4 ms·

A million more pixels than the iPad 3/4, yet it wastes a bunch of them on those stupid on-screen virtual buttons instead of differentiating with real physical b

by lukifer 14y ago

A million more pixels than the iPad 3/4, yet it wastes a bunch of them on those stupid on-screen virtual buttons instead of differentiating with real physical buttons. Also no micro SD, and it looks like more cheap plastic, just like the Nexus 7. I really want to get on board with a modern Android tablet, but they're not making it easy.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
alanctgardner2 14y ago
Have you actually held a Nexus 7? I was surprised at how little I cared about the plastic casing. Also, physical buttons present something of a slippery slope: realistically, I'd like more buttons than the iPad. About 4 is sufficient (plus power and volume) based on other Android handsets I've owned. But trying to find a non-awkward place to put four hardware buttons would be an exercise in frustration. Especially when you support two orientations.
aviraldg 14y ago
Those "stupid on-screen virtual buttons" are smart * They conserve bevel space and let you have a larger screen overall. * They're only visible when you're using apps that need them. * When you're doing something which needs the whole screen, like playing video, they're hidden giving you a larger usable screen area. * Because they're implemented in software, their behaviour can be changed later and they can also be context sensitive. The non-existent microSD card is just Google's way of trying to get people to use more of their cloud based services (Drive, Play, etc) and has been a "feature" of almost all Nexus devices till date. This is one of the biggest negatives about this device. True, SAMSUNG devices feel like cheap plastic, but the same cheap plastic becomes very helpful when you drop your device: I've dropped my cheap plastic Galaxy Note several times with nary a scratch on the thing, but a friend's iPhone's cover shattered with a single drop.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  What on Earth do people put on their SD cards? I use Subsonic, I give it the whole phone as a cache storage and I stream my music over 4G. Anytime I don't have internet, I have 16GB of music at my finger tips. Unless you're out of Internet range for days at a time, I don't understand the need for over 16GB of local storage. I don't know what people are talking about when they talk about build quality anymore. My Droid 1 was TOUGH. I dropped it repeatedly and it never broke and it held up for 3 years. But even when it was new, they were inconsistent. The sliding action was different, the button quality varied from one to the next, but it was heralded as tough and "feels good". On the other hand, my Galaxy Nexus has no flaws and has been dropped just as hard (I slung it out of my hand across a concrete parking lot once on accident) and has never had a case on it and is in pristine condition.
  - aviraldg 14y ago
    Well, I guess it also depends upon "where" on Earth people put stuff on their SD cards. The (mobile data) speeds I get here (in India), even on 3G aren't good enough for streaming video. Keeping that in mind 16G isn't too much.
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      My apologies. I think of my comtemporary peers' mocking of my phone when I hear others make the argument and forget that circumstances may vary. I can see why swappable storage would be valuable, especially in places where an Android phone may be a more primary computing device. I know it's still a compromise, but that all having been said, the Galaxy Nexus can be a USB host device so you could use a reader or a jump drive or other USB devices (mice/keyboards/etc)
roc 14y ago
> "A million more pixels than the iPad 3/4" I know it's something of a running joke that people like to see escalating numbers on spec sheets, regardless of what they mean in objective reality. But in this particular case it strikes me as particularly silly. The entire trumped-up definition of the "Retina" classification is based on the idea that the human eye literally can not distinguish individual pixels beyond a given threshold (at a given distance). Striving to go beyond that limit is... quite an interesting endeavor. Not only does it sound particularly pointless, but actually self-defeating as it would seemingly only add busywork to the GPU. * For most people, natch. I'm sure the discussions of devices at "higher than retina" resolutions will fill up with people claiming better than 20/20 vision, or uniquely short arms, or whatever.
- Evbn 14y ago
  It turns out that Steve Jobs was not in fact an opthamalogist.
- anonymouz 14y ago
  > For most people, natch. I'm sure the discussions of devices at "higher than retina" resolutions will fill up with people claiming better than 20/20 vision, or uniquely short arms, or whatever. I wonder, will we soon see a group of "visiophiles" (visual-philes? videophiles?) emerge to take their rightful place besides the audiophiles?
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  So there is an interesting bit you're overlooking perhaps, which is 'gamut'. The additional pixel density can be exploited to provide "pixels" which have more subtle variations in color. In color printing the printer is capable of some number of dots per inch, but there is another number (sometimes called the 'screen resolution' as a kick back to the silkscreen printing process) where the color gamut peaks (the maximum number of different colors the printer can print). Generally screen gamut in 'sub-retina' displays is fixed by the ability of the electronics to modulate the component colors, but with additional pixels you can 'squeeze out' more colors by using a group of four, or nine, pixels that are colored to simulate a single pixel. Not a huge deal yet, but no doubt it will become one with '4x' and '8x' oversampled displays.
darklajid 14y ago
I love my Nexus 7. The build quality is phenomenal and then rubbery feeling on the back is great. About the only thing I'm missing is the ability to insert a SIM card in this model and the 10 inch update seems to have the same limitation.

