A while back, I had a quick review of my first impressions of Android (recap: I had bought a Nexus 7 primarily to test a website I maintain for that form factor). Being a long fan of Apple and iOS, I was cautious in my review.
At the end of that review, I committed to putting my iPad down, and living with the Nexus-7 day to day to give it a fair shake. Here are some interim observations:
- The display is nice. Sharp, clear, and plenty bright.
- The auto brightness based on ambient light is a bit glitchy. I tend to do a half hour or so of reading every night in bed before I sleep, and the brightness bounces up and down enough to make me crazy.
- The Android Facebook application is crap. Crashes a lot, and clumsy navigation. It is a lot like the iOS app was 6 months ago, but FB got their shit together and made it reasonable. Seems that hasn’t happened on the Android version.
- The system crashes fairly regularly. I haven’t counted how many times, but enough to be bothersome (no, these are restarts to upgrade the firmware).
- Video playback via the Play store, and my Flixter account is quite good. As long as I have a good WiFi signal, and enough bandwidth, it is a great streaming platform.
- The built in Play application for the Google Music is weird. It just seems un-intuitive to navigate and create playlists. To be fair, I am usually happy with the iOS version of iTunes, so it is probably not the device/sw, but me and my expectations.
- Some applications are very susceptible to crashing. FML is one.
- I really like the Play Magazine app. I read Foreign Affairs with it, and I enjoy it. However, the Economist app is not compatible with the Nexus 7 (not a Google problem). Dafuq is up with that?
I am reasonably satisfied with the Nexus 7, but I am not a gamer, and I am not a hacker. I am just using it in the manner which Google made it. (ok, Asus, but Google was responsible for the design and software). Since it was a lot less expensive than the iPad, it is a good value.
But I still like iOS devices better. Probably not going to switch to Android across the board.