I haven't been terribly impressed with the Nexus 7, and it certainly hasn't changed my opinion of the 7" form factor. To get an idea of the size of this thing, hold your iPad in portrait orientation and then cover the top 55% of the screen. There's your Nexus. It's tiny.<p>One problem with this 7" form factor is that the portrait orientation isn't wide enough to display most regular web pages without having to zoom in and scroll around; it's just like browsing on your smartphone. I'm also struggling to find any software that wouldn't look and work in exactly the same way on a regular sized smartphone. It makes for a better e-book reader than a regular smartphone, but that's just about it.<p>There are some good things. This device exists almost solely to tie you into Google's on-line services, so if you're a Google user then the integration with their services is slick in a lot of places.<p>But I'm mostly interested in the quality of the software, and unfortunately it isn't that great, at least when compared to iOS. The browser is particularly poor, which surprised me. It's difficult if not impossible to reliably tap on small links. There's no visual indication of what you've tapped, or the indication is delayed, or that indication is completely hidden under your finger. Often you will tap on a link and a magnifier winder will pop up instead; I still haven't figured out how to trigger that. Taps may not register at all, and there's virtually no visual indication that the browser has begun loading a new page. It makes the browser seem fussy and unreliable, and consequently is not a joy to use. As a result, if I need to look something up then I'll grab my iPhone before I grab the Nexus. The browser is also missing some important iframe performance and usability improvements that appeared in iOS 5.<p>It's hard to argue with the price, but if you already own an Android phone then I'm not sure why you'd buy this device. And if you want to see the best of what modern tablet software can offer, you won't find it on a 7" 16:9 screen.
My brother and I imported one each from the UK. After 4 days of use I am very, very happy with the hardware (display, sound, weight), but still have to get used to the software (changes in 4.x seem to confuse me, my phone still doesn't offer it. Sidenote: Never ever buy a phone from LG if you can avoid it).<p>Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?).<p>Even after this short time I'm confident that I'll bring this thing with me wherever I go and it already feels _wrong_ to look at the phone display again.<p>Do yourself a favor though and install Firefox Beta. Give it a shot against Chrome - for me the experience is so much better that I'd wish for a way to uninstall Chrome.
>Q: How do you use the Nexus 7 differently than you used your Xoom?<p>>A: Mostly, I use it more. It’s just small enough that it will fit in my shorts pocket (though admittedly sagging them to dangerously teenage levels), so if I’m walking over to lunch at the sushi bar, I’ll bring it. It’s replaced my Galaxy Nexus as the device I carry around the house or the property for browsing, Twitter and so on. And once I start traveling again, it will be making every trip, not just the long haul ones the Xoom was relegated to by the end. And it will replace my MBA for the short duration visits, an up and back to NYC, let’s say. In short, I think Tim is correct: the 7″ form factor is the correct one for personal use. My personal use, at least. Portablility might be its most compelling feature.<p>The best computer is the one you have with you.
The Nexus 7 is my first table and I'm still sitting on the fence about the whole experience. The version of Chrome is superb and it's a pleasure to surf, but there really are a lack of tablet specific Android apps. Some Android apps are also missing features present in their iOS counterparts. For example, the MLB app is very basic compared to the iOS version. I was hoping the 7 would be useful for reading PDFs, but it's merely passable when there's nothing better around.<p>Android 4.1 is a pleasure to use and is snappy. The hardware is nice, but I had to call for a replacement since my screen started to peel off after about 10 days.
> Twitter has yet to release a tablet specific Android application.<p>Why would you use the official Twitter client on Android when the incomparable Twicca[1][2] is available? I'm not sure how well it works on a tablet but its UI is the best Twitter UI I've seen anywhere. This is especially refreshing given the significant disagreements I have with Twitter's designers on what makes a usable site. It also has quite a large number of official[3] and unofficial[4] plugins, my favorite being the Google+ cross-poster[5].<p>Note: the author's English is charmingly bizarre (it used to say "retweeted by 1 people" and "retweeted by 2 peoples"), so "twicca is lightweight but it is not cheap" means it's not "cheap" on features. It is a free application.<p>[1] <a href="http://twicca.r246.jp/" rel="nofollow">http://twicca.r246.jp/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.r246.twicca&hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.r246.twicca...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Tetsuya+Aoyama" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Tetsuya+Aoya...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/search?q=twicca+plugin&c=apps" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/search?q=twicca+plugin&c=a...</a><p>[5] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.zakky.twicca.plus" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.zakky.twic...</a>
I don't know why he mentions recommending to pure apple households. Surely if every computer (/phone/tablet) in your house is made by apple, you don't really care what anybody says about the competition.
Do people find it's happy with an ad hoc wifi hotspot, e.g. as set up in Ubuntu 12.04. <a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/116409/how-to-turn-your-ubuntu-laptop-into-a-wireless-access-point/" rel="nofollow">http://www.howtogeek.com/116409/how-to-turn-your-ubuntu-lapt...</a><p>It doesn't work for me, the hotspot isn't listed on the Nexus among the many local networks, and without other wifi equipment I'm unsure where the fault may lie; so many possibilities.