Nexus 7 2013 Review

What’s up yall, My name is Josh McMurdo and I am a tech nerd just like yall. I work as a Tablet sales associate at Best Buy in my home state of Georgia, so I apologize for  my over use of the word yall.

I love technology and want to share my opinions with the world, so here it goes.I plan on mostly doing tablet reviews and other fun techie/ nerdy things that I find interesting. My reviews will be made into 3 parts:

1. Hardware

2. Display

3. Software

I just recently bought a 2013 Nexus 7 from Best Buy. And have had about 3 months to use and play with this device and I have to say that this is the best tablet That I have used thus far. To give a brief history of the tablets that I have used, I first started on the Acer Iconia a500 (ouch)

Then after my HUGE mastiff stepped on the screen, I moved to the Asus Transformer Prime(loved it). I had that for about a year and a half, and the decided to get something smaller and got my self the N7 2013.

The Hardware:

This tablet packs a beast of a processor in the Snapdragon s4pro quad core processor,this is coupled with the Adreno 320 GPU. These may seem like last year specs, but with vanilla android it is a very fast, fluid and smooth experience. It also features some handy bezels on the top and bottom of the device. This allows the user to have a comfortable grip when using the Nexus 7 in landscape view while playing games and watching movies. There is a soft touch back that is very grippy and easy to hold. Over all this tablet is the best feeling tablet to hold in one hand. There is a 5mp camera on the back of this tablet. That is all i will say on the camera, as I am a firm believer that tablets should never have cameras on the back for two reasons. One, they are too big to hold comfortably while taking shots, two the camera on a smartphone is undoubtedly better than the camera on a tablet. The only thing that I would love to see on this tablet that is missing is an sd card slot. Although I do understand Google’s reason for not including the slot, I do love to put digital copies of my movies on my tablet and 32gbs does go fast when most movies run between 5-6 gbs for full HD. The hardware of this tablet is top notch in the tablet market. I would say that there is not a single 7” tablet that can compete with the processing package. The build quality is bar none the best I have seen in this form factor.

         The Display

The next thing that I want to talk about is the display. The display is a 1900x1200 FHD IPS display. This is great for gaming and watching movies and reading books. The quality is top notch and I give props to Asus for it. The touch screen is very responsive and powered by the snapdragon s4 pro it flies through any touch based tasks that you require. I do however have one complaint about the display and this is the outdoor brightness. My HTC One (m8) is much brighter in direct sunlight than this tablet is. I love to sit in the hammock and read a book and it can be difficult to do so with this tablet.  All in all though this display is very good and will leave you happy with the quality, movies are stunning and text is sharp and crisp.

The Software

Finally onto the software side of things. This tablet is running stock Android 4.4 Kitkat,with no OEM skins on top of it. This is a great software package that is more a blank slate than a final product. What I mean by that is compared to Samsung’s Touchwiz or HTC’s Sense 6.0, this version does not have as many features but performs much faster than the other software packages. This can easily be remedied though through apps like tasker or and complete custom ROMs. The developer support for this tablet is expansive and ever growing. The vanilla version though has a lot to offer the user. Access to the full Google app suite, including the Google Now Launcher, as well as a debloated android. I love using custom launchers to completely customize the user interface, and the software handles all launchers beautifully. The one thing that is actually good about Touchwiz on tablets is the ability to run two apps side by side. I do wish that the Nexus 7 had this capability, it would help with productivity while trying to research something on the go. The other feature that I would add in is a full news aggregator like Blinkfeed, or My Magazine. Google is starting to do this with Google now, but needs to have more sources and the ability to add personal sources.

Conclusion

The Nexus 7(2013) is quite possibly the best 7” tablet on the market right now. This tablet is truly designed for media consumption. The hardware and build quality is unmatched, with the soft touch back and the attention to detail with the bezels. There is no 7” tablet that can match the processing package in this tablet. This tablet has a beautiful 1080p display that is great for watching movies, reading books and playing games. The software on this tablet is a stock experience that is lacking in some features, but allows for a blank slate for the user to pick and choose what they want to do with the device. This is a great buy for the user that wants to watch media, game on it, or use it as a simple browser. Or the uber nerd that loves Roming devices, What do yall think of the tablet?