Google unveils Android-powered 'Nexus 7' tablet starting at $199 - Page 2

It's happening all over again, and phandroids are clamoring for it like sheep.  At that price, build quality and performance will suffer, and once again will end up being in landfills or dusty desktop drawers.  The joe-consumer that buy it based on price will complain about the same problems all low-balled tablets had in the past, perhaps decide that the iPad must be as crappy... or a semi-smart Joe Consumer will realize that the iPad is worth the extra money for less headaches.
 

Phandroids here are just sad-case people to think that the general masses will "flock" to these devices.  Heard that one before countless times.

I think this is more of a response to prevent the Kindle Fire and Nook from fragmenting Android user base.

 

As far as the larger tablet market goes, I would consider the Acer Iconia A700 and the ASUS Transformer Infinity to be the first serious competitors to the iPad. Everything else on store shelves have mostly been junk.

 

Not playing, just wondering.  This implies something to me, however. Will all the Android reviews talking about how "smooth" ICS was, now recant? Since 4.1 actually had a "Project butter" effort to speed up the graphics and it STILL took a 12 core graphics processor to make it fast, this tells me that the ICS gui has serious problems.

 

I'll go in a different direction. Will the Android users now actually buy something? They were not buying any other tablets in any appreciable quantities. Will this awesome(tracking) device finally get them to actually buy an Android tablet as opposed to just saying how great it is?

This is going to hurt Samesung more than Amazon or Apple.  Google just killed the profit margin on all Android tablets, not that there is any profit in selling Android tablets as no one buys them.  But in terms of potential profit, there will not be any with the ceiling set at $199 by this device + the kindle.  Amazon, unlike Samesung, has content and e-commerce to back up the Kindle.

 

I always assumed that the release of OS X after Lion would be called:  ChessyCat 

 

In a size that definitely is saying "carry me everywhere" not offering a data receiver (3G or 4G) seems a critical omission.

Wow, 12-core GPU. Not that it's gonna prevent the Garbage Collection form stalling your game or anything...

Asus quality has traditionally been top notch. I doubt that's going to change with this tablet.

Google Nexus 7 is a nice media tablet but not large enough for content creation like Apple iPad. Why would anyone buy this when according to the Android pundits that post here people are flocking to the Samsung Galaxy Note?

Are they really using the quad-core Tegra 3 CPU with dodeca-core PowerVR SGX540 GPU?
No 3G or 4G data options?
No rear-facing camera?
No HDMI output? Sacrilege according to the Android pundits that post here.
No MicroSD slot? Sacrilege according to the Android pundits that post here.

The Google Nexus 7 promotional video looks like they swapped Google employees for Apple employees. Literally seems like they stole the concept and perhaps even the script from Apple.

How is Google supposed to track your every move without 3G/4G or is the 3G/4G connection just paid for by Google, on all the time and unusable for any content other than Google tracking?

 

All the fanatics went out and bought Android 3.x tablets as well and came on these boards and proclaimed that Apple and the iPad would be a niche device by the end of the year. How did that work out?

 

Sorry, I don't see Android tablets taking off ever. Android is largely seen by consumers as a mobile phone OS. Actually, I'll go one step further than that, a large majority of people who buy Android based phones are just buying phones, they don't care about the OS and probably never will. Android is not "winning" some OS war, it's merely a default on crappy phones that disinterested consumers purchase as a low entry point.

 

Google's Android as a platform is basically being propped up by fanboys. To date, no one else is supporting this platform.

I'm convinced that with the right CEO some of the Apple fans can be convinced to run Jihad against anyone who likes another platform.

Where are all of the idiot Fandroids whining about no Flash? I read that Jellybean won't have flash. If that's true, then where are the idiot Fandroids?

 

I guess that flash is no longer important, all of a sudden. 

 

Easily, because it's a waste of money unless you're into not-quite-competitive apps, screens that lack the resolution to want to read & surf on, and are too small for a tablet and too big for a pocket. Otherwise I'd be all over it.

 

And BTW, this one is the iPad killer! :P

 

It's like Microsoft backstabbing their OEMs. But the current strategies aren't working for either company, so some flailing is to be expected.

And every Android manufacturer just said "oh shit"

 

Between Amazon and Google, with their subsidized tablets, there is no money left to be made selling hardware with Android. Amazon and Google can expect to make up the money on the backend through media, search and apps. The hardware makers don't have that luxury or infrastructure. This is exactly why Samsung is trying their own cloud initiatives, but it is too little, too late. There are maybe 4 or 5 companies that have the scale, infrastructure and money to sell millions of tablets at a loss and expect to make the money on the backend. Amazon and Google are two and are trying it now. Apple is another, but doesn't need to take a bath on the hardware. MS is another but it seems like they will try instead to make a moderate margin on the hardware; we'll have to wait and see how that works out for them. The only other company I can think of might be Sony and they are too broken and schizophrenic to do it successfully.

 

In the Android community, basically, it is going to come down to whether you are given the Nexus brand for a season or not. If you are, you win for that year, with modest income from google to manufacture the hardware. If not, then you have to seriously consider how long you are willing to burn cash.

Bet it is loaded with revenue generating stuff from Google.  How long till the OS is hacked and can be reloaded with a modified version to remove all the Google revenue addon's??
 

Yes, I've heard the same too. "ICS is smooth!" well maybe compared to older Android version, but when I got my G-Nex for work I thought it was laggy compared to my 4S. So maybe they fixed the GUI thread problem, and threw hardware at it to make it up to par with the 4S/new iPad.

 

 

Android's garbage collection is quite bad, I mean, if it worked properly, it would have thrown itself out by now.

