Just bear in mind the 2013 Nexus 7 is a lot slower than the Nexus 9.
For example, the Nexus 9 is about 3 times faster on Mozilla’s Kraken benchmark. That’s probably a good rule of thumb.
I personally found the Nexus 7 to be on the slow side even as a new device.
Not terribly hard on it at all. Of the 5 people on our family plan, 4 people had to get them replaced within a year, and of the replacements two of them require reboots after a day or certain actions. Lately mine has started lagging like crazy, without pretty much nothing but Google stock apps installed. I’m very gentle with my electronics, I have never dropped it, stressed it, or left it in a 122 degree car.
Anecdotal evidence confirms it… or not.
What are you using it for?
I haven’t really noticed mine being at all slow. But then again I can hardly tell the difference between my 2013 model, and my girlfriends 2012 model, performance-wise.
I moved it twice a year throughout college, often strapped in the trailer of a semi, and then after college I moved another 3-4 times… So in that seven years, I moved it 10 times, often in less than ideal conditions. The case was a bit older than my hardware too, so it was probably around 10 years old. The sliding door no longer sat true, the case was warped to the point where it was hard to flushly seat fans, some of the tabs holding the front panel on were broken, and its feet were broken… Basically the whole thing conspired to make my computer as loud as possible, even with large quite fans. Also it was a small case with no cable management, so it was a pain to keep cables out of fans, or change large things like video cards or PSUs around.
My new case is vastly superior, with asphalt lining for noise reduction, and a huge amount of cable management potential. With the same hardware, I cut the noise at least in half.
[quote=“mikea, post:22, topic:46039, full:true”]
My thoughts: You want a phone, Nexus 5. A portable tablet, Nexus 7. A larger tablet, sadly now, a Samsung Galaxy 10.4 or 12.2.[/quote]
I’ve been happy with the Xperia Tablet Z. Water resistance turns out to be a good feature when reading over breakfast or in the bathroom. Recently I’ve degenerated enough to try watching TV in the bathtub.
I bought it to read RPG PDFs. The app store lock-in was a no-go for me. I was concerned that 220ppi has 30% fewer pixels than Apple’s 264, while the 16:10 aspect ratio is not ideal for books. in practice I have found neither of these to be a significant issue (and it turns out 16:10 is perfect for comics). These compromises are probably worthwhile for its light weight.
At regular price it’s not particularly competitive with Apple. On sale, however, and relying on the SD slot instead of internal memory (do not install Android 4.4! - though I believe 5 should be fine when and if it’s supported) I figured I paid about 1/3 less for a tablet that gave me pretty much the same experience Apple would have.
I don’t get the fetish for one handed operation. Do you live with a Starbuck’s perpetually in your hand or something? Or are you texting while driving? If so, the solution is stop.
That must be a real pain in the ass. I’m glad mine has been fine.
When i travel as a pedestrian, the cup of starbucks might as well be perpetually in my hand from purchase until it’s consumed. It’s not as if the sidewalk has a cupholder. Also, On subway crowded subway trains, it’s considered polite to hang on with at least one arm-- the other passengers are not cushions.
At least my current phone is paid off. If I upgrade, that’s another $25/month on my mobile bill. But, I’m seeing more and more of the apps I use getting updates that no longer support my version of Android.
True enough. But then you also don’t need to be connected 24/7. Just because the phone beeps does not mean you need to pick it up immediately. Put the phone down. It will still be there later.
I dunno. I think one handed operation is a pretty minor thing. Someone else could equally well counter with their use case: now I don’t have to carry an ereader. This is super! One less thing to carry and keep charged.
Seriously, dude, I have no idea what you are talking about. I was replying to a post that was commenting on a boingboing review. At that point, no mention of Ars was made…
I don’t care much about one handed operation either, and I suspect it is far more a software feature than a hardware one anyway. The few one-hand-use cases I personally have are covered just by putting the button on the left side of a home screen, and having that icon be a one-press to do the thing (eg call my wife).
I do, however, care a lot about having the thing be small enough to fit comfortably and securely in my pockets, and these 6 inch screen phones seem to be blowing through that on both size and weight, and I’m a 6’3" man… not exactly the worst case for carrying around big objects.
The five inch phones are good enough as e-readers for text. Maybe the iphone is too narrow? Not sure, never tried it. But all the nexus phones have been fine. I can’t see 6" being big enough for larger format pdf’s. 6" is presumably significantly better for viewing websites, but I consider the phone a ‘backup’ web browser, so I’m willing to accept some annoyance there.
*Allowing the brightness to go as low as it can go despite the lowest setting failing at color balance is great though (you know, with an option to stop it for those who can’t stand pink). I suppose that might be technically possible on most phones, wish mine could go dimmer."
**Makes me wonder about doing pallet shifts to get it even dimmer.
One of my eBook as apps used to do that (on iOS IIRC) because the OS wouldn’t allow apps to directly control brightness. So I’m not getting why the OS can’t do that without a noticeable color shift.
I don’t think you understand. There is nowhere to put the phone “down”. There’s a place to put the phone “in”-- and it would be nice if that place was a pocket-- which in turn limits the practical size of the device.
I do understand and that seems like a legitimate gripe whereas the lack of perpetual and exclusive one-handed operation does not.
This device is only one inch shy of Google’s first tablet. That seems too large to me as well, but not because it limits my ability to text while driving.
It is indeed unfortunate that not everyone likes to use their devices the way you use yours.
Which was essentially my complaint about the original review. Jeez, please do try to keep up! Condemning something for not being usable single handed is precisely using a niche usage case as if it were universal.
There are people to whom the Nexus is appealing. Great! More power to them. But don’t say it is bad because of its size. It is unsuitable for some users because of its size but that is not the same thing as bad. For other users, its usability for their purposes is likely enhanced by its size.
Single-handed use is not niche. If it was, the Galaxy-S line would be niche, and the Galaxy-Note line would be core. But regardless of whether you consider it a niche use or not, inability to effectively and securely use a device in this niche manner (which pretty much everyone does and will do at some time, by preference or necessity) is a “legitimate gripe.”
Regardless, the market has spoken. Phones are getting bigger, consistently, all of them.
That’s what sells.
Obviously we aren’t all going to be carrying 17" phones around in 2025 so there has to be some practical limit to size on a phone for most people. I think that will end up being 6" (ish?), with most phones in the 5" to 6" range.
Conversely, the iPhone 6 is bad because of it’s size. Both the 6 and the 6 plus are larger than the iphone 5s-which contains older tech. Apple doesn’t sell an iPhone six minus.
