Nexus 7: The best Android tablet under Rs.15,000

The Google Nexus 7 has become the most celebrated device, since its launch at the recently concluded Google I/O 2012 event. Google and Asus partnered to bring this new tablet, which doesn’t target the reigning iPad, but tablets that fall within the price range of Rs. 11,000 and Rs. 15,000. It appears to be worth every penny, and why wouldn’t it? A quad-core tablet under Rs. 15,000 sounds just amazing. But that isn’t all, the tablet has much more features that could entice a user, and the most assuring bit comes from the fact that it has been built by industry giant.

Feature-packed

The affordable tablet market in India is flourishing. The first batch of ICS tablets came under the Rs. 10,000 bracket in the form of the Zync Z990, iBerry Auxus AX02. We’ve also seen tablets emerge above the 10K mark like the MSI Windpad, mTab Neo 2 and the most recent mTab Neo Rio. Going by the specifications and assuming that Google brings the device to India at the same or slightly higher price, the Nexus 7 seems far superior. 

Here's a quick look at its specifications -

• Screen - The Nexus 7 has a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen. It features an IPS screen with scratch resistant Corning glass protection and a resolution of 1280×800 pixels.

• Processor - The Nexus 7 built by Asus comes with a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor for quick loading, smooth and responsive interface and running multiple apps, along with 1GB RAM. A 12 core GPU offers rich and immersive graphics, while patented 4-PLUS-1CPU design offers processing power.

• Camera - The Nexus 7 hasn't worked too well in the camera bit. Google has given the rear camera a miss, while it comes integrated with a 1.2MP front camera for video chats, which also allows 720p recording. 

• Memory - The Google Nexus is available in two models – 8GB and 16GB storage. However, there is no expandable memory slot.

• Portability - The Nexus 7 tips the scale at 340 grams with 198.5 x 120 x 10.5 mm dimensions.

• Battery life - Nexus 7 promises a battery life with over 9 hours of HD video playback, 10 hours of web browsing or 10 hours of eReading. It also offers up to 300 hours of standby time.

In India, we find Android tablets positioned at various price points - starting from as low as Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 6000 and ranging upto Rs. 20,000 and above. At the end of the day, it’s all about the experience that a tablet has to offer for that extra moolah (if you are ready to spend it). In our tests and comparisons, we found that the Micromax Funbook offers good value for money at a price of Rs. 6,500. As aforementioned, there are a couple of tablets priced around the Rs. 15,000 price bracket.

On the backside

Samsung and Google are well known brands in India. Google’s known for its Android OS and its whole line of web services and Samsung is known for the dominance that it enjoys in the consumer electronics space. Although Samsung has some high-end tablets, one of the interesting products in their kitty is their Galaxy Tab 2 310, which sells in the sub-20k price tag. The Micromax Funbook and the Galaxy Tab 2 310 appear to be great products at their respective price points. The Google Nexus 7 is being introduced at a $200 price tag in the U.S. Assuming that it is priced slightly higher, it should hit Indian markets just shy of the Rs. 15,000 mark. Keeping the Funbook and Galaxy Tab 2 310 as reference points in their respective segments, we think the Nexus 7 is also going to be a key contender in its price range and will bridge that gap. 

We’ve compared the specs of the Nexus 7 with the Funbook and Galaxy Tab 2 310, which shows how the Nexus has been competitively priced by offering more value for money (if it is priced under Rs. 15,000) and how it offers much more than the Galaxy tab 2 310 for a much lesser price. So, this isn’t a literal comparison of the features, as the devices vary at price points.

Click to enlarge...

All three tablets come with a 7-inch screen, but the Nexus 7 manages to rope in a higher resolution at 800 x 1280, compared to both Funbook and Galaxy Tab 2 310. Moreover, the Nexus 7 has an IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with scratch resistant abilities. The Nexus 7 equips a quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A9 processor, which is commendable at this price. The Micromax Funbook features a 1.22 GHz Cortex-A8 processor, while the Galaxy tab 2 310 equips a dual-core 1GHz  Ti OMAP processor for a much higher price. The Nexus comes equipped with a better battery, compared to the other two. Moreover, it has the latest version of the Android OS, even when ICS hasn't reached most devices yet.

