Google Announces the Nexus 7"

[Marseille]

Sadly, Asus says it has no plans to make that other Transformer accessory, a keyboard dock, available for the Nexus 7. It’s understandable, really, as Google’s new tablet is about media consumption rather than work or endless email communication. Also, the smaller dimensions of the Nexus 7 would make a similarly mini physical keyboard, far less usable than one approaching full-size.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/...#ixzz1zED3egZJ

Why do tech writers have to be so dense? Can someone show me in the laws of whatever where it says that an accessory to a device can't be bigger than it is? Why can't you make a 93% keyboard, add in speakers to the empty bezel space, and just be happy? This would make a fantastic netbook replacement in a world where people weren't so limited in their imagination and so eager to make excuses for each other's limited imaginations. We could fire every tech writer out there, even the good ones, replace them with average kindergartners, and still have a net improvement in tech writing.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Fat32 supports disk sizes up to 32gb, not 4gb.

FAT32 supports disk sizes larger than 32GB. It's just Windows that won't let you format drives larger than 32GB using FAT32.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

There is now a Nexus 7 Guidebook (90 pages) available from Google Play...

https://play.google.com/store/books/...UQ0N092Q1lDIl0.

Would you know?
Geo-restricted!

[tacitus]

A lot of interesting discussion on what the Nexus 7 has and should have had on this thread, and it's good to see that most people understand the difference between features that they wanted--for their needs--and those that most people won't miss.

Like most of you, I would have liked to have seen an SD card slot and an HDMI cable, but I fully understand why Google decided not to include them. I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of the millions of Kindle Fire owners haven't come close to filling up their 8GB of storage, and that's the market Google is gunning for with the Nexus 7. (I haven't even used up 3GB on my Nook Color yet, and I've had it for several months.) And it's not true that you can just slap on an extra $20 to include the extra ports. Consumer products at this end of the market are extremely price sensitive, and $20 can mean the difference between success and failure, no matter how good, technically, your product is.

From the reviews that are already out, it's clear why Google chose to spend money of a better display and quality build rather than extra features. Reviewers have all said how nice -- and how much better -- the experience of using the Nexus is compared with the Fire. An SD-card slot, on the other hand, would have gotten a one line bullet point, at most.

I saw one comment saying that the lack of an SD card slot is so 2009. Actually, it's not. In many ways, streaming has already begun to supersede local storage. A few years ago, my nephews and nieces used to carry around hundreds of gigabytes-worth of music files with them. These days, not so much. Most of them are quite content to use streaming services along with cloud storage storing the few tracks they end up buying.

The same is becoming true with videos too. Only the most dedicated of collectors (or pirates) rips and stores terabytes of videos locally these days. The rest are quite content to use Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Google, etc. to stream the stuff they watch. And given that's the type of thing Google is looking to encourage (the more people use the cloud, the better for them), it only makes sense that they don't want to buck the trend.

Of course, ideally the Nexus 7 would be all things to all people, but given the aggressive pricing Google was shooting for, it's not at all surprising that they would leave out the features that the vast majority of users won't even know they are missing.

[Dulin's Books]

very well put.

and we can now look forward to a Nexus10 rumors have alreaady started tha the company supplying the displays for the Nexus 7 has gotten orders for a 10" ish display for a Nexus10 and that the same company has received orders from ACER and someone else for notebook size touch displays for windows 8 computers

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by tacitus

I saw one comment saying that the lack of an SD card slot is so 2009. Actually, it's not. In many ways, streaming has already begun to supersede local storage. A few years ago, my nephews and nieces used to carry around hundreds of gigabytes-worth of music files with them. These days, not so much. Most of them are quite content to use streaming services along with cloud storage storing the few tracks they end up buying.

I have three frivolous and largely uninformed opinions about why Google (Apple and Amazon) dropped the micro SD slot...

