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Nexus 7 Review: No More Manbags

It has been two weeks since I took delivery of my Nexus 7 tablet, so I now give you my review of the device.
My Nexus 7 with my Galaxy Nexus
Before I start, here's the background that influences my subjective view of Google's Jelly Bean running 7" tablet: I'm an Android fanboy and have been since 2007. I love tinkering with Android devices, much in the same way as I do with Linux on laptops, netbooks, nettops and desktops. My main device is a Galaxy Nexus, which has a pure Google Android experience, and no custom ROM. Since October last year I have also been using an Android tablet, an Archos 80 G9. While not as shiny as other tablets at the time, price and specifications were the main reason I chose the 80 G9. Very few customisations by Archos on Honeycomb meant that the 80 G9 had as close to a pure Android experience as possible, and that also made it fast for Archos to push the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) update.


While a hardcore Android/Linux nerd, I'm also a bit of a closet Windows Phone user. I enjoy Metro UI and like the service tie ins with Xbox Live. The Nokia Lumia 710 I'm using is a good piece of hardware, and just like my Android devices has replaceable batteries (unlike the Lumia 800). Windows Phone is different from Android, and I can see how it is less suited to the tinkerer than any Android phone, but is a very pleasant smartphone experience. I have to admit, at the moment I'm a bit of a BiOS smartphone user. (Just to make it clear, I don't partake in any of the Apple iOS tomfoolery, that's just not to my liking.)

So, back to the Nexus 7 review. After Google IO (end of June), I placed a pre-order for the Nexus 7 (the 16GB model priced at £199 in the UK) on the ebuyer.com website. At the time I had to choose between the direct Google channel and third party retailers. I ended up choosing ebuyer.com, because of their excellent service in the past. ebuyer.com was also a reasonable choice because they have had a good relationship with ASUS for years (ASUS is the company that manufactures the Nexus 7). As a result, on the morning of Friday 13th 2012, I had a knock on the door from Parcelforce and came into posession of a Google Nexus 7 tablet. (It was a lucky date for me!)

For those of you just wanting to get the specifications and then jump to the conclusion, here are the specs:

SCREEN
7” 1280x800 HD display (216 ppi)
Back-lit IPS display
Scratch-resistant Corning glass
1.2MP front-facing camera

SIZE
198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm
WEIGHT
340g
WIRELESS
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
MEMORY
8 GB internal storage (actual formatted capacity will be less)
1 GB RAM
USB
Micro USB
BATTERY
4325 mAh (Up to 8 hours of active use)
OS
Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
CPU
Quad-core Tegra 3 processor
FEATURES
Microphone
NFC (Android Beam)
Accelerometer
GPS
Magnetometer
Gyroscope


The Nexus 7 is a 7" Nexus tablet running Jelly Bean (Android 4.1). A Nexus device is made by a third party manufacturer (in this case ASUS) for Google, who have close input on device design and specifications. Google use Nexus devices to showcase/ship the latest version of Android and also jolt the rest of the market into upping their game.
My Archos 80 G9 next to my Nexus 7
The 7" form factor may seem strange to those who are used to larger tablets but after using it for a while I understood that it made more sense. The Nexus 7 is well built and feels solid to hold, and the rubbery back makes it feel less likely to slip out of your hand than other similar devices. I love the fact that it fits perfectly in a jacket pocket, eliminating the need for a man bag for me. The Archos 80 G9 has an 8" 4:3 screen, so won't fit into the same pocket. Another advantage of the 7" form factor is that when typing holding the Nexus 7 in portrait orientation, two thumb typing is pleasantly simple.
No more man bag for me
The screen is an LCD IPS backlit one, this means that it has in plane switching technology, which gives you great viewing angles. Colours on the screen are good and the high number of dots per inch (216) means images on the screen are nice and crisp. While not the best LCD display I've seen, in a sub £200 device it is phenomenal.
A phenomenal screen for a sub £200 device.
The Nexus 7 has a front facing 1.2 MP camera, which is great for videocalling. I've used it with both Google talk and Skype and the only complaints about image quality were probably due to a slow internet connection. Again, the 7" form factor of the Nexus 7 is great for long video calls. Whereas with larger/heavier tablet computers hands/arms get tired after a while, with the Nexus 7 I haven't had this issue, and I do tend to do a lot of video calls on it. Unlike other tablets on the market at the moment, the Nexus 7 doesn't have a camera on the rear, so you won't lose any street-cred using it to take pictures at parties. There is actually no software on the stock Android Jelly Bean shipped with the Nexus 7 to use the camera as a camera. Thankfully Paul O'Brien from MoDaCo.com has a solution for this if you really want that feature.
Jelly Bean, Android 4.1, is the operating system running on the Nexus 7. Coupled with Nvidia's Tegra 3 chipset and 12 core GPU the device is buttery to use. Google had people working on the UI smoothness and responsiveness and the differences from ICS (4.0), while not immediately apparent, are enormous. The user interface paradigm remains the same as on Ice Cream Sandwich, with a few subtle improvements such as icon and widget automatic rearrangement. The notification system has been augmented from ICS and made more expansive with snapshots and previews. I like this notification system improvement, especially because it includes Google Now notifications.