Sleek and slim...

Google’s pushing hard for NFC and it's visible by the feature added to the Nexus 7 tablet. The NFC feature means that you can quickly grab bits of information from tags and other devices. For a tablet that may be priced around the Rs. 15,000 range, it’s actually pretty neat. Both, the Funbook and the Galaxy Tab 2 310 don’t come with the feature. The Nexus 7 might have NFC, but here in India, NFC still hasn’t taken off, since only a handful of devices now support it, with little to no infrastructure set in place. The Funbook lacks a camera, and only has a VGA one for video chatting. The Nexus 7 lacks one too, but it has a front facing 1.2 MP camera (720p video recording), which would primarily be used for video conferencing. If you’re going to be using photo apps on your tablet, the Galaxy Tab 2 might be the better of the lot. It has a 3MP camera, and since it’s rear facing, it makes it simpler to click photos with.  

There are a number of reasons to be excited about the Nexus 7. It marks Google’s foray into the tablet space and looking at the price bracket it’s priced at, it has a lot of potential, as we’ve mentioned in this story. It has a ton of fire power, bundled with a great screen and good features and could possibly reach India after September. In fact, we think it’s better than the Galaxy Tab 2 310 in many ways. The only reason to go out and buy the Galaxy Tab 2 is if you need 3G capability built into the device.

Google Nexus 7 Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Tablet Gets Official

All we have been hearing about over the last few weeks is that Google would be launching their first Android tablet, it is now official and as the rumors suggested it is called the Google  Nexus 7, and will come with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The Google Nexus 7 is made by Asus, and it features a 7 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, processing is provided by a quad core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and it also features a 12 core GPU.

The Nexus 7 features a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera for video chat, there is no rear facing camera, and it has a battery which will give you up to 10 hours of web browsing, 10 hours of e-reading and up to 8 hours of video playback.

The Google Nexus 7 comes with a choice of 8GB or 16GB of built in storage, plus 1GB of RAM, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth and microUSB.

The Nexus 7 will be available for $199 for the 8GB model, the exact same price as the Amazon Kindle Fire, who Google are obviously targeting with their new tablet, the16GB will be available for $249, you can find out more details over at Google.

Gadget Lab Show: Android Jelly Bean, Nexus 7 and Nexus Q

This week on the Gadget Lab Show, the gang takes a look at the spoils of this year’s Google I/O conference: Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the Nexus 7 tablet and the Nexus Q.

Opening this week’s show, Gadget Lab senior editor Jon Phillips and reviews editor Mike Calore talk everything Google I/O. First, Jon and Mike take a look at the new Jelly Bean OS (Android 4.1) and Google’s tablet, the Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 is Google’s answer to the Kindle Fire — it’s focused on content consumption, designed with heavy Google Play integration. The Nexus 7 costs $200, the same price as the Kindle Fire, but it has a 1280 x 800 resolution screen and a quad-core CPU, among other top notch specs. Jelly Bean has a number of innovative new features, including Google Now, the Android version of Siri.

Next up, Jon and Mike check out the Nexus Q, a spherical media streamer. You control it with your Android device, and the Nexus Q plays media straight from the cloud. It has a band of 32 RGB LEDs that light up when you play music, acting like a rainbow-rific audio visualizer. Inside, it’s got a 25-watt amp and basically the brains of an Android phone. It’s a great piece of equipment from what we can tell so far, but the question is: Does it justify a $300 price tag?

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds.

Or listen to the audio below:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #161

Nexus 7 Review: The Best $200 Tablet you can buy

In 2008, when the Eee PC was revolutionizing the computing world and driving every manufacturer to make cheaper and smaller laptops, Sony washed its hands of the whole thing. The "race to the bottom," the company said, would profoundly impact the industry, killing profit margins and flooding the market with cheap, terrible machines. Sony was wrong, its stance lasting about a year before joining the competition with its own VAIO W.

