Fred Wilson: My New Nexus 7"

I can't understand how anyone would prefer reading a backlit screen. I find e-ink so much easier on the eyes, especially after a day of staring at screens. I hope e-ink doesn't die out.

I've been reading as many Nexus 7 reviews as I can in a vain effort to sedate my excitement for its arrival later this month. I know this is going to sound ungrateful, but this review seems a bit thin.<p>The idea of using the Nexus 7 as an ereader seems kind of silly to me - surely if you're into ebooks (like I am) then you'd be better off with an actual Kindle. Staring at a backlit screen like that for hours on end can't be good for your eyes.<p>And I still haven't seen anybody take photos or video conference with it yet, so I have no idea how good that 1.2mp camera is.

I find it really annoying how so many people are now praising 7" as the ideal tablet size when Google puts one out, but when RIM did it a year and a half ago, everyone said it was too small. Us playbook owners have been saying this for over a year, but people are too caught up in the destroy RIM bandwagon to be open minded.

I'm blown away by how good technical books look on Google Play Books on the Nexus 7 (and maybe all tablets?). I normally use a 2nd generation Kindle and can never read tech books on there because of the code wrapping lines and the monochrome text. But the difference between a tech book on the Kindle app and the Google Play Books app (both on the Nexus 7) is night and day. I highly recommend at least getting a sample of a book and trying it.<p>You can also zoom out far more than you can on Kindle, which probably helps it look so great.

I wrote a review too, if anyone's interested: <a href="http://michaelevans.org/blog/2012/07/03/nexus-7-review/" rel="nofollow">http://michaelevans.org/blog/2012/07/03/nexus-7-review/</a>

It is not a forgone conclusion that Apple will release a 7" iPad.

The 7" size sounds great. I basically want something that I can use almost exactly like how I use my smartphone around the house (ie browsing the internet while lounging in bed or on the couch) but with a supersized screen. The 10" form factor fails that test for me, getting fairly awkward if I'm reclined at all. The fact that Google have gone out of their way to make it a usable GPS as well (with downloadable maps and functional voice commands even without an internet connection) is a nice bonus.

I brought my Galaxy Nexus and Kindle Fire to Asia last month after my Galaxy Tab 10.1 died on me the day of the trip. Within 2 days into the trip in Hong Kong, the Nexus stopped charging itself, leaving me with only the Kindle Fire for the remainder of the trip. Although it was a mediocre email machine due to typical android lag in typing, it survived the trip, and let me read web pages reliably.<p>Ironically, the Galaxy Nexus magically resurrected itself once plugged into a US outlet. Go figure...<p>I noticed that the Samsung Note with its 5.3" screen is really popular in Hong Kong and Vietnam. This makes me think the 7" pad is going to be a real market segment - It's big enough to play games and type email/text yet small enough to stuff in a coat pocket, which is exactly what I saw going on with the Samsung Note. And wherever I took out the Kindle Fire, people were very curious about it.

I noticed the Nexus 7 home screen uses a "smartphone style" layout, with the favorites tray at the bottom of the screen, the All Apps button located in the center of the tray, and the Back/Home/Multitask soft buttons centered.<p>As far as I remember, previous Android tablets after Honeycomb used a dedicated "tablet style" layout, with no favorites tray, the All Apps button located in the top right of the screen, and the soft keys left-aligned.<p>Why isn't the Nexus 7 using this? Is it because the 7-inch screen was deemed too small for the tablet style layout? Or has the tablet style layout been deprecated entirely from Jelly Bean?

I would love to use the Nexus 7 as a <i>home phone</i>. Of course, I would have the right headset / earplug to go with it.

I disagree. The way I see it the 7" form factor is big enough to be a pain in the ass to carry yet small enough to be useless for most tablet stuff I'd actually want to do anyway.<p>In my opinion, a mobile device should have a keyboard big enough for me to type using ten fingers, or it should fit in my pocket. Using something in between baffles me.

Man, these kind of reviews only make me want the Nexus 7 more. Are there any dates released on when it's coming to Europe?

Just ordered one.<p>It looks great, and at $200, you can now regard the iPad as a different class of device.<p>Really looking forward to getting mine, and hopefully looking forward to developing a few apps for it.

The Kindle app screenshot shows a huge margin on the sides of the text. Readability feature to make the lines shorter or what is the purpose of that? Is that configurable?

The one thing that really annoys me is that in the UK there's a 40 GBP difference between the 8GB and 16GB version. I'd rather pay extra for an SD card slot when I can get a 32GB class 10 SD card for around half that.

I'm torn between getting a Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. I have a lot of Kindle books, but also a lot of video content purchased through Amazon as well. I feel that the Nexus 7 is a better device as it's not locked down to Amazon's eco system, but the lack of a Amazon video player for Android (without having to sideload the apk that is) leaves me in a weird predicament.<p>My wife has a Kindle Fire, I love the form factor -- my iPad 1 is getting long in the tooth and isn't as "portable" as the KF -- but I'm still bothered by the lock-in of the device.

"If you look at the bottom of the home screen you'll see a yellow icon next to the Chrome browser".<p>Yeah, that and also Fred Wilson's foot.

How is the size for reading PDFs?

"It is lighter and more comfortable being held in one hand."<p>More comfortable, perhaps, but lighter? The Nexus 7 is 340 grams [1] versus 652 grams on the new iPad [2].<p>It might feel lighter, but it is all in your head.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.google.com/nexus/#/7/specs" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/nexus/#/7/specs</a> [2]: <a href="http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/</a>