1) The lack of storage pushes users into the company's cloud infrastructure. It encourages folks to obtain their music, movies, and etc. from Google. It may also encourage folks to buy cloud storage from Google for non-Google stuff.

2) It makes it less likely that people will root the device. Many people who root the Nook tablet use a micro SD slot. Pull out the card and the device boots to its stock OS.

3) If you find out that your whiz-bang 8gb tablet doesn't cut it, you can't simply go out and buy a 16gb micro SD card for $8.00 (current price on Amazon). You should have spent $50 more and gotten an extra 8gb from us. If 16gb isn't enough, maybe we'll let you buy a $400 32gb tablet from us later on.

[taming]

The Verge seems to like it. Here is the review: http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/29/31...nexus-7-review

[Laridae]

Originally Posted by petermillard

And the UK - yay! I've been pondering a 7-incher for a little while and this may be it. I'm a little surprised there's no 32Gb version though, what with no SD slot, and all.

Too true!
RIM, for example, has stopped selling their Playbook 16Gb version and now only offers a 32 and 64 version.

Conventional wisdom confirms that 32 Gb should be a Minimum if you are planning on storing many movies and songs; especially, as you point out, since there is No external SD slot!

I have the 32 Gb model which I'm happy with, as far as storage goes.

[The Terminator]

Originally Posted by Laridae

Too true!
RIM, for example, has stopped selling their Playbook 16Gb version and now only offers a 32 and 64 version.

Conventional wisdom confirms that 32 Gb should be a Minimum if you are planning on storing many movies and songs; especially, as you point out, since there is No external SD slot!

I have the 32 Gb model which I'm happy with, as far as storage goes.

It's very streaming/cloud oriented, hope faster internet comes here soon.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by tacitus

A lot of interesting discussion on what the Nexus 7 has and should have had on this thread, and it's good to see that most people understand the difference between features that they wanted--for their needs--and those that most people won't miss.

Like most of you, I would have liked to have seen an SD card slot and an HDMI cable, but I fully understand why Google decided not to include them. I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of the millions of Kindle Fire owners haven't come close to filling up their 8GB of storage, and that's the market Google is gunning for with the Nexus 7. (I haven't even used up 3GB on my Nook Color yet, and I've had it for several months.) And it's not true that you can just slap on an extra $20 to include the extra ports. Consumer products at this end of the market are extremely price sensitive, and $20 can mean the difference between success and failure, no matter how good, technically, your product is.

From the reviews that are already out, it's clear why Google chose to spend money of a better display and quality build rather than extra features. Reviewers have all said how nice -- and how much better -- the experience of using the Nexus is compared with the Fire. An SD-card slot, on the other hand, would have gotten a one line bullet point, at most.

I saw one comment saying that the lack of an SD card slot is so 2009. Actually, it's not. In many ways, streaming has already begun to supersede local storage. A few years ago, my nephews and nieces used to carry around hundreds of gigabytes-worth of music files with them. These days, not so much. Most of them are quite content to use streaming services along with cloud storage storing the few tracks they end up buying.

The same is becoming true with videos too. Only the most dedicated of collectors (or pirates) rips and stores terabytes of videos locally these days. The rest are quite content to use Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Google, etc. to stream the stuff they watch. And given that's the type of thing Google is looking to encourage (the more people use the cloud, the better for them), it only makes sense that they don't want to buck the trend.

Of course, ideally the Nexus 7 would be all things to all people, but given the aggressive pricing Google was shooting for, it's not at all surprising that they would leave out the features that the vast majority of users won't even know they are missing.

The cloud is not much good when you are out of WiFi range. If you are at home with your WiFi running, just belly up to your 26" monitor or to your 40plus" TV.

Only in a restaurant is a cloud of much use and I personally have long had Web Storage as have many internet wise folks.

[tacitus]

Originally Posted by Fluribus

I have three frivolous and largely uninformed opinions about why Google (Apple and Amazon) dropped the micro SD slot...

