Will say this the "nexus" tablet isn't what everyone thinks. Its a whole new way of life for the tablet side and leverages JB to the fullest

Final Words

The Transformer Pad Infinity addresses everything we didn't like about the Transformer Prime. Both WiFi and GPS performance are much improved, the latter to the point of actual usability. The display is also appreciably better thanks to its very high panel resolution and wonderful brightness/contrast. ASUS completes the package with an increase in SoC performance and memory bandwidth, ensuring the Infinity maintains the UI performance and behavior of the Prime despite the higher resolution display.


Portability and form factor are just as good as always. Despite moving to a higher resolution panel, device thickness increased by no more than 0.1mm. There's no increase in battery capacity as a result, which does hurt battery life. Video playback is still fine at over 10 hours, it's really the general use and 3D workloads that take the biggest hit. By keeping the form factor constant however, ASUS guarantees the Infinity is just as easy to port around as its predecessors. Although the dock is nice, there's something about just carrying around an ultra thin, ultra light tablet that feels so comfortable.

While improved features and higher resolutions are nice, it's equally as important that ASUS delivers all of this without an increase in price. The Infinity was originally talked about as a $599+ device, but falling panel costs and increased competitive pressure dictated that $499 would be the actual starting point. Availability isn't scheduled until mid-July however, which actually brings us to our only issue with the Infinity: it doesn't run Windows 8.

Android does quite well as a tablet and smartphone OS, but it seems to fall short as a notebook OS. To really use the Infinity to its potential is to use it in combination with the Transformer Dock. While docked, the Infinity is good, but I suspect the overall experience with Windows 8 will just be better. Current estimates put Windows 8 based tablets out in early Q4, which isn't all that far away from the July 16th launch week for the Infinity.


If you're a fan of Android tablets, the Transformer Pad Infinity will likely be one of the best options when it arrives. You get a good, thin, tablet form factor with a nice high resolution display and functional WiFi/GPS. But if you're really interested in having a tablet that can really perform as a notebook, you may want to wait for the ASUS Tablet 600, 810 and Transformer Book. The hybrid tablet/notebook market is one that Windows 8 seems perfectly suited for, and ASUS now has a lot of experience under its belt in building devices for that market. When those two meet, I suspect only good things will happen.

The Nexus 7 is an amazing package for something that costs a penny less than $200. It feels like something that could sell for much more. It has a great screen, solid performance and a clean, clear, uncluttered version of Google's latest operating system, Jelly Bean. From a pure hardware standpoint it beats the Kindle in every way possible -- except for content. Amazon's selection almost always trumps that of Google's, both in terms of variety and cost, but that's one wonderful problem to have, because almost all of that content is just as available on the Nexus 7 as it is on the Fire. The only major exception is Amazon Instant Video, and with Netflix, we can live with that.

So, while we tend to prefer larger tablets that better differentiate themselves from phones, if you've been toying with the idea of getting a real Android slate but didn't want to spend big bucks for a big device, this is what you've been waiting for. This is the best Android tablet for less than $200 and the best budget 7-inch tablet on the market. For the moment. The race to the bottom in the tablet space is, after all, just getting started and, if the Nexus 7 is any indication of what's to come, we're in for a very good ride.

Google’s Nexus 7 isn’t just an excellent tablet for $200. It’s an excellent tablet, period. In fact, it’s the first Android tablet that I can confidently recommend to buyers — and not just because it’s got a low price tag (though that certainly helps). It’s a well-designed, powerful, and useful product, with lots of bells and whistles that makes it feel like a device that should be more expensive than it is.

There are still issues that need to be addressed — particularly around growing the tablet app footprint and expanding content offerings — but I don’t think those are deal breakers. The Nexus 7 delivers way more functionality than I expected, and it delivers it in a package that’s sleek, smart, and affordably priced.

Believe it or not, the last time I was surprised by a product with those same qualities, it was called the iPad.

Google Now just blew my mind.

Simply, I got off my flight from SF, and Google Now automatically told me how long the drive from the airport would take to get home.

This was on the Galaxy Nexus BTW. Unless you're tethered, the 7 won't be as useful out and about.

All tablets are not created equal. A fact not lost on this reporter, who, at the age of three, learned to love Apple by using the very first Macintosh. Reared on the Apple doctrine, I now demand excellence in hardware, sleekness in design, and that indescribable feeling of pure joy when touching a device.

For the first time in my life, a company other than Apple has given me all that and more.

Unveiled Wednesday during the keynote address at Google’s I/O developer conference, the $199/$249 Nexus 7 outshines the existing class of Android-powered tablets, the Kindle Fire included, for one simple reason: This is the only non-Apple device I would ever buy.

An iPad-owner and lover since day one, I’ve come to view my tablet, which mind you I never actually refer to as a tablet because I’ve always believed the iPad to be superior to any other, as my most pleasurable device. My iPhone and my MacBook Air are utilitarian. I love them dearly, but I think of those devices as necessities, and I primarily associate them with work. The iPad, however, is my play device. It’s my feel-good, sit-back-and-relax toy.

