5 ms·

The 7" form factor: big enough to be a pain in the ass to carry and small enough to be useless for most tablet stuff anyway. In my opinion, a mobile device sho

by awolf 14y ago

The 7" form factor: big enough to be a pain in the ass to carry and small enough to be useless for most tablet stuff anyway. In my opinion, a mobile device should have a keyboard big enough for me to type using ten fingers, or it should fit in my pocket. Using something in between baffles me.

objclxt 14y ago
It's a Kindle Fire competitor. Without doubt. Having played with one at one of the IO Extended events today, and given the massive emphasis on the play store and video/audio/written content being made available Google are definitely making a play for Kindle territory here. Like you, I'm pretty ambivalent on the 7" format, but that isn't stopping people from buying Kindle Fires...
- falcolas 14y ago
  I'm a Kindle Fire and an iPad owner, and I love my Fire. It's large enough to read on comfortably, and about the weight of a similarly sized high quality book, meaning that it is light enough to handle for a long time without trouble. It carries by hand very easily, and just doesn't get in my way. The iPad (v3, btw), in contrast, is bulky and heavy to carry around and hold. The keyboard still isn't big enough to touch type on comfortably, and I am not able to produce content on it with a reasonable speed (after 1mo of use, I gave it to my wife). When I need to create, I usually ended up using my notebook computer, due to the size limitations and difficulty of using the keyboard while holding the device anyways. In the end, the Fire is the perfect size for portable media consumption, and the addition of an unlocked (and high quality) operating system makes this new offering by Google a no brainer for me.
  - awolf 14y ago
    >The keyboard still isn't big enough to touch type on comfortably The iPad virtual keyboard is the same size as the keyboards on all MacBooks. Size is not why you're unable to type fast on the iPad.
drzaiusapelord 14y ago
Agreed. I had a color nook before my transformer and the difference is night and day. The 7" is essentially a super ebook reader. Its useless for comics, magazines, non-mobile web, tv/movies, etc. My phone is almost 5". Not sure why I need a non-4G device that is merely 2" larger. I suspect google knows it can't reach that nice price point with a 10" screen and knows the 7" market is ripe for stealing from Amazon. Its sad that its conceded the 10" market. I'd love a $299 10" google tablet to replace my aging Transformer. The really awful part of this situation is that perhaps Google is ashamed at the lack of apps that can make use of a 10" screen. A lot of my apps are simply phone apps that look terrible on my tablet. Its a shame there's no real pricing on the MS Surface yet. I could really see myself with one of those if they're $499 or less. I'd rather spend $499 on a super tablet than $199 on a media consumption device with little storage and not a lot of ports. Google is gunning for the Fire/Kindle crowd here and I think its going to work. I prefer reading on an LCD where I can control the color scheme and where I can dip into using a proper browser now and again. e-ink is more than a bit over-rated and the Fire is just poorly engineered.
morsch 14y ago
I think that's a valid position to take, but people have different needs. Another person might say a mobile device should be big enough to let them use the non-mobile version of the web, or it should fit in their pocket. Or it should be light-weight# enough to comfortably hold in one hand for extended amounts of time, or it should fit in their pocket. I think typing with ten fingers and the overall typing experience is surprisingly unimportant for many people. # People have widely reported fatigue with the iPad (e.g. Ars). I don't know that the Google 7" device is any lighter, but I assume it is the case.

by awolf 14y ago

objclxt 14y ago

It's a Kindle Fire competitor. Without doubt. Having played with one at one of the IO Extended events today, and given the massive emphasis on the play store and video/audio/written content being made available Google are definitely making a play for Kindle territory here. Like you, I'm pretty ambivalent on the 7" format, but that isn't stopping people from buying Kindle Fires...

falcolas 14y ago
I'm a Kindle Fire and an iPad owner, and I love my Fire. It's large enough to read on comfortably, and about the weight of a similarly sized high quality book, meaning that it is light enough to handle for a long time without trouble. It carries by hand very easily, and just doesn't get in my way. The iPad (v3, btw), in contrast, is bulky and heavy to carry around and hold. The keyboard still isn't big enough to touch type on comfortably, and I am not able to produce content on it with a reasonable speed (after 1mo of use, I gave it to my wife). When I need to create, I usually ended up using my notebook computer, due to the size limitations and difficulty of using the keyboard while holding the device anyways. In the end, the Fire is the perfect size for portable media consumption, and the addition of an unlocked (and high quality) operating system makes this new offering by Google a no brainer for me.
- awolf 14y ago
  >The keyboard still isn't big enough to touch type on comfortably The iPad virtual keyboard is the same size as the keyboards on all MacBooks. Size is not why you're unable to type fast on the iPad.

drzaiusapelord 14y ago

Agreed. I had a color nook before my transformer and the difference is night and day. The 7" is essentially a super ebook reader. Its useless for comics, magazines, non-mobile web, tv/movies, etc. My phone is almost 5". Not sure why I need a non-4G device that is merely 2" larger. I suspect google knows it can't reach that nice price point with a 10" screen and knows the 7" market is ripe for stealing from Amazon. Its sad that its conceded the 10" market. I'd love a $299 10" google tablet to replace my aging Transformer. The really awful part of this situation is that perhaps Google is ashamed at the lack of apps that can make use of a 10" screen. A lot of my apps are simply phone apps that look terrible on my tablet. Its a shame there's no real pricing on the MS Surface yet. I could really see myself with one of those if they're $499 or less. I'd rather spend $499 on a super tablet than $199 on a media consumption device with little storage and not a lot of ports. Google is gunning for the Fire/Kindle crowd here and I think its going to work. I prefer reading on an LCD where I can control the color scheme and where I can dip into using a proper browser now and again. e-ink is more than a bit over-rated and the Fire is just poorly engineered.

morsch 14y ago

I think that's a valid position to take, but people have different needs. Another person might say a mobile device should be big enough to let them use the non-mobile version of the web, or it should fit in their pocket. Or it should be light-weight# enough to comfortably hold in one hand for extended amounts of time, or it should fit in their pocket. I think typing with ten fingers and the overall typing experience is surprisingly unimportant for many people. # People have widely reported fatigue with the iPad (e.g. Ars). I don't know that the Google 7" device is any lighter, but I assume it is the case.