The Asus Google Nexus 7 is a collaboration between two world-renowned companies. The powerful hardware platform from Asus and the latest operating system from Google enable the Nexus 7 to compete with Amazon's popular Kindle Fire tablet today.
The names of the brands-manufacturers ASUS and Google, as well as the Nexus logo are displayed on the branded packaging of the device. It is worth noting that the Nexus 7 is the first tablet from Google, before that only smartphones were produced.
The Nexus 7 package includes: a tablet, instructions and a charger with a removable USB / micro-USB cable, which allows you to charge the tablet not only from the mains, but also from a personal computer.
Device case, headset (for example, Asus HS-101) and other accessories are sold separately. The branded case-book (Asus Nexus 7 Travel Cover) is made of soft plastic with a matte surface, but you can purchase a case from a third-party manufacturer, in any case, it will protect the case and screen of the Nexus 7 from drops, damage and dirt.
The slim body (10.5 millimeters) and light weight (about 340 grams) make the Nexus 7 easy to hold with one hand. At the same time, it is much more convenient to hold the tablet in a horizontal position, since the top and bottom of the border are wider than the right and left.
The tablet display is surrounded by a matte strip of silver-colored plastic that looks like iron. The silver bezel makes the tablet both durable and elegant.
The rubberized surface of the back of the Nexus 7 has a dotted texture that is pleasant to the touch and allows you to securely hold the tablet in your hand. Manufacturers specifically tried to make the back of the tablet body tactilely pleasant.
On the back of the tablet there are embossed ASUS and NEXUS logos, there is also an acoustics slot.
On the right side of the device there is a volume rocker and a power button, on the left side there is a four-pin connector for a docking station. All other connectors are located at the bottom of the tablet: standard audio output (3.5 millimeters) and a micro-USB connector. Unfortunately, there is no HDMI output on this tablet.
The double volume key can be used not only for its intended purpose, but also in third-party applications, for example, this key can turn pages while reading books on the tablet.
The front of the Nexus 7 is covered with a protective Corning Fit Glass, which is an improved version of Gorilla Glass. Thanks to the coating, the screen is reliably protected from dirt and damage.
There is not a single hardware or touch button on the front panel and, in addition to the screen itself, there is only a front camera peephole and a light sensor. Thanks to a light sensor, the backlight on the tablet adjusts automatically, but of course you can also manually adjust the backlight brightness.
Screen Nexus 7 is a 7-inch LCD display with IPS-matrix and a resolution of 1280x800 pixels (as in the Galaxy Note). That is, the dot density of the display is 216 per inch. The IPS-matrix provided the tablet screen with good viewing angles and excellent color gamut. ASUS TruVivid technology, used in the Nexus 7 display, makes your tablet display bright and colorful for a comfortable viewing experience even in sunlight.
The highly sensitive capacitive sensor of the Nexus 7 supports up to 10 simultaneous touches.
Nexus 7 runs on the weakest NVIDIA Tegra 3 (T30L) processor, but despite this, even the weak Tegra 3 is a quad-core processor with a clock speed of 1.2 gigahertz, which paired with 1 gigabyte of RAM allows the device to be more than just equal compete with "classmates", but also outstrip most devices.
Thus, the powerful hardware platform of the Nexus 7 allows not only to comfortably read books and surf the web, but also watch videos in high quality, as well as "play" fairly "heavy" games without braking. And this is not surprising, the Nexus 7 was created with the expectation of fans of mobile games.
The built-in memory of the Asus Google Nexus 7 is 8 or 16 gigabytes (depending on the model). There is no memory card slot in this tablet.
The Nexus 7 supports the following wireless connections: Wi-Fi 802.11b / g / n, Bluetooth 3.0, and NFC (for exchanging data between devices located next to each other).In addition, the tablet has a gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer and GPS.
A battery with a capacity of 4325 milliamperes per hour allows the tablet to work for about 8 hours in HD video playback mode (720p) and up to 10 hours when using the tablet as an e-reader (at 50% brightness and Wi-Fi off). The battery is charged for about two hours. The tablet user does not have access to the device's battery because the back cover cannot be opened.
The front camera is the only camera on the tablet, it has a resolution of 1.2 megapixels and is designed for video calls on Skype or Google+.
The Nexus 7 was the first tablet developed with the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system.
Thanks to an Android project called Project Butter, the developers were able to significantly increase system performance in the new version by effectively using the tablet hardware platform. Thus, the interface of the new Android 4.1 is faster and smoother.
From the tablet lock screen, you can quickly navigate to the camera or Google Now app, or you can simply unlock your tablet and go to your desktop. Unfortunately, the fixed utilities (camera and Google Now) on the lock screen cannot be replaced.
In the new version of Android, it became possible to resize widgets on the tablet desktop, in addition, widgets can be automatically rearranged when an especially large widget is brought up on the screen.
The notification panel in Android 4.1 not only notifies about events (for example, about new messages on social networks), but also makes it possible to quickly respond to them, that is, quickly type and send a message or take a screenshot of the screen and instantly send it to a social network. If earlier in all tablets the notification panel was at the bottom, then in this version of the operating system it is located at the top, as in smartphones.
The on-screen keyboard of the tablet is not quite similar to the usual one, because due to the Shift key, the bottom row of the keyboard "left" to the right. On the other hand, there is a normal distance between the keys, which does not make it possible to miss while typing. In the process of typing, the built-in dictionary can suggest the spelling of individual words. The Nexus 7 also features voice text input that does not require an internet connection.
Google Now (Google Assistant) is one of the main innovations of the new operating system update. Google Now can be called an assistant that provides the user with the necessary information based on his location. So, for example, Google Now displays the weather of the region in which the user is located, and the program can also display on the tablet screen the route of interest to the owner, places of interest nearby, aircraft flights, and the like.
You can open Google Now from the tablet lock screen or by pressing the Home button.
In this version of Android, unlike the previous ones, the fast and convenient Google Chrome has become the main browser, the bookmarks and passwords of which can be synchronized with the browser on a personal computer. You can now navigate between open sites in the proprietary Google browser by swiping the screens to the right or left. Up to 15 tabs can be opened in the browser. It's worth noting that Chrome supports the HTML5 standard since Google has ditched Adobe Flash.
In addition to Chrome, the Nexus 7 comes preloaded with other useful apps such as Gmail, Google+, and YouTube.
The Nexus 7 uses regular Google navigation with the ability to save individual parts of the maps for later offline viewing.
An interesting application "Library" allows you to read the latest news from a variety of online periodicals via RSS. As a result, the screen displays bright and rich pages with fresh information.
The built-in application for listening to music has a laconic and boring interface, except for the equalizer with the possibility of manual adjustment of especially interesting functions, the player does not have.
There are no reading programs initially installed in the tablet, but you can always download any program from the Google Play app store, for example, the same CoolReader.
It is better to install a separate player for watching videos, as the capabilities of the built-in video player in the Nexus 7 are rather modest.
From Google Play, you can install the TegraZone app, which helps you find games that are optimized specifically for Tegra devices. The power of a quad-core processor delivers stunningly spectacular graphics and enhanced game animations.
Nexus 7 supports the largest version of the Google Play store, which contains thousands of programs, movies, TV shows, music, as well as a huge collection of books and magazines.
Output. Perhaps the biggest drawback of this tablet is the lack of a memory card slot. But a powerful quad-core processor, high screen resolution and the latest operating system at a reasonably affordable price make the Nexus 7 a successful partnership between the two famous companies Google and ASUS.
