*Tim Howell is back with us offering a follow up to his first thoughts on the Nexus 7. Now that he has lived with Google’s new tablet for a while, below are his findings. I thank him for sharing, and hope he will be a regular contributor here on MisguidedGeek.
Nexus 7 Follow Up: Thoughts after the first week
Here is a list of some cool features I have found after a week with my
Nexus 7, as well as some solutions and updates on some of the issues I
found in my first look.
Cool Features I have found:
• Screenshots
The Nexus 7 allows you to capture screenshots with the press of two of
the side buttons (power and volume down). Choosing those two buttons
make it difficult to accidentally capture your screen, but easy enough
that you can do it quickly.
• Creating folders for apps
One of the features I always envied in the “iphamily” was the ability
to condense similar apps into a folder together. The Nexus 7 allows
you to do that! You simple hold an app and place it on top of another
and it will create a folder for them, which you can then name.
• Google Drive
I was unaware that GoogeDocs had become a part of a new service called
GoogleDrive. Google Drive is a cloud based drive for you to store any
documents. While the Google Drive does not work offline, it does allow
you to create any sort of document while you are online. Most people
don’t think of a tablet when wanting to create documents, but as I am
sans PC at the moment, it is perfect for creating short documents or
spreadsheets.
Solutions to Early Concerns:
• Downloading the Amzon App store
One of the issues I had earlier with my tablet was the lack of the
Amazon Appstore. Well through some playing, I found that you can go to
Amazon.com, and have them send you the link to download the appstore
app. All you have to do is access the e-mail they send from the tablet
and you can download the app that way. I think Google made it harder
to get to the appstore so that you would stick with Google Play, but
they didn’t make it impossible.
• Limited space is not an issue so far
Another concern I had about the Nexus 7 was its very limited space. I
purchased the 16G version, but was still worried that I would use up
the memory very quickly. Well I have downloaded apps, music, books,
and videos, and have used up very little of the hard drive. The cloud
seems to be more effective than I anticipated at holding all of my
data and allowing me access it quickly.
• No Camera app
You have to download the Instagram app or Camera Quick Launch App to access the camera. However, since the only camera is a front facing, low-quality camera, it is rarely used.
Still a Problem
• No HBOGO or TUMBLR
So far the biggest draw back to the Nexus 7 is the lack of apps. Most
of my apps have made the transition with no problem (albeit some of
them are just expanded versions of the phone apps). Two of my favorite
apps are not currently compatible with the Nexus 7. Those two being
HBOGO and Tumblr. I’m still certain that these will be coming soon, as
well as more advanced versions of other apps, i.e. Facebook and
Twitter.
-Tim Howell
Tim’s blog “The Side Effects of Boredom” covers a variety of topics, from sports and movies to comedy and high nerdity.
