4 ms·

Pretty boring spec increase. If they were an OEM they'd have to try to distinguish themselves, but it isn't life or death for them, so I suppose a boring entry

by lnanek2 13y ago

Pretty boring spec increase. If they were an OEM they'd have to try to distinguish themselves, but it isn't life or death for them, so I suppose a boring entry is par for the course. They aren't even keeping pace with Samsung's IR camera gesture support or HTC's all metal body and TV remote capability we're seeing on phones.

morsch 13y ago
Well, boring as in extremely high specs for a very low price. I don't really need more distinguishment than that.
- aroch 13y ago
  It's using last year's SoC, basically a two year old GPU and it still has a paltry amount of RAM (They count all the RAM, including CPU and GPU buffers). Still, this is a better showing of "cheap but good" than the original N7...I'm rather disappointed in mine and it's been relegated to being the Jukebox in my house
  - morsch 13y ago
    Is there anything with better bang/buck available? I must admit I haven't really looked since the Nexus 7 always seemed extraordinary in that regard. Same for the Nexus 4. Maybe I'm victim to some new kind of RDF.
    - happycube 13y ago
      Arguably the Nook HD+, which is at this moment $139 new on eBay. Downside is it's a bit of an orphan already, and the hardware is quite a bit older.
      - tomkarlo 13y ago
        At this point, that's basically a closeout price. It's been out of production for a while. http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/barnes-noble-discontinues-nook-hd/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/barnes-noble-discontinue...
      - _delirium 13y ago
        I was tempted by the Nook HD or HD+ clearance pricing, but apart from being generally older hardware, the lack of GPS and lack of a camera make it not worth the ~$60 savings to me. Those may not matter if you use the tablet only as a reading/gaming device though.
  - corresation 13y ago
    It has largely the same SoC and GPU as the just-released-to-great-acclaim international Galaxy S4 (running at a slightly slower clockspeed in the Nexus 7 2013). As to the RAM being "paltry", compared to what? A desktop? There is no non-Intel tablet that I know of with more RAM. And of course it's shared memory, as it is on every comparable device -- again, are you comparing this with Haswell laptops or something? The Nexus tablet is a very inexpensive device (as is the Nexus 4, for that matter). It is not intended to push any boundaries, but is to bring the advantages that other, much more expensive products brought to market to the low-end. Apparently great screen, very decent SoC, dual cameras...$229. Yeah, it's a pretty good entrant. I've been quite disappointed in my Nexus 7s as well, though half of that I attribute to nvidia -- they are the kings of overpromising and underdelivering. It also has suffered the well known flash degradation, and hopefully Asus/Google have learned something from that debacle.
pogden 13y ago
OEMs trying to "distinguish themselves" is what gave us crapware on the PC and buggy UI overlays on tablets and phones. 40% of android devices online today are stuck on 2.3 because some OEM was "trying to distinguish themselves" with fancy animations but can't be assed to update any of it today, when they have a new gimmick to sell you. I'd rather take solid hardware at a great price and know I'll get updates for the next two years.
Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
Selling stuff on the specs is a bit 2005. Part of the reasons I moved away from Windows was I was bored of machines with higher and higher specs getting no faster in any way that mattered to me as the OS kept sucking the extra resource. Other than the storage capacity (and even then I want to know what's usable cough Surface cough not what's on the hardware) just tell me what I can do with it and make it work well, the rest is frankly marketing bullshit.

by lnanek2 13y ago

morsch 13y ago

Well, boring as in extremely high specs for a very low price. I don't really need more distinguishment than that.

aroch 13y ago
It's using last year's SoC, basically a two year old GPU and it still has a paltry amount of RAM (They count all the RAM, including CPU and GPU buffers). Still, this is a better showing of "cheap but good" than the original N7...I'm rather disappointed in mine and it's been relegated to being the Jukebox in my house
- morsch 13y ago
  Is there anything with better bang/buck available? I must admit I haven't really looked since the Nexus 7 always seemed extraordinary in that regard. Same for the Nexus 4. Maybe I'm victim to some new kind of RDF.
  - happycube 13y ago
    Arguably the Nook HD+, which is at this moment $139 new on eBay. Downside is it's a bit of an orphan already, and the hardware is quite a bit older.
    - tomkarlo 13y ago
      At this point, that's basically a closeout price. It's been out of production for a while. http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/barnes-noble-discontinues-nook-hd/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/barnes-noble-discontinue...
    - _delirium 13y ago
      I was tempted by the Nook HD or HD+ clearance pricing, but apart from being generally older hardware, the lack of GPS and lack of a camera make it not worth the ~$60 savings to me. Those may not matter if you use the tablet only as a reading/gaming device though.
- corresation 13y ago
  It has largely the same SoC and GPU as the just-released-to-great-acclaim international Galaxy S4 (running at a slightly slower clockspeed in the Nexus 7 2013). As to the RAM being "paltry", compared to what? A desktop? There is no non-Intel tablet that I know of with more RAM. And of course it's shared memory, as it is on every comparable device -- again, are you comparing this with Haswell laptops or something? The Nexus tablet is a very inexpensive device (as is the Nexus 4, for that matter). It is not intended to push any boundaries, but is to bring the advantages that other, much more expensive products brought to market to the low-end. Apparently great screen, very decent SoC, dual cameras...$229. Yeah, it's a pretty good entrant. I've been quite disappointed in my Nexus 7s as well, though half of that I attribute to nvidia -- they are the kings of overpromising and underdelivering. It also has suffered the well known flash degradation, and hopefully Asus/Google have learned something from that debacle.

pogden 13y ago

OEMs trying to "distinguish themselves" is what gave us crapware on the PC and buggy UI overlays on tablets and phones. 40% of android devices online today are stuck on 2.3 because some OEM was "trying to distinguish themselves" with fancy animations but can't be assed to update any of it today, when they have a new gimmick to sell you. I'd rather take solid hardware at a great price and know I'll get updates for the next two years.

Tyrannosaurs 13y ago

Selling stuff on the specs is a bit 2005. Part of the reasons I moved away from Windows was I was bored of machines with higher and higher specs getting no faster in any way that mattered to me as the OS kept sucking the extra resource. Other than the storage capacity (and even then I want to know what's usable cough Surface cough not what's on the hardware) just tell me what I can do with it and make it work well, the rest is frankly marketing bullshit.