Four years on we're buying better laptops than ever before and, with the netbook class now more or less dead, that downward competition seems to have shifted to the tablet front. A flood of cheap, truly awful slates preceded Amazon's Kindle Fire, the $200 tablet from a major brand that looks to have been the proper catalyst in plunging prices. The latest challenger to enter the competition is ASUS, partnering with Google to create the first Nexus tablet, a device that not only will amaze with its MSRP, but with its quality. It's called the Nexus 7, it too is $200, and it's better than Amazon's offering in every way but one.

Hardware

Though that low cost is the big talking point about this tablet, you'd certainly never know it just by holding the thing. Okay, so there's more polycarbonate than panache here, but the design of the Nexus 7 feels reasonably high-end, starting with that rubberized back. Yes, it is rubber, but it's very nicely textured, nice enough to fool one tech journalist into thinking it was leather.

Though the cost is the big talking point about this tablet, you'd certainly never know it just by holding the thing.

No cow shed its skin to cover the back of this tablet, of that we can assure you, but the dimpled pattern here is not unlike the sort you might find on leather-wrapped racecar steering wheels. While there's no MOMO logo to be found, the feel is much the same and, we presume, rather more durable. There are two other logos to be found, though, starting with the Nexus branding embossed in big letters on the top, with a much smaller ASUS graphic on the bottom. That's it, though: understated and sophisticated. Just how we like it. (Even the FCC logo and other noise are on a piece of plastic you can easily peel off.) There's also no camera lens poking out here, as the 1.2-megapixel shooter up front is all you get.

Move further down toward the bottom of the back and you'll find the device's single speaker. It's a slit that runs roughly two-thirds of the way across the back, centered and sitting about a half-inch above the bottom -- which is, by the way, where you'll find the tablet's only ports. Centered down there is a micro-USB connector and, to the far right side when looking at the display, the 3.5mm headphone jack. That's it. Thankfully, ASUS's proprietary connector found on the Transformer tablets doesn't make an appearance here, but neither do we get a dedicated HDMI output, which is a bit of a bummer. (You can, of course, use an MHL adapter if you like.)

On the left edge of the device, similar dock contacts to those found on the Galaxy Nexus can be found, presumably waiting to be tickled by some future accessory, while up top you'll find ... nothing. Just the silvery ring that runs around the full device. It looks like brushed metal, but feels more like plastic. Even so, the tablet has a very sturdy, strong feel to it -- but that's partly thanks to it being just a little bit chunky.

It measures 10.45mm (0.41 inches) thick, which is just half a millimeter thinner than the Kindle Fire -- itself no slender belle. But, crucially, it weighs much less: 340g (12 ounces) versus 413g (14.6 ounces) for the Fire. That's a very noticeable difference and it makes the Nexus 7 much nicer to carry around. Its curved edges, too, make it far more comfortable.

On the inside is an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor running at 1.2GHz (though it can step up to 1.3GHz when it wants to) and paired with 1GB of RAM with either eight or 16 gigs of flash storage (doubling the capacity will cost you a $50 premium). As there's no microSD expansion here, you'll probably want to pay the extra cash. WiFi (802.11b/g/n) is your only option for data connectivity, though there's naturally Bluetooth and NFC, not to mention GPS, an accelerometer, a digital compass and a gyroscope, too.

Display and sound

Budget tablets typically make the biggest sacrifices on the display front, and certainly the 1,024 x 600 resolution on the Kindle Fire feels a bit constricting at this point. Not so with the Nexus 7, which is fronted by a very nice 1,280 x 800 IPS panel rated at 400 nits of brightness. While more pixels is always better -- the new iPad and its Retina display having made us yearn for ridiculously high resolutions in all our devices -- WXGA feels perfectly adequate here. Text is rendered very well and 720p videos look great.

Much of that, though, is thanks to the other, less quantifiable aspects of the screen. Viewing angles are top-notch, with contrast staying strong regardless of which side you're coming from. And, it's plenty bright, too, a properly nice screen that, like everything else here, is just a little nicer than you'd expect given the cost.

