The ravens are looking a bit sluggish. Tell Malcolm they need new batteries.

Monday, September 09

Geek

Nexus 7A

I've had the original Nexus 7 since shortly after it came out, and I use it constantly.  Mostly for reading, but it's very handy for quick internet browsing and email checking, and of course I'm addicted to Kairosoft games.

So I got the new model as soon as I could - or slightly sooner, since technically it hasn't launched in Australia yet.  I had the 16GB original, which was the largest available at launch; this time I went for the 32GB LTE version.

If you want all the techy goodies, you can't go past Anandtech: They posted a six-page mini-review and followed up with a six-page full review.

The quick version, though, is that Asus and Google have taken a great little tablet and made it better in every way.  It's thinner and lighter, faster (noticeably so), and the screen is brighter, sharper, and more vibrant.  The old model had a good screen, but the colours were a little dark; the new model fixes that.  

It has twice as much memory as well, which may or may not be an issue depending on how many apps you tend to leave open.  They've added a 5 megapixel rear camera, which is a good thing on the basis of "the best camera is the one you have with you", even if it's not all that great a camera.  And it's prettier.  At least I think so.

They haven't fixed all the problems.  Android still grinds horribly when downloading and installing apps - and right now it's downloading and installing over 300 apps, which is a lot of grinding.*  For extra fun, try downloading your Kindle books while your apps are installing.  (You have to download your Kindle books one at a time, but that particular idiocy isn't Google's fault.)  

The Youtube app is still hopelessly screwed up - and if you disable it and use the mobile site instead, it refuses to play videos in anything but the lowest available resolution.**  And the Nexus 7's screen still seems be limited to 18-bit colour - there are steps in colour gradients on both Nexus 7 models which are entirely absent on my Nexus 10, though the new model does seem to be better in some cases than the old.

And, of course, Google continue to be complete dicks on the subject of expandable storage.  No microSD for you!  You might get confused!

Still in all, while it's not perfect, it's damn good.  Recommended.

Oh, almost forgot - the new model has stereo speakers.  Still sounds lousy - as you'd expect from such a small device - but now it sounds lousy in stereo.

* In about two hours it's installed 212 apps and an OS update, which isn't bad.

** Embedded Youtube videos play just fine, it's just the app and the mobile site that are useless. Well, the controls of the embedded player are pretty crap, but it works.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:11 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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