by lukifer 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

alanctgardner2 14y ago

Have you actually held a Nexus 7? I was surprised at how little I cared about the plastic casing. Also, physical buttons present something of a slippery slope: realistically, I'd like more buttons than the iPad. About 4 is sufficient (plus power and volume) based on other Android handsets I've owned. But trying to find a non-awkward place to put four hardware buttons would be an exercise in frustration. Especially when you support two orientations.

aviraldg 14y ago

Those "stupid on-screen virtual buttons" are smart * They conserve bevel space and let you have a larger screen overall. * They're only visible when you're using apps that need them. * When you're doing something which needs the whole screen, like playing video, they're hidden giving you a larger usable screen area. * Because they're implemented in software, their behaviour can be changed later and they can also be context sensitive. The non-existent microSD card is just Google's way of trying to get people to use more of their cloud based services (Drive, Play, etc) and has been a "feature" of almost all Nexus devices till date. This is one of the biggest negatives about this device. True, SAMSUNG devices feel like cheap plastic, but the same cheap plastic becomes very helpful when you drop your device: I've dropped my cheap plastic Galaxy Note several times with nary a scratch on the thing, but a friend's iPhone's cover shattered with a single drop.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
What on Earth do people put on their SD cards? I use Subsonic, I give it the whole phone as a cache storage and I stream my music over 4G. Anytime I don't have internet, I have 16GB of music at my finger tips. Unless you're out of Internet range for days at a time, I don't understand the need for over 16GB of local storage. I don't know what people are talking about when they talk about build quality anymore. My Droid 1 was TOUGH. I dropped it repeatedly and it never broke and it held up for 3 years. But even when it was new, they were inconsistent. The sliding action was different, the button quality varied from one to the next, but it was heralded as tough and "feels good". On the other hand, my Galaxy Nexus has no flaws and has been dropped just as hard (I slung it out of my hand across a concrete parking lot once on accident) and has never had a case on it and is in pristine condition.
- aviraldg 14y ago
  Well, I guess it also depends upon "where" on Earth people put stuff on their SD cards. The (mobile data) speeds I get here (in India), even on 3G aren't good enough for streaming video. Keeping that in mind 16G isn't too much.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    My apologies. I think of my comtemporary peers' mocking of my phone when I hear others make the argument and forget that circumstances may vary. I can see why swappable storage would be valuable, especially in places where an Android phone may be a more primary computing device. I know it's still a compromise, but that all having been said, the Galaxy Nexus can be a USB host device so you could use a reader or a jump drive or other USB devices (mice/keyboards/etc)

roc 14y ago

> "A million more pixels than the iPad 3/4" I know it's something of a running joke that people like to see escalating numbers on spec sheets, regardless of what they mean in objective reality. But in this particular case it strikes me as particularly silly. The entire trumped-up definition of the "Retina" classification is based on the idea that the human eye literally can not distinguish individual pixels beyond a given threshold (at a given distance). Striving to go beyond that limit is... quite an interesting endeavor. Not only does it sound particularly pointless, but actually self-defeating as it would seemingly only add busywork to the GPU. * For most people, natch. I'm sure the discussions of devices at "higher than retina" resolutions will fill up with people claiming better than 20/20 vision, or uniquely short arms, or whatever.

Evbn 14y ago
It turns out that Steve Jobs was not in fact an opthamalogist.
anonymouz 14y ago
> For most people, natch. I'm sure the discussions of devices at "higher than retina" resolutions will fill up with people claiming better than 20/20 vision, or uniquely short arms, or whatever. I wonder, will we soon see a group of "visiophiles" (visual-philes? videophiles?) emerge to take their rightful place besides the audiophiles?
ChuckMcM 14y ago
So there is an interesting bit you're overlooking perhaps, which is 'gamut'. The additional pixel density can be exploited to provide "pixels" which have more subtle variations in color. In color printing the printer is capable of some number of dots per inch, but there is another number (sometimes called the 'screen resolution' as a kick back to the silkscreen printing process) where the color gamut peaks (the maximum number of different colors the printer can print). Generally screen gamut in 'sub-retina' displays is fixed by the ability of the electronics to modulate the component colors, but with additional pixels you can 'squeeze out' more colors by using a group of four, or nine, pixels that are colored to simulate a single pixel. Not a huge deal yet, but no doubt it will become one with '4x' and '8x' oversampled displays.

darklajid 14y ago

I love my Nexus 7. The build quality is phenomenal and then rubbery feeling on the back is great. About the only thing I'm missing is the ability to insert a SIM card in this model and the 10 inch update seems to have the same limitation.