GOOGLE NEXUS 7
PHYSICAL FEATURES AND NETWORKING
The new Nexus 7 is slimmer, lighter, and more comfortable to hold than the original, which was already more comfortable to hold than Apple's oddly wide iPad mini. This model is 4.5 by 7.9 by 0.34 inches (HWD) and 10.2 ounces, with tampered sides and a soft-touch back that somehow feels classier than the original Nexus 7's faux leather.
There are very few ports here just micro USB, headphone, and microphone and marginally narrower side bezels framing the sharp 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS LCD panel, which is a big advance from the original's 1,280-by-800 screen. At 323ppi, it's almost exactly the same density as the Apple iPhone 5's Retina display and higher than any iPad's. It's bright enough for most circumstances, colors are very true, and viewing angles are good. But the screen is small enough to not totally kill battery life. We got 7 hours 37 minutes of video playback on maximum brightness. That's shorter than the 10 hours commanded by last year's Nexus 7, which sported a less-dense screen, but it's still quite a respectable.
The Nexus 7 comes in three models. The first two are Wi-Fi only, with support for 802.11a/b/g/n on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands(the latter another upgrade from last year). The third unit works on Verizon's LTE network and AT& T's and T-Mobile's LTE and 3G networks.
All of the models have GPS, which makes this tablet a killer in-car navigation system. The GPS on my test model locked in very quickly. The tablet also has Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC, although surprisingly there's no support for Google Wallet.
PERFORMANCE, OS, AND APPS
The Nexus 7 is the first Android tablet, running a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm S4 Pro APQ8064 processor. Think of this tablet as about two-thirds of the way up the current performance ladder, with the Samsung Galaxy S4 phone at the top. It almost doubled the performance of last year's Nvidia Tegra3 - based Nexus 7 on pure processor and graphic banchmarks and positively crushed the iPad mini on the Geekbench system benchmark: The mini scored only 748; this guy 2,643. Using the chrome browser, the Nexus 7 beat the iPad mini on the SunSpider browser benchmark by about 30 percent.
Real-world performance isn't solely dependent on processor speed: How many pixels you'are pushing, the OS, and third-party apps are also important. That's where the Nexus 7 ran into a bit of trouble. Some of test apps either didn't show up in the market or got buggy.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted, for instance, displayed weird graphics artifacts. Netflix's UI was sluggish, although videos played just fine.
Asphalt 7: Heat, one of my standard test games, didn't even show up on a search. Sometimes when searching Google's own Play store, animations would get jittery or the text box would loose focus.
The popular video player MX player quit on launch. I suspect a lot of these problems are Android 4.3 issues that will get solved quickly as the app creators update their work.
MULTIMEDIA: VIEWING AND CAPTURING
With no memory card slot, I suggest buying the 32GB Nexus 7 (with 26GB available) over the $229 16GB unit. The new Nexus 7 adds a 5 megapixel rear camera to the tablet, keeping the 1 megapixel front camera as well.
The new Android 4.3 camera app's UI is extremely simple, although you still get some options like capture size,a countdown timer, a few scene modes, panarama, and Photo Sphere. Photos taken with the main camera were clear enough in good light, although bright areas were washed out and there was some visible color noise. In low light, the noise really ramped up. Front camera images tended to be very soft, even smeary(but not blurry)in low light. The main camera captured 1080p video at 30 frames per second (fps) indoors and out; the front camera captured 720p at 30 fps. There's no image stabilization, but there is a time-lapse mode.
The front camera is fine for video chatting, and the main camera will suffice for augmented-reality apps, bar code scanners, language translators, and all the things you really should be using a tablet camera for (not snapshots).
Asus amped up the stereo speakers here, and they're now quite loud, although they're still tinny. Fraunhofer surround sound gives some real stereo separation material coded for it, such as Google Play movies. Still, the only way you're going to get bass in with headphones.
The Nexus 7 had no problem playing MPEG-4 and H.264 videos in resolution up to 10809, as well as streaming Netflix and Google Play movies.There's no DivX or Xvid support by default.
The Nexus 7 doesn't have any wired way to output video to a TV, but it works with Google's Chromecast to play some streaming(not local) media on TVs.
Small tablets are most often used for some media, some gaming, some Web browsing, and some ebook reading. Provided third-party developers update their apps for Android 4.3 and I think they will, soon - the new Nexus is best because of its sharp screen, comfortable ergonomics, and solid performance at an ideal price.