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Google's Second Generation Nexus 7 Benchmarks
MojoKid writes "Google's second gen Nexus 7 tablet is a worthy successor to the original, boasting an improved design both internally and externally. It's thinner and lighter, has a faster Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC, 2GB of RAM, a higher resolution 1920X1200 display and it's running the latest Android 4.3 Jelly Bean release. The display alone was a nice upgrade in a 7-inch slate that retails for well under $300. However, it turns out the new Nexus 7 is also one of the fastest tablets out there right now, with benchmark numbers that best some of the top tablets on the market, especially in graphics and gaming. From a price/performance standpoint, Google's second generation Nexus 7 seems to be the tablet to beat right now."
I better buy one quick then
My benchmark: WPM cut in half. Reason: I had to switch back to the on-screen keyboard because just as changes to Bluetooth in Android 4.2 broke support for the Wii Remote, changes to Bluetooth in Android 4.3 broke several popular Bluetooth keyboards, including the ZAGGkeys Flex that I happen to own (source).
I picked one up when I found them in stock at my local $big_box_electronics_retailer. I already have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, which was a cool device when I picked it up.
This thing, however, is a whole other universe. The UI is snappy and responsive and fast. Fastest I've ever seen on any Android device. No lag, no jitter, no stuttering while scrolling. The display is amazing. Everything is sharp. Colors are well defined and look "deep". It packs as many pixels as my 1080p HDTV in to a 7 inch display. (And people say we're not ready for 4k HDTV. Pfff)
Android 4.3 really ups the game. All of my google services migrated over just by logging in. Most of my apps came too, but some bugged. (I suspect they were not compatible)
I liked my galaxy tab. Nice, small, flexible tablet with lots of geeky stuff to do but I had to root it to get rid of the crapware Samsung shovles on to it. That's what I like most about this new nexus. It's a clean out of box experience loaded with core apps that really have a high quality experience. (You know, the Google apps services you're probably going to use regardless. That's really the big appeal here. Don't fool yourself)
Yeah, it's like an ipad in that regard.
No open source driver, you can keep your hardware!
It certain does not excel on the battery life metric.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/08/07/1930208/aosp-maintainer-quits
I was going to buy it... now I won't
If you give a rat's ass about open software, you'd pass up this device which was the cause for the lead of AOSP to quit in disgust, and sign up for the Edge on Indiegogo which promises to be completely unlocked.
No Replaceable Battery
No ROM possible.
Just plain NO.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
and a user replaceable battery? If not, I don't care if it's the greatest device since, ever - they can stick it right up their arse.
Are the benchmark numbers cooked like Samsung does, by allowing the CPU and GPU to run faster when a benchmark program is recognized?
No matter how thin it is, no matter how fast it is, no matter how well the display can be, it is still a tablet
Perhaps some might be oooh and aaah over yet-another-tablet, not me
What I am looking for - especially from tech firms such as Google - is something totally new, something that is revolutionary, not evolutionary
Nowadays all the new smartphone and tablet offerings sound much like new cars - ooooh, model 2014 Buick is so much better than the ones in 2013, with shiny wheels, with more comfy seats, more safety features, it gonna be great, really ?
A 2014 Buick (or Chrysler or Toyota) is a car, just like a 2013 Buick (or Chrysler or Toyota). There's nothing revolutionary anymore in cars, and unfortunately, nor for the smartphones / tablets
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Why oh why
Oh, sure, I only bought my last gen Nexus 7 about a month ago.
Bastards!! ;-)
Oh well, maybe the wife can inherit this one once I decide to splash out on the updated one in a few months or so.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I looked at the benchmarks for 15 secondes before I noticed that:
- iPad used is a 3rd Generation (A5X), and not a iPad 4th Gen (A6)
- iPhone5 use for benchmarks runs iOS 6.0.1, it should run 6.1.4
Run the benchmarks with a full complement of hardware/software combination or it looks like a joke.
The iPad 3 is coming up on 2 years old. The iPad 4 was released last fall, and would be a much better test.
I couldn't reproduce the benchmarks
Jean-Baptiste Quéru's release wouldn't boot on it... something about there not being any GPU support released by Qualcomm.
Google's second generation Nexus 7 seems to be the tablet to beat right now."
If one ignores the ability to reprogram the device as you wish.
The whole Qualicom SoC kefuffle is a reason to take a pass.
as reported by xda-devs:
"The bottom line of the factory image drama is simple: We currently have no officially supported way to factory restore our Nexus devices. We don’t know if this will be solved by Google and Qualcomm like it was for the Nexus 4, or if this will remain a longer-standing issue requiring the intervention of an OEM partner, as was the case with the Nexus One."
