, most of them from Baen Books so they're DRM-free (and available in alternate formats), but Google Reader doesn't want to know.
The Kindle App is free of course, and it works, but it won't scale the font size nearly as small as I'd like. I'll have to look at other e-reader apps.
Other than that... Battery life seems fine; it just takes forever to charge the first time. Networking was a little fiddly to set up because my router doesn't route, but you can enter a static IP and default gateway, and once I did that it worked just fine.
All in all, well worth the money even just as an e-reader, and capable of a lot more. Tomorrow (later today, anyway) I'm going to install Python. Suck it, iOS!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
04:49 AM
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1
The name "Nexus 7" has always bothered me a bit. In Blade Runner, the escaped replicants being hunted down were part of "Nexus 6".
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, August 01 2012 06:21 AM (+rSRq)
2
I suspect that was intentional.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Friday, August 03 2012 04:04 PM (bqvkh)
3
Pixy, I hate do this, but I have a troll I need banned from commenting on The Pond. Can this be accomplished?
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, August 05 2012 10:34 AM (DuJ3r)
4
If it's a registered user you can ban them in your the control panel.
If it's not a registered user, I can block their IP.
If it's not a registered user, I can block their IP.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, August 05 2012 07:38 PM (PiXy!)
5
It's not a registered user, I'm afraid... the name is "nobody", his remaining comment is on page three of the comments.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, August 05 2012 11:59 PM (DuJ3r)
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