Google Nexus 7 Review

I think other folks have used the gag about needing three hands to work it, so I won’t

Warren told me that I’d get a Google Nexus 7. I protested. ‘There is no way I need one of those’ I said. But the one Adam had bought looked very nice. And the price is pretty amazing. And I was going to get number one wife a Kindle Touch for her birthday. And the Nexus will do a lot more than just read books. So there you are. We ended up with one each, mainly because I hate the idea of number one wife having better gadgets than me. And I have just been paid.

The device is very nice. Works a treat. Binds tightly to your Google account. Has this Google Now thing that is supposed to tell you all kinds of important stuff about your life. At the moment it is just telling me that it is 18 degrees in Cottingham, which is about right.

You get 15 pounds of credit in the Google Play store with the device. I’ve spent 70 pence on Real Racing, which is on offer at the moment. It runs very well and really shows off the power of the device. I also wanted to download BBC iPlayer (one of the best reasons for owning a device like this) but at the moment it doesn’t work, which is pretty terrible. I think this is because the Nexus is “Flash Free” and iPlayer needs that. Whatever it is, it needs to be sorted out soon. There are some other irritations in applications, some of them assume they are headed for a phone screen, and look wrong. Also, for some reason the default setting of the device is to lock in portrait mode, which is a bit of a pain. Number one wife was upset to find that you can’t get Scrabble for it if you are outside the USA, which is unfortunate.

You can rent (but I can see how to buy) movies on the device. You do get a free copy of the latest Transformers movie though. And a Jeffry Archer book. I’m looking forward to loading up the 16G of internal memory with some music and videos of my own. Battery life seems OK, I’ve not run it flat yet but 7 hours seems a reasonable amount. It has WiFi and Bluetooth, but not mobile data. For me this isn’t a problem, as I can us the Lumia as a hotspot if I need to. The 7 inch screen is bright and clear and the software is responsive, even if the UI seems a bit more complex than it needs to be – but then again I am used to Windows Phone on touch devices. There is no video out facility, but given the fairly limited internal space on the device I don’t think you ‘d be using it as a video library really.

All in all, you’d be bonkers to spend any more than the price of a Nexus on a tablet of this kind. The hardware is excellent and there’s no way they can be making much, if any, profit on it. This does of course mean that you are meant to be part of the product, and so you can expect all your actions on the device to be comprehensively mined for selling opportunities. Having said that, you can just use it and it will deliver a very good, and eminently portable tablet experience.