It may be fast, but it is very prone to "$application is not responding" errors. I've gotten close to chucking it into the wall out of frustration.
Did they fix the color calibration of the display? The original Nexus 7 is horrible - all the colors are washed out.
Not interested.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Not one mention that this is just as much of a slashvertisement as the articles about Apple and MS products, and those get derided as thinly veiled advertisements.
So where's the fairness?
I also ordered an OTG cable and I attached a 64 gig usb flash drive for extra storage
also if you download ES File Explorer a free file manager you gain access to all shared computers on the LAN. And you can stream movies across the network with a single touch.
for MKV streaming get MX Player then go to the XDA website to download the single file you have to put anywhere to enable DTS audio playback, they offered the file seperately since the codec is copyrighted and they couldn't put dts dolby in the app natively without being taken down or sued.
but they offer the single file on the forum
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2156254
that file plus MX Player will enable MKV with audio support in the Nexus or android for that matter.
that added with ES Filemanager lets you stream your movies over the lan, or you can stream movies over google drive/dropbox, it also has built in ftp client in the app to stream movies over ftp :P
im totally loving my new nexus, i picked up the 32 gig model and with the OTG cable + 64 gig flash thumb drive it's amazing
download Nexus Media Importer for even more fun with the OTG cable and usb devices, you can use usb keyboards, usb hard drives, usb DAC's, usb mic's, etc.
Price/performance of a tablet is for spergs. iPad is the tablet to beat for user experience and quality.
Until Google realizes that storage expansion is a MANDATORY feature of media consumption devices (Used on planes, road trips, and many other places where Internet access is unavailable), no Nexus device is a creditable replacement for anything. The Asus MemoPad HD7, which is the non-bullshit OEM version of the N7 G2, while slower, is a much better device solely for the reason that it has a microSD slot. No microSD slot = no sale.
No toys for me until the student loan is paid off and my retirement is properly funded.
But without tools, you can't work to fund your retirement. When exactly does a toy become a tool?
The only writable file system for removable media that works with stock Windows XP is FAT, on the modern form of which Microsoft holds patents that won't expire until the end of 2016. These patents have been upheld in both Germany and the United States. Windows Vista adds UDF as another possibility, but the SD Card Association has instead adopted Microsoft's newly patented exFAT for 64 GB and larger cards, and people will expect to be able to eject their exFAT-formatted SDXC cards from a computer and insert them into a mobile device. The easiest way to avoid having to pay Microsoft for a FAT license is not to include a means for external storage on a device in the first place.
If one ignores the ability to reprogram the device as you wish.
There isn't much of a mass market for reprogrammable mobile devices. Case in point: If a significant number of people expected to be able to reprogram devices that they bought, devices whose names start with iP wouldn't have sold so well. It's a niche.
"Application not responding" means whatever application you're using is poorly programmed, that it's doing something on the UI thread that it's supposed to be doing in a worker thread. What are the values of $application that you see?
it's Google arrogance that keeps SD expansion off Nexus devices
How are you sure it's Google's arrogance and not Microsoft's? Perhaps Google is just trying to avoid another Microsoft v. TomTom.
May well be the best tablet, but is it actually better than the Chromebook (cost~200-250 US$) for the stuff we do the most. To me the Chromebook is the ultimate travel connection device. Small, light, long battery life, able to hook up wifi or mobile and with plenty of USB ports.
My experience with tablets is that they are only good for browsing not actually doing anything.
Until Android can do low latency audio, it's just a worthless OS to me.
In my opinion Google need to improve the usability.
the improvement between 4.x version is not so big.
Many people did not need too high specification/ processor speed.
We need better usability and also better battery life instead of more speed
Why is the benchmark comparing with iPad 3? Why not iPad 4 and iPad mini?
iPad 4 has :
Geekbench of around 1780 (vs. iPad 3 at 756).
Sunspider at 834.7 (http://www.anandtech.com/show/6472/ipad-4-late-2012-review/4)
Compared to the iPad 3, has a 10% higher OpenGL fill rate. Almost 50% higher OpenGL triangle performance. Double the Egypt FPS. (http://www.anandtech.com/show/6472/ipad-4-late-2012-review/4)
It seems like the iPad 4 would beat the Nexus 7 (2013) in everything, so why did they omit it from the benchmarks? Is this a conspiracy or bad journalism?
The iPad mini seems to have performance equivalent to iPad 3.
