Google Nexus 7 Indepth Review

1. Introduction2. Design Exploration and Design, Display3. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean4. Google Now, Voice Search, Keyboard5. Google Chrome, Wireless Connectivity, Multimedia Playback6. Hardware Performance7. Battery Life, Closing Thoughts8. View All Pages

Battery Life

Much of the Nexus 7’s internal space is consumed by the 16 Wh battery and it is certainly big enough to power the tablet for a generous amount of time.

Regardless of the high-end chipset and HD display the battery is good for four to seven hours of display time across a single day. This kind of usage included checking RSS feeds, general browsing, video playback and gaming. This is all with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC and auto brightness enabled.

The Nexus 7 can also be a device that you do not have to charge daily, it has regularly been charged every three days with  four hours of display time under its belt.

This also leads to another thing, idle battery drain is small. I wasn’t expecting miracles coming from the HTC One X (which also has the Tegra 3 chip) which obviously had buggy software or an estranged kernel controlling clock speeds when I reviewed it earlier in the year. You can leave the Nexus 7 overnight and expect it to only drop a few percentile points.

For most people the Nexus 7 should be good for at least two, possibly three days of active usage, but this entirely depends upon your own usage patterns.

While gaming, the rear of the device started to warm slightly but never got concerningly warm.

Closing Thoughts

At the end of my time with the Google Nexus 7 I continue to be impressed by it, even when compared to higher end Android tablets. The 430 gram mass sits well in hand and does not feel overly heavy in hand.

Regardless of its rather cheap appearance, caused mostly by the plastics used, it does feel solid and much more luxurious in hand. This is exactly the same opinion brought about by Samsung’s Galaxy S III.

Display wise, the high definition and relatively dense display impresses, however greens do appear to be undersaturated which can be a put off putting. Also, at least for me, the 7 inch tablet form factor is perfect for me and fits in well with my Samsung Galaxy S III, 13.3 inch student-orientated laptop and gaming desktop. Portrait thumb typing is very straightforward and is aided further by improvements made to the keyboard in Android 4.1.

As you might expect of a new version of an operating system, Android 4.1 is by far the most refined iteration yet. It evolves upon the Holo interface introduced in Android 4.0 and adds many welcome features such as Project Butter resulting in a smoother UI and expandable notifications. These features combine to show off what is arguably the smoothest user interface on an Android device.

Google Now and the improved Voice Search is much more than a gimmicky feature. It is way ahead of Samsung’s S Voice in terms of voice recognition and actual usefulness.

However, I am not a massive fan of the phablet user interface with no landscape orientation. This also results in many basic applications such as the Play Store and Reader, which I know have tablet layouts, instead look like the smartphone versions on a 7 inch display. I have used the true tablet interface on a 7 inch tablet before and would much prefer that.

Much of this can be forgiven as what you have to pure and raw Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and essentially guaranteed early access to at least the next two versions of Android.

The NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset still performs in the top quartile of our performance charts plus you have access to Tegra-exclusive games and effects in games such as Riptide GP and Dead Trigger.

However, it is only available in 8 and 16 GB models with no choice for expandable storage which is bound to ruin much of the experience for some. I’ve been able to live just fine with my 16 GB model with 5 GB storage or more being free at any time. Other compromises include the lack of a rear camera, no vibration motor for haptic feedback and lack of a notification LED.

Battery life was also impressive, and we believe the 16 Wh battery is large enough to last two to three days for most users. The Tegra 3’s chipset helps out with its low power fifth core to cover basic tasks.

Pros

• Feels nice in hand
• Display is of high quality
• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
• Direct access to Android updates
• Tegra 3 chipset continues to impress
• Impressive battery life

Cons

• Phablet user interface
• Limited internal storage

KitGuru says: At $199 (159 GBP) I find it hard to not recommend the Nexus 7. I have found it fit into my usage patterns whether it be for checking RSS feeds, watching movies or reading books. It truly is a premium device (with a few compromises) at an impulse purchase price level.

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