Audio, however, isn't exactly fighting above its class. The speakers integrated in the back and peeking out through a slender slit toward the bottom deliver a decent amount of sound that isn't too unpleasant to listen to. It passes the "loud enough to fill a hotel room" test but the quality at those levels will leave you reaching for your earbuds.

Performance and battery life

When Jen-Hsun Huang teased Tegra 3-powered tablets would drop under $200 this summer he obviously knew what was coming, but what we didn't know was just how far back those tablets would have to be scaled to make that price point. If you've been reading all the way through to here (and we love you for it) you'll know we haven't yet found a real compromise made to achieve that price. Compromises will not be found in this section, either.

Okay, so a 35-second boot time does leave a little bit to be desired, but once you're inside the OS, applications load quickly and respond briskly, even graphics-heavy ones like the Google Play magazine app. Webpages are rendered promptly and swiping through them is snappy. Sure, there are the occasional stutters and hiccups here that even a coating of Butter doesn't completely eliminate, but we've experienced those with even the top-shelf tablets, like the recent Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 with its 1.7GHz version of the Tegra 3 processor.

If benchmarks are to be believed, this little guy actually performs better than its bigger brothers.

In fact, if benchmarks are to be believed, this little guy actually performs better than its bigger brothers. SunSpider tests, which look at JavaScript rendering speeds in the new Chrome browser, were completed on average in a relatively speedy 1,785ms. The tablet burned through Vellamo with an average score of 1,650 and notched 11,713 in CF-Bench. Only the Quadrant score was on the low side compared to the much higher-priced competition, coming in at 3,501.

	Nexus 7	ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700	ASUS Transformer Prime
Quadrant	3,501	4,685	4,137
Vellamo	1,650	1,475	1,418
AnTuTu	Would not run	12,027	10,269
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms)	1,785	2,012	1,861
GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps)	63 fps	75 fps	68 fps
CF-Bench	11,807	7,874	11,861
SunSpider: lower scores are better

Since there were plenty of people freaking out about the new iPad getting warm when gaming and doing other intensive tasks we'll point out briefly that the Nexus 7 was noticeably increasing in temperature as these benchmarks cooked away. But, at no point did it become disconcertingly hot. Just a little toasty.

Tablet	Battery Life
Nexus 7	9:49
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7	12:01
Apple iPad 2	10:26
Acer Iconia Tab A510	10:23
ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime	10:17 / 16:34 (keyboard dock)
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1	9:55
Apple iPad (2012)	9:52 (HSPA) / 9:37 (LTE)
Apple iPad (2011)	9:33
ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700	9:25 / 14:43 (keyboard dock)
Toshiba Excite 10	9:24
Motorola Xoom 2	8:57
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1	8:56
HP TouchPad	8:33
ASUS Transformer Pad TF300	8:29 / 12:04 (keyboard dock)

And of course a tablet is only good for as long as you can use the thing, and we were quite impressed by the longevity here. We came within spitting distance of 10 hours on a charge using out standard rundown test, which has the tablet connected on WiFi and looping a video endlessly. That's very, very good for a budget 7-incher and bests many bigger, more expensive slates.

Software

The Nexus 7 is the first device shipping with Android 4.1. We'll defer to our full review of Jelly Bean for full impressions, as it's far too much to get into here, but there are a few aspects of the latest additions to Android that are worth pointing out.

Like those magazine subscriptions we mentioned above, for example. The Play Magazines app is a perfectly respectable reader that has a great selection of content and very smooth performance. While pinch-to-zoom is quite fluid, thanks to the reasonably high-res screen you won't necessarily have to do so as often as you might on the Fire. That's because text is clear and readable if you still have the eyesight to match -- though should you want something a bit easier to parse there's a handy text view.

In terms of pricing, though, we found many magazines to be slightly more expensive here than they are on the Fire. Music, too, tends to cost a dollar or two more per album than what Amazon offers in its MP3 download store. Thankfully, since all that music is DRM-free, there's nothing stopping you from loading up your tablet with what you've bought elsewhere. Nothing, at least, other than the somewhat limited amount of internal storage.

You can finally uninstall that ancient Chrome to Phone plugin.

