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As an ios user since 08, the nexus7 needs a lot of comparative polish. * The keyboard doesnt always pop up when you're in a text field. * What's the deal with

As an ios user since 08, the nexus7 needs a lot of comparative polish. * The keyboard doesnt always pop up when you're in a text field. * What's the deal with font rendering in Chrome? Some links appear bigger than others (on hackernews and reddit). * Hitting an actual link is like choosing a first square in Minesweeper, sometimes it works, but most of the time it either misfires or opens the enlarge modal. * There seems to be inconsistent feedback that a link was actually tapped in Chrome. * The built-in apps lack any real contrast. * The default google apps only seem to play content from the play store. I cant get the book reader to open anything so I had to try 10 different ebook readers leaving me in a situation of read some here, read some there. Why wouldnt google want it to open epub like ibooks does? * The software home button is very frustrating. Miss the spacebar, Im going to the home screen * Who thought that power + volume down is the best way to take a screenshot? It is very hard to do There are other little things that escape me at the moment. The device is great though, and if I didnt have such a history with ios, id probably think it was the best that could be offered. Luckily for us the gripes that I have seem to be minor in the grad scheme of things. My main advice (to you googlers reading) would be to choose a default setup that is what you guys consider the best of the best and still let the tweekers tweak. Oh and I feel that a small ipad would easily eat the nexus7's lunch

nitrogen 14y ago
Who thought that power + volume down is the best way to take a screenshot? It is very hard to do On a lot of phones, those two buttons are across from each other, so squeezing the phone with two fingers will take a screenshot if those phones support that shortcut.
- Evbn 14y ago
  On flagship phones that is a two handed operation.
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    Not on my Galaxy Nexus, I just tried it.
shardling 14y ago
>What's the deal with font rendering in Chrome? Some links appear bigger than others (on hackernews and reddit). This happens in Firefox as well. They're trying to use an adaptive algorithm to resize text intelligently, making "content" appear larger than nav bars and the like. At least with Firefox, this fails when someone leaves a short comment and the algorithm doesn't recognise it as content. Even if Chrome fails in a different way, they're failing at the same (somewhat hard) problem. Maybe it could fixed by, upon discovering content, ensuring that any similarly styled/classed elements had the same font size?
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  Is there any way to disable that? I already looked it up but didn't find it.
  - shardling 14y ago
    In Firefox, I believe that chaging the about:config setting font.size.inflation.minTwips to 0 might disable it -- that's the setting desktop firefox has. It's possible that tweaking some of the other inflation settings would allow for more pleasant inflation, though.
alanctgardner2 14y ago
> What's the deal with font rendering in Chrome? Some links appear bigger than others (on hackernews and reddit). This is actually a feature, to make it easier to read text when you're zoomed out. As you zoom in it reflows to the proper size. I find it super handy on my Nexus S, not sure how I'd like it on a tablet. Same with the zoom function, I'd rather get the zoom dialog then get dragged to the best guess, or sit there clicking for a million years. Both are innovative features that I was glad to see once I got used to them. > There seems to be inconsistent feedback that a link was actually tapped in Chrome. In general, Chrome on Android isn't a very polished experience. Dropping the old Android Browser for the Nexus 7 was a poor choice, because there are a few bugs like this that crop up. On my older Android tablet, the Browser almost never goes wrong, while Chrome periodically just dies. These are really Chrome problems, and they could be fixed with an update from the market. > Who thought that power + volume down is the best way to take a screenshot? It is very hard to do Different hardware configurations make most physical key-combos a nightmare. On the Toshiba Thrive, those buttons are right next to each other. On the Nexus S, you basically pinch. Apparently it's hard on the Nexus 7. Mostly, I think they haven't given it much thought because it's not very commonly used. > Oh and I feel that a small ipad would easily eat the nexus7's lunch If Apple releases a tablet for the cost of an iPod Nano I'll eat my hat. They don't like to operate on the heavily subsidized, loss-leader model. It would dilute their brand needlessly, while plenty of people would lap up a $400 7" iPad.
vibrunazo 14y ago
> * The software home button is very frustrating. Miss the spacebar, Im going to the home screen I hate this one too. I bought this up on a hangout with Google developers (they do this weekly). And they made it clear they're very aware of the problem and even hinted some possible solutions they've been trying, such as giving the user an option to move the OS bar up. One can only hope.
- Evbn 14y ago
  They should just disable the home button for a half second after any keyboard press, like track pads do.
mayanksinghal 14y ago
> The default google apps only seem to play content from the play store. I have sideloaded PDFs and epub. I don't think this should be an issue. Anyone else with a comment on this? >* The software home button is very frustrating. Miss the spacebar, Im going to the home screen Never had that problem, but long press spacebar and annoying 'Choose input method' dialoug pops up. YMMV > Hitting an actual link is like choosing a first square in Minesweeper, sometimes it works, but most of the time it either misfires or opens the enlarge modal. I have had this issue with my friends iPad as well. May be I was not experienced enough on the platform. You might be avoiding it on iPad owing to its large screen estate and hence larger content.
Caballera 14y ago
"* Who thought that power + volume down is the best way to take a screenshot? It is very hard to do" Ugh I feel the same, it's hard to do without the Phones Volume being displayed on the phone. Then you get a screenshot of what you want and the Phone's Volume level being displayed.
- cdawzrd 14y ago
  Tip: If you are running CyanogenMod (and possibly some other ROMs), you can take a screenshot by long-pressing the power button to bring up the power menu. In CM10 this is optional and can be enabled in settings.

