OK, so I caved! I bought a Nexus Seven! It was my duty as a blogger. :-)Basically you can just read what the major reviewers say: it's great. One of the best 7-inch Android tablets you'll find, and one of the cheapest too. Kudos.
A major downside is the smallish and non-expandable storage. (And less content and apps than on iPad.) But otherwise it's mostly upsides: the battery life and speed are top-notch. And amazingly, the screen is actually as good as the iPad 3's, except half the size. Same sharpness and color fidelity.
I've been trying it out as ereader, and chosen difficult subjects, meaning Zinio magazines and full-layout scanned art books where you have to zoom in on the text to read it. (See my article.) And yes, it can be used even for this, at least if you have good eyes or good reading glasses.
The Kindle application is good, it seems to me. Very similar to the iPad's Kindle app. Though both of them suffer from the odd weaknesses of only one font, and too large leaps between text sizes. (I don't get these choices, surely it can't be because these things are hard to program in, for years small-developer apps have had lots of fonts and much finer size separation.)
In short, I'm reminded of an old joke from the early days of the mini-car, 30 years ago: "Oh yes, my new mini car is great. I get great mileage, it's easy to find parking, the taxes are less... In fact, the only downside I can think of is actually that it's so small!"
----
Here's a review with some useful viewpoints, including some very varied experiences in the comments. For example this created some heated debate:
When compared to iOS, Android sucks. It is much harder to use and not at all intuitive. I have more than one non-techie friend who have absolutely no problem using their iPads and they simply cannot figure out how to use their new Nexus. Very few people call me for iPad advice, but they do call for Android advice.
I am not sure myself what to think of Android. I can figure out most things, but it does not seem as fun or inviting as iOS. Though the latter still has some grave weaknesses, for example it can be very tricky to select text.
Here is an interesting comparison-style review (video) from GeekBeat.tv. I like geekbeat.tv, they are usually entertaining, though their usually short formats prevent all that much crossing. But they find a lot of interesting things.
3 comments:
Hey there, Eo...was just reading this review of several tablets and...gotta say:
1) I'm scratching my head re: Microsoft's LATE attempts at putting something out there; much less trying to introduce Windoze 8 AND an RT OS! I wanted to learn more about it, after reading about it, in this review, so, therefore, I moved on to this review. It's a little long-winded to get to the bottom line and even more surprising to hear other reviewers' take on this tablet, thus far. I, really, don't understand what Microsoft is doing...other than...crumbling, in this arena?! :-/
Back to the written review of the various tablets, I was both surprised and disappointed by what I learned:
1) ASUS seems to have gotten Microsoft's RT "noose" thrown on it, rather than going the Android route. MAJORLY DISAPPOINTING for a company that I have, often, been quite impressed w/their ingenuity and forward-thinking designs in both the laptop and, now, the tablet arenas.
2) something that I found quite interesting and wondered if you were aware of, since I know that you enjoy the full Retina Resolution experience: the Nexus 10 "...is Google's first full-size tablet and the only tablet from any manufacturer that beats the screen resolution of the iPad. It boasts 2,560 by 1,600 pixels, a third more than the fourth-generation iPad." WOW!! Did you know this?!
Lastly, what, originally, lead me to the vid review, about this particular gadget (The Microsoft Surface), in the first place, was the "functional keyboard printed on the inside." Sadly, it sounds like it's attached to a "lemon." :-(
I think higher res than a REtina display should be redundant, since Apple defines a Retina display as "higher than the eye's retina can resolve".
And like I said, to me the iPad Mini looks very sharp, even though it has much less than Retina resolution.
--
David Pogue wrote to me re MS: "the biggest weakness if inability to let go of old ideas" or words to that effect.
And like I said,
Yup...you did! :-)
--
David Pogue wrote to me re MS: "the biggest weakness if inability to let go of old ideas" or words to that effect.
I think we need to come up w/a new name for 'em 'cuz they missed the boat on this one, methinks! Missed Sales! I dunno...doesn't have much to a ring to it but...something like that.
Post a Comment