And then, of course, there's the new stock browser, Chrome. Not a lot has changed since our first impressions a few months ago, so it's still a nice step up from the boring, old Browser app on previous versions of Android. Rendering performance is generally good, and the ability to import open tabs from a desktop browsing session is very handy, indeed. You can finally uninstall that ancient Chrome to Phone plugin.

Wrap-up

So, while we tend to prefer larger tablets that better differentiate themselves from phones, if you've been toying with the idea of getting a real Android slate but didn't want to spend big bucks for a big device, this is what you've been waiting for. This is the best Android tablet for less than $200 and the best budget 7-inch tablet on the market. For the moment. The race to the bottom in the tablet space is, after all, just getting started and, if the Nexus 7 is any indication of what's to come, we're in for a very good ride.The Nexus 7 is an amazing package for something that costs a penny less than $200. It feels like something that could sell for much more. It has a great screen, solid performance and a clean, clear, uncluttered version of Google's latest operating system, Jelly Bean. From a pure hardware standpoint it beats the Kindle in every way possible -- except for content. Amazon's selection almost always trumps that of Google's, both in terms of variety and cost, but that's one wonderful problem to have, because almost all of that content is just as available on the Nexus 7 as it is on the Fire. The only major exception is Amazon Instant Video, and with Netflix, we can live with that.

Update: We received some bogus information on the MHL. We've now confirmed that the Nexus 7 does not support MHL, meaning there's no way to connect this over HDMI to get video output.

The Inside Scoop on the Nexus 7 tablet (Q&A)

A Google exec who helped lead the team developing the Nexus 7 tablet sat down with CNET to chat about the Nexus brand and what it means to Google and its partners.


Patrick Brady, director of Android partner engineering, has two big launches to celebrate this month. The first is the birth of his daughter three weeks ago. And the second is the launch of his other baby -- the Google Nexus 7 tablet.

Patrick Brady, Director of Android Partner Engineering for Google.

(Credit: Google)

At the Goolge I/O developer conference here this week, Google took the wraps off its first ever Google-branded tablet made by Asus. The new 7-inch tablet called the Nexus 7 runs the latest version of the Google Android operating system Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It's loaded with some impressive specifications, including an HD screen, front-facing camera, and quad core processor. And it's available for the competitive price of $199.

Brady helped lead the team that developed the Nexus 7 tablet. CNET sat down with him here at Google I/O to get some more details about how the Nexus 7 came about and what Google's strategy is for building these Nexus-branded devices. Below is an edited excerpt from our conversation.

Why did Google decide to build a Google-branded tablet?

Brady: We looked at the ecosystem to see what product categories were about to explode next, and we looked at tablets, especially the smaller lower priced tablets. We didn't think this category of tablet was living up to its potential.

We wanted to build something inexpensive, but not cheap. It had to have fast processors and great screen resolution that our developers would want to use it. And we were looking to build a device that could showcase our digital content. We've build the biggest ebook store and we've got movies in Google Play. We've added TV and magazines. So we really wanted the perfect device to consume all of this and thought the 7-inch tablet was a good size.

It was also important for us to make the product light and portable. It's only 340 grams. We wanted people to be able to take it the coffee shop and feel comfortable reading a book or magazine on it. It's roughly the same size and weight as a paperback book. And the reason why paperbacks are the size and weight they are is because they're meant to be portable. You don't want to lug around a big hardcover book.

Introducing Nexus 7

With a stunning 7" display, powerful quad-core processor and all day battery life, Nexus 7 was built to bring you the best of Google in a slim, portable package that fits perfectly in your hand.

Google Nexus 7 tablet specs and video promo Review

7" 1280x800 HD display (216 ppi)
Back-lit IPS display
Scratch-resistant Corning glass
1.2MP front-facing camera
198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm
340g
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
8/16 GB internal storage
1 GB RAM
Micro USB
4325 mAh (Up to 8 hours of active use)
Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
Quad-core Tegra 3 processor
Microphone
NFC (Android Beam)
Accelerometer
GPS
Magnetometer
Gyroscope

Price US$ 199