A development device where you can't run Open Android...
Not nice...
As long as there is not a factory image available, no way to install a custom ROM, and no SD card slot, I am not buying.
I love my Nexus, but Android devs needs to get off their asses and produce some good midi apps. Now that the IRig wirks with Android devices, we can have this. Otherwise, I'm going to have to go to the dark side and get a MacBook or Ipad to take on stage for this purpose.
My point is that I can think of a lot of products that can be produced using an Android tablet at some step. The most obvious is developing Android applications and testing them on the tablet. But there are others, such as carrying a tablet to compose music whenever inspiration hits you.
Linux avoids them by simply not generating an 8.3 name.
I've read about a patch by Andrew Tridgell implementing a design-around to generate 8.3 filler names that are not valid filenames. Has this patch made it into mainline Linux? And has this design-around been tested in any court?
Don't they still support USB memory stick insertion
No. I just connected a PNY 4 GB flash drive through a USB OTG cable to my first-generation Nexus 7 running Android 4.3, and it didn't show up in the file manager. I'm under the impression that I'd first need to root the device and buy StickMount.
Look at the hardware specs of the Nexus tablets and compare them to the other possible tablets you might buy. You'll notice the Nexus tablets do provide a high value per dollar. This is important for a device that does not have user replaceable batteries. Soon (frugal folks consider several years to be 'soon'; we hate spending our hard to earn, democrat deflated dollars!) its' battery will fail and you'll be at the point of either replacing it, repairing it, or living without this type of device. By that point, the world may have moved on to the next great thing rather than a tablet!
Look at how soon the device will receive software updates. Remember PPPYPS - Prudent (frequent & soon) Patching Protects Your Personal Stuff! Good grief look at how slow the other tablets are updated. Slow patching and slow update cycles put you at risk. For the tech heads out there the alternative could be to constantly update your rooted device with an alternative ROM like CyanogenMod. Not for the novice or typical, non techy, end user.
Compare it to the Chromebooks. Quite frankly, I don't see enough business or enterprise apps or security for the Chrome OS devices. I see more development in the areas of business, enterprise security, and access to the hardware of the device with Android.
Compare them to the Windows 8.x tablets. If you do not need Windows applications, then you'll see the Windows devices are still too costly when comparing them to other general purpose, general use, tablets.
Compare them to the iPads. This is perhaps the best comparison from an applications standpoint, unless you need access to the hardware - like a MIDI or musical / audio interface application. Problem here is the apple tax - the increased cost of the device, a device that will have a short life-time of support from the manufacturer. Remember, apple loves to obsolete devices thorough the frequent lack of support in future releases of its' OS. For use frugal folks, unless we need an application that specifically used the iPad hardware, the cost to purchase and the relatively short life-span ( in years) is to high a cost.
Remember, there are too many of us out here that have to spend our limited money wisely. Many of us are paying down the debt the democrats have convinced us we must have in order to have our electronics, cars, education, etc. We are trying to get out of debt, fund retirement, save for our childrens' education, save for the impending disaster that is obamacare (b. o. don't care!), etc.
So I stick by my opinion the Nexus devices are a very good value for most folks!
The right question is if one can install a proper Linux distro without a layer in between the hardware and linux?
This guy is right! If you have been through Financial Peace University and graduated then you'll understand his point of view!!
And further up the thread is a discussion of using a USB On The Go cable to access additional off-line storage and devices! Remember, these devices are meant to be cloud based devices. Either with an LTE, Wi-Fi, teathered to your phone or connected to a cellular based WiFi hot-spot, etc. Even apple no longer sells the hard drive based ipod!
You silly democrat! The device is most certainly rootable! http://androidadvices.com/root-nexus-7-2013-jellybean-43-android-firmware-guide/
Stop believing the lies the democrats keep spewing out of their mouths!
Also: Also: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/07/26/twrp-recovery-released-for-the-2013-nexus-7-easy-root-via-supersu-just-one-zip-file-away/
I hate to be a pedant, but those Xeons are AMD64, unless there are itanium derived xeons i'm not aware of(in which case the hardware's even less useful than it at first appears)
Buy?
Yes, buy. Android as shipped on the first-generation N7 recognizes a USB keyboard through my OTG cable but not a flash drive. OUYA recognizes a flash drive, and you say CyanogenMod does, but perhaps Google left it out of Android for Nexus 7 because patents. I could switch to CM 10.1.2, but then I'd need to buy a backup and restore program so that I don't lose what I have stored on the N7. I seem to remember Helium Backup charging for key features.