Google Now is a new way for interacting with Google services. A sort of predictive search, it presents you with information before you start searching for it. When I'm at work for example, Google Now will give me bus timetables and an estimated time for me travelling home, and a weather forecast. Presented as cards, the Google Now screen can be pulled up as an offscreen gesture swiping upwards from the bottom. This is a very WebOS like gesture, I wonder how much of Matias Duarte's input there was for this... You can find out  more about Google Now here.
The Nexus 7 is an NFC device, which means that it can be used to share/use information shared via near field communication technology. Often if I get an email recommending a Youtube video, and I just tap my phone with the open link to my Nexus 7 and boom, the video opens up on my Nexus 7. Lovely but limited feature at the moment, as time goes by it will be a standard on many devices.

On the Nexus 7 you have access to the Play Store. Any applications/services you have purchased from the Play Store previously are available to you on the Nexus 7, provided the application/service is compatible. Most of my favourite apps work just fine on the Nexus 7, but some don't. Flickr for example does not work on the Nexus 7 yet, but I'm sure it's just a question of time before it does. Google state that for a limited time Nexus 7 buyers get £15 of Play Store credit. £15 credit with the £159 (8GB) and £199 (16GB) price tags just makes the value proposition of the Nexus 7 go up.
The Nexus 7 has WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC connectivity. There is no 3G (cellular) option, but tethering to a smartphone is easy peasy. I tether with both my Galaxy Nexus and Nokia Lumia 710 without problem.

Battery life on the Nexus 7 is excellent. I've used my device regularly both at home and at work and never had a problem with the battery running low. I usually charge the Nexus 7 overnight if needed, but usually it lasts me at least a couple of days. The Nexus 7 has a beefed up USB charger which juices up the device through the MicroUSB port. Sadly some existing MicroUSB chargers for phones and/or Kindles do not work with the Nexus 7.

OK, for those of you who skipped to the conclusion from the specifications, you can start reading again.
Overall the Nexus 7 is a fantastic device. Form factor and excellent operating system make it a delight to use. Google's services run impeccably on the device, as you would expect them to. For under £200 there isn't anything on the market that can offer you as good value for money, and the £15 Google Play Store credit is just the cherry on the icing. I love my Nexus 7, and know it will be an amazing success for Google, ASUS and the retailers selling the device.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below. Bear in mind this review is my personal view on the Nexus 7 and that as I stated at the beginning I'm pretty biased because I'm an android fanboy.

Nokia Lumia 710 And Ubuntu: They Speak To Each Other!

I've had a Nokia Lumia 710 for a while now.  This week I discovered I can use my Lumia 710 and manage media and content on it through my Ubuntu Linux machines, and I'm a very happy chappy as a result.

The Nokia Lumia 710 is one of Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 devices, the product of the Finnish company's leap of faith from a "burning platform" onto a lilly pad in the middle of a stormy ocean. Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft's smartphone operating system which it pitches as a competitor to Google's Android OS and iOS (which is shipped on Apple devices).
From the beginning of my ownership of the Nokia Lumia 710 I encountered frustration with some of the basic management of Windows Phone 7. Adding and managing media could only be done (up to now) from a Windows or OS X machine running the Zune software. Zune performs similar functions to iTunes, just that it uses a simplistically shiny UI which fits in well on Windows 8, but looks out of place and unintuitive on Windows 7. I have been an avid Linux user for many moons now, and Microsoft Windows is an OS I only boot into rarely if there is some slightly more complicated in phone rooting/ROMming that requires running applications on Windows. Hence my frustration: I have to restart my computer into Windows (7 most of the time on my desktop, 8 on my laptop), wait for the slower startup (it's so much faster in Ubuntu or Lubuntu!), update the antivirus (not an issue on Ubuntu or Lubuntu!) and open up Zune.