The Nexus 7, which falls into the same category of device for me, has in less than 48 hours carved out a special place for itself in my heart. I find myself reaching for the 7, as I lovingly call it, over the iPad because, well, it’s just so darn cute. I love the size, the feel of the 7 in my hands, the leather-like quality of the back panel, and the overall style of the device.

Holding the Nexus 7 feels right, browsing is fantastic (thank you, Chrome tab sync) and fun, and because it’s running the new Jelly Bean software, the Nexus feels smart, intuitive, capable, and pretty darn slick. Thanks to Project Butter, the 7 feels nearly as smooth as the iPad. No major kinks, blips, or bumps to speak of — at least so far.

I also quite like the arrangement of media on the device. As an iOS user, I was a little disoriented at first, but I quickly became acclimated to the idea of apps on one page, books and magazines on another, movies in their own place, and music on its own screen. This configuration makes it all the more easy to appreciate the content and media recommendations Google serves up in each category, which really do seem to get better with time.

But beyond pleasure, what’s truly remarkable is just how practical the 7 is. Here’s why: When it comes to my web activities, I’ve gone Google. I’m yoked to Gmail, dependent on Google Calendar, tied to Google Docs (and now Drive), leashed to Chrome, and the list goes in. I can’t tell you how convenient it is to have Google as a seamless, interconnected part of the experience. Sure, this isn’t something that’s unique to the Nexus 7, but it’s lovely nonetheless.

Don’t just take it from me though. I talked to plenty of folks at the Google I/O conference who were impressed by this little sucker.

“I really like it. I used the hotel Wi-Fi and started watching Transformers. It looked really good,” developer and This Week in Google host Gina Trapani told me yesterday. “It’s small and light. It’s definitely a better Kindle Fire.”

Trapani, much more of a-know-it-all than I am when it comes to the Android software side of things, was also impressed with the subtleties that Project Butter and Jelly Bean have brought to the Nexus 7 experience. “My main complaint with the Android experience is that it’s slow and choppy, and not responsive,” she said.

But the Nexus 7, running Jelly Bean, provided a much better experience for Trapani. “It’s very smooth, and very fast,” she said. “I can see giving this to my sister-in-law. She’s in the market for a tablet … I’m going to tell her to get this.”

VentureBeat’s gadget guru Devindra Hardawar is also pretty impressed by the Nexus 7, as are gadget bloggers the web round, some of whom went deep into review mode.

Yes, it’s disheartening and a bit defeating that some of my favorite applications aren’t available for the Nexus 7. HBO Go, where are you? I do have a strong feeling, however, that by releasing a stellar device, Google has just given top iOS developers the nudge they’ve needed to build for Android too.

Let’s get to the meat of the matter. Should you buy the Nexus 7? If you’re in the market for an extremely portable tablet and don’t mind the smaller screen size, than absolutely. This isn’t some second-rate device that you should feel ashamed about toting around. No, hold your head high.

Bonus: What you save in price, you can spend on shoes. Okay, that’s just me. But seriously, I’d purchase the Nexus 7 as my primary tablet in a heartbeat. I’d also recommend it to my friends and family members. In fact, this is the very first non-Apple device that I’ve ever said that about — and that’s saying something.

Since posting the Nexus 7 mini review, I've gotten a lot of emails asking about whether USB-OTG for storage was currently supported or would be supported in the shipping software load. I've done some asking around and believe I have the final word now.

USB-OTG is indeed supported on the Nexus 7, however as anyone has used USB-OTG knows, whether peripherals or devices work is a function of the host OS and drivers. On the Nexus 7, using a mouse and keyboard is supported, and I saw Google using an Ethernet to microUSB adapter with the Nexus 7 (which I borrowed for my Galaxy Nexus) as well. Unfortunately mounting USB storage natively is not supported on the Nexus 7. Hopefully rooted users will be able to use StickMount with the Nexus 7 and make this work. In addition, MHL is not supported on the Nexus 7, which isn't very surprising since adding MHL requires another package and would increase BOM cost.

Yeap, I had to download & install "StickMount" to get my flash drives to mount.

The drive path when you mount is:

/mnt/sdcard/usbStorage/sda1, sdb1, sdc1, etc....

Nexus 7 with StickMount reads NTFS & FAT32 but not exFAT. Also I'm unable to write to NTFS either.

Up until now, the default has been the same as many other operating systems, and that is to let applications read what's stored on an SD card without anyone caring. This has lead to several sky-is-falling moments where people suddenly realized that the wide open model is, well, wide open. The best way to fix things is to simply do away with external storage and all it's security baggage, and Google has done that with their own devices as of late. But OEM's are going to do things differently, so in a "future release" applications will need explicit permission to read from external storage, much like they do for writing to storage now.