nitrogen 14y ago

Who thought that power + volume down is the best way to take a screenshot? It is very hard to do On a lot of phones, those two buttons are across from each other, so squeezing the phone with two fingers will take a screenshot if those phones support that shortcut.

Evbn 14y ago
On flagship phones that is a two handed operation.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  Not on my Galaxy Nexus, I just tried it.

shardling 14y ago

>What's the deal with font rendering in Chrome? Some links appear bigger than others (on hackernews and reddit). This happens in Firefox as well. They're trying to use an adaptive algorithm to resize text intelligently, making "content" appear larger than nav bars and the like. At least with Firefox, this fails when someone leaves a short comment and the algorithm doesn't recognise it as content. Even if Chrome fails in a different way, they're failing at the same (somewhat hard) problem. Maybe it could fixed by, upon discovering content, ensuring that any similarly styled/classed elements had the same font size?

vibrunazo 14y ago
Is there any way to disable that? I already looked it up but didn't find it.
- shardling 14y ago
  In Firefox, I believe that chaging the about:config setting font.size.inflation.minTwips to 0 might disable it -- that's the setting desktop firefox has. It's possible that tweaking some of the other inflation settings would allow for more pleasant inflation, though.

alanctgardner2 14y ago

> What's the deal with font rendering in Chrome? Some links appear bigger than others (on hackernews and reddit). This is actually a feature, to make it easier to read text when you're zoomed out. As you zoom in it reflows to the proper size. I find it super handy on my Nexus S, not sure how I'd like it on a tablet. Same with the zoom function, I'd rather get the zoom dialog then get dragged to the best guess, or sit there clicking for a million years. Both are innovative features that I was glad to see once I got used to them. > There seems to be inconsistent feedback that a link was actually tapped in Chrome. In general, Chrome on Android isn't a very polished experience. Dropping the old Android Browser for the Nexus 7 was a poor choice, because there are a few bugs like this that crop up. On my older Android tablet, the Browser almost never goes wrong, while Chrome periodically just dies. These are really Chrome problems, and they could be fixed with an update from the market. > Who thought that power + volume down is the best way to take a screenshot? It is very hard to do Different hardware configurations make most physical key-combos a nightmare. On the Toshiba Thrive, those buttons are right next to each other. On the Nexus S, you basically pinch. Apparently it's hard on the Nexus 7. Mostly, I think they haven't given it much thought because it's not very commonly used. > Oh and I feel that a small ipad would easily eat the nexus7's lunch If Apple releases a tablet for the cost of an iPod Nano I'll eat my hat. They don't like to operate on the heavily subsidized, loss-leader model. It would dilute their brand needlessly, while plenty of people would lap up a $400 7" iPad.

vibrunazo 14y ago

> * The software home button is very frustrating. Miss the spacebar, Im going to the home screen I hate this one too. I bought this up on a hangout with Google developers (they do this weekly). And they made it clear they're very aware of the problem and even hinted some possible solutions they've been trying, such as giving the user an option to move the OS bar up. One can only hope.

Evbn 14y ago
They should just disable the home button for a half second after any keyboard press, like track pads do.

mayanksinghal 14y ago

> The default google apps only seem to play content from the play store. I have sideloaded PDFs and epub. I don't think this should be an issue. Anyone else with a comment on this? >* The software home button is very frustrating. Miss the spacebar, Im going to the home screen Never had that problem, but long press spacebar and annoying 'Choose input method' dialoug pops up. YMMV > Hitting an actual link is like choosing a first square in Minesweeper, sometimes it works, but most of the time it either misfires or opens the enlarge modal. I have had this issue with my friends iPad as well. May be I was not experienced enough on the platform. You might be avoiding it on iPad owing to its large screen estate and hence larger content.

Caballera 14y ago

"* Who thought that power + volume down is the best way to take a screenshot? It is very hard to do" Ugh I feel the same, it's hard to do without the Phones Volume being displayed on the phone. Then you get a screenshot of what you want and the Phone's Volume level being displayed.

cdawzrd 14y ago
Tip: If you are running CyanogenMod (and possibly some other ROMs), you can take a screenshot by long-pressing the power button to bring up the power menu. In CM10 this is optional and can be enabled in settings.