Zune is "shiny". I like it. I like it in the same sort of way that I like Windows Phone 7's user interface, and in the same way in which I adore the WebOS user interface. It's all about the UI, its fluidity and how intuitive it is. That's probably why I like the Android 4.0.x UI too: Matias Duarte, formerly of Palm where he designed the WebOS UI, is now the Director of Android operating system User Experience at Google.
Shiny! Shinier with Rachel Stevens
At the beginning using the Zune software didn't work for me. Plugging the Nokia Lumia 710 into any USB port (either primary or secondary) was useless, it didn't show up in the device manager and Zune didn't know there was a Windows Phone 7 device connected to the computer. Only after I had reinstalled Windows 7 on my desktop did I manage to get the Lumia 710 and Zune to talk to each other. Finally I was able to synchronise music folders and podcasts with the device. This was a relief because I had been streaming podcasts over the interwebs through a browser, and this was severely affecting battery life. Once I had got used to the routine of synching the Lumia on a daily basis, things were fine.
When on holiday in Italy I was using my Nexus S as my main smartphone and the Lumia was relegated to being a wifi device when at home for Skype calls, mp3 player functions and playing a fantastic Xbox Live game called Flowers.

After having updated my Ubuntu and Lubuntu partitions on my laptop and desktop to the newest version of the distribution (12.04 Precise Pangolin), I stumbled across the fact that the Nokia Lumia 710 could be mounted as a media player. Once mounted, I could read and write the contents of the folders, manage photos, music and podcasts to the device. On Ubuntu, it even offered to manage the media player in Rythmbox, the media management application bundled with the pinky-orange Linux based OS.
Now that I don't have to boot into Windows so often I'm a happier Wobbles feeder. I can also reply to John C. Dvorak who was reiterating the fact that you HAVE to use Zune on TWiT last week: not any more! You can now live a Windows free life with your Windows Phone 7 smartphone. Until the next OS/firmware update that is... ;-)

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions. I also started a thread on the MoDaCo forums about this so feel free to join the chatter about this there too.

Goodbye Flash Player For Mobile

Adobe has announced that it will be discontinuing support of Flash Player for mobile.



In a statement posted on the official Adobe Blog by Danny Winokur, vice president and general manager of interactive development, Adobe conceded that HTML5 is "the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms."


Goodbye Flash Player For Mobile, for a while you were an extra competitive advantage of some mobile platforms (QNX, Android, WebOS, etc.) over others (Apple's iOS).


Feel free to leave comments and/or questions.

HP Replaces Leo Apotheker With Meg Whitman As CEO

HP has been like a soap opera of companies in the tech industry for the last couple of years. This time last year the company was embroiled in the Hurd saga, that consisted of lies, sex (or not sex), and scandal. Mark Hurd was replaced as CEO by Leo Apotheker who during his 11 months as CEO decided to kill off what used to be Palm (part of HP) and the excellent WebOS. Now HP have a new CEO: Meg Whitman.

This timeline of Leo Apotheker's time as CEO of HP on Bloomberg.com was what I found interesting. The chap hasn't really been a stable sort of CEO. I think he may be the sort of figurehead/scapegoat boards of directors choose to cut jobs and departments. Quick in, fire a few thousand people, quick out.

Lets see what happens to HP. Will Meg Whitman, former candidate as Governor of California reverse some of the decisions Apotheker made? As much as I would like HP to make a U-turn on WebOS and devices tied to the OS, I think it is highly unlikely since Meg Whitman was on the HP board of directors and probably was one of the Apotheker-puppetmasters...

Todoleo Tech Blog App

I have just submitted my first application for approval!


Some of you may expect me to have prepared an Android application, a Linux one or maybe even a WebOS one. If you know me, you can remain certain that the application was definitely not for Apple's iOS, but strangely it was for the Nokia Ovi Store. That's right, the Nokia Ovi Store!




I've submitted an application called Todoleo Tech Blog. Users of the application will be able to keep up to date with this blog on their Nokia handsets.


Please keep your fingers crossed for me, I'm hoping to have the Todoleo Tech Blog application approved by the end of the week.