1) The lack of storage pushes users into the company's cloud infrastructure. It encourages folks to obtain their music, movies, and etc. from Google. It may also encourage folks to buy cloud storage from Google for non-Google stuff.

2) It makes it less likely that people will root the device. Many people who root the Nook tablet use a micro SD slot. Pull out the card and the device boots to its stock OS.

3) If you find out that your whiz-bang 8gb tablet doesn't cut it, you can't simply go out and buy a 16gb micro SD card for $8.00 (current price on Amazon). You should have spent $50 more and gotten an extra 8gb from us. If 16gb isn't enough, maybe we'll let you buy a $400 32gb tablet from us later on.

1) Yes, I'm sure Google is banking on users being drawn into using their cloud infrastructure, but that's more to do with their "enhancements" to Google Play (making the default home screen look a lot like the Kindle Fire's). As I mentioned before, the move to the cloud has already begun and really has little to do with Apple/Amazon/Google putting the squeeze on tablet memory.

2) You don't need an SD card to root an Android device, you just need to unlock the bootloader -- which has already been done in the case of the Nexus 7. Either way, given that the N7 is an open system (unlike the Nook and Fire) and already has the latest and greatest version of Android available, then nobody but the most fanatical hackers are going to want to root this device. What's the audience for a Nexus 7 running Ubuntu?

3) I agree that Google/Asus will profit from those who decide to go with the more expensive 16GB model. But given that they are selling what is the essentially a state-of-the-art 7-inch tablet at half-the-price last year's state of the art tablets were selling at, I'm willing to cut them a little slack here. As Apple has already shown with the iPhone and iPad, if the people like the device enough, they are willing to fork out a lot of money for a little extra memory. Yeah, it sucks, but Google is hardly the worst offender here.

I think Google has a lot of tablet manufacturers and retailers scratching their heads at the moment. I was looking at buying a cheap refurbished Acer A100 7-incher recently, but even the cheapest price I found of $169 seems extremely steep in the wake of the Nexus 7 announcement.

I'll probably wait until the end of August to see what the other tablet makers decide to do -- Acer, Asus, and Amazon -- but I will be very surprised if there's anything as good as the N7 for $200 that also comes with an SD-card slot and HDMI.

[David Munch]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

the cost of an sd slot is a fee to microsoft to license the FAT file system on top of the hardware. hence no slot on this device.

I think it is a way to hook people into using Googles ecosystem, ie. Google Drive.

[taming]

I agree with you, David. There is a growing trend to force people into using the cloud for just about everything. Expensive new devices are being built without ports, drives, and connections we are used to, thus narrowing our choices as they attempt (and succeed) in getting us locked into one ecosystem or another.

[David Munch]

I personally couldn't live without Dropbox, and I know of other people that feel the same way.

It is just so convenient to drop a file in, and have it instantly on my work and home Macs, my iPad and my iPhone. I'm just amazed that Apple/Microsoft haven't come up with something as easy to use yet. The beginnings are there, but a long shot from a full implementation, unfortunately.

No wonder Steve Jobs tried to buy Dropbox.

[dredwerker]

Originally Posted by David Munch

I personally couldn't live without Dropbox, and I know of other people that feel the same way.

It is just so convenient to drop a file in, and have it instantly on my work and home Macs, my iPad and my iPhone. I'm just amazed that Apple/Microsoft haven't come up with something as easy to use yet. The beginnings are there, but a long shot from a full implementation, unfortunately.

No wonder Steve Jobs tried to buy Dropbox.

Dropbox is great for documents and a few books but no pro/enthusiastic amateur photographer or video editor is going to be using it for storage.

Again these cloud devices are great whilst you use small files and are always near a good internet connection.

Streaming on a train is just not doable in the main. I just dont get streaming unless you are at home. Even then, some streaming has its moments, as when you are watching a spinning circle in the middle of a tv programme at the good bit