If Jelly Bean is really smooth as they say (that was the main critic to android), it will objectively blow iOS6 out of the water. What single feature iOS has that this has not?

Several of the cat names are basically the same cat.  Jaguars are just a different kind of Leopard etc.

 

The minute they included Snow Leopard it was obvious that they aren't going by taxonomy but by popular names.  

You you are comparing the hypothetical improvements of an unreleased OS to the unknown improvements of an unreleased OS?

 

Good luck.

 

• A real and usable ecosystem
• Synergy between platforms.
• An upgrade path for the OS on a REGULAR basis.
• A company that will support it in the future even after a newer model is released.
• etc
• etc

Likewise, what does Android 4.1 Jelly Bean have that iOS 6 Sundance doesn't have? There really is quite a bit of feature parity at this point. The difference between the two operating systems is weighing the value of customization versus the value of an ecosystem, power efficiency, privacy and security as well as software updates.

I should add that customization for Apple iPhone isn't as bad as Android pundits would have you believe. Similarly, Google Play (the ecosystem) isn't as bad as Apple pundits would have you believe. As far as power efficiency and software updates there are a few Android-based smartphones that are competitive with the iPhone the only problem for the average consumer is knowing which.

Privacy and Security are concerns for both platforms with Apple having a massive advantage. With the Privacy Settings in iOS 6, Apple has shown their allegiance to customers rather than developers in regards to privacy and security.
Edited by MacBook Pro - 6/27/12 at 12:38pm

But wait, have these competitors given up on trying to match the new iPads resolution of 2015x1536? All these non retina android tablets don't seem very compelling to me.

 

GPU core identification has become meaningless.  For all intents and purposes it just means it has 12 independent floating point stages, which is pretty pathetic when stated that way.  They are still mostly linearly placed in hardware so it's not like you can get 12x parallelization over and above what a GPU already does.

That should be, in a general sense, Google's hardware mantra! 

 

So understated it hurts.....

Well, I get your point, but it would depend on your App investment.

 

That being said, this looks like a solid offering. Wouldn't surprise me if the iPod touch merges with the rumored 7" iPad.

Truer words have not been spoken.

 

Thwack!!

Not as bad as the next version... Krapsicle.

 

It's been several months since the Fire came out. In semiconductor time that is like a decade.

I'm sure they've got some updates in the pipeline as well. That said the Fire still is a dual processor chip. That isn't exactly a terrible performance option.

These are tempting.

Don't forget that in addition to Apple losing their mind and edge in software interfaces, they've pretty much stopped update a ton of software. When was the last time iMovie, iPhone, Pages, Numbers, etc all had updates?

 

 

Why would anyone choose the iPod touch at this stage? It hasn't been updated since 2010. Let me say that again, September of 2010 was the last time it was updated. Apple needs to get off it's tail and step it up. Google is updating their OS once a year and Apple owners are starting to sound like old farts who wonder why the world moves so fast.

 

People actually want it.

 

You have a pretty low bar then.  Their little white Apple wannabe netbooks that I saw quite a few folks turn into Hackintoshes were six month lifetime break-fests due to low quality fit and plastic.

And Google just stuck a knife into Surface as well - even though it is not available for sale - not even with a date when - and offers little info on specs.  How is MSFT going to handle this?

Hmmm... is there a redundancy there......

 

Hardly the main one. Personally, I find widgets useless. Even MS learned that less with Vista. Next, trying to squeeze a desktop metaphor into a tablet or worse a phone, in my opinion, ranks up there with converging the PC and tablet and phone. 

 

Android is incredibly fragmented and the vendors unreliable with respect to updating Android. Let's see how fast all the tablet models get updated. What is Asus' incentive of updated the transformers. It sold 80k units, so few that they were unwilling to fix the bad GPS. They issued dongles.

 

It goes without saying that tablet apps continue to be a failure. I would *never* use a banking app on Android. In my opinion, it is too risky. Or to put it another way, is the risk of getting a compromised app worth the gain. Not to me.

 

Going back to how smooth it is, they say that each release and each release they still have to fix it. You willing to gamble on this now? I'm not.

 

Resale value. Nuff said.

 

I've said it before, I'm pretty hardcore. I'm a professional development and Android just doesn't appeal to me. Well, to be honest, it appeals to my hardcoredness, but my not my common sense. I'm busy and life is too short to futz around with these devices. I futz around with Windows because it adds to my bottom line. I get paid to write software and if the customers wants Windows, I tolerate Windows.  But when it comes to my devices, that I use for me, I'd rather have something I can use, then pass down to my wife, then kids, etc.

 

That simply isn't Android, in my opinion.

AFAIK Adobe has ended flash support for mobile devices. Maybe seek advice about your growing hatred for users of another OS.

Are you serious? What is the point then? Do you have any hyperlinks where I can read more?

Ahah look at all the fancy words you are using instead of opening your eyes, ecosystem, synergy lol.
Ecocsystem? A google phone is synched and backup to your google account and everything can be access on any computer without a particular program.
An upgrade on regular basis? Android upgrades each year.
Future support? I own a Nexus S and after 2 versions it will also support this (but what about Siri on iPhone 4 mmm)

What about REAL stuff like :
NFC support
Offline dictation
Great maps and navigation
A better notification center than on iOS
A voice search that actually answers your questions with a very good simulated voice

 

You keep using that same iPod Touch argument in iPhone and iPad threads, why?  The point is broken when you talk about anything other than the Touch itself.  

 

How often is iOS updated? Oh, about the same once a year?  Wow, did you even think about that before you posted?