So the Nexus 7 is coming in like two weeks (July 13, to be exact), and I've been staring at the announcement wondering if I actually care. Google made this thing. They partnered with Asus. Seven inches. $199. A clean Android experience. All the checkboxes are there, but something feels off about the whole pitch.
The iPad dominated tablets last year, and everyone said the market was dead. Then rumors started flying that Apple was building something smaller, and suddenly analysts decided tablets weren't dead after all—they were just waiting for the right size. Seven inches, apparently. Convenient. Pocketable. The iPad Mini is presumably coming later this fall, so Google's basically running in to fill the gap Apple left open. It's not exactly a bold move. It's strategic, sure. But bold? No.
Here's what's bugging me: Google had the chance to do something genuinely different with the Nexus 7. They could've made something that felt Android-first instead of "smaller iPad-shaped." Instead, they built... a smaller iPad. With Android on it. Don't get me wrong, the specs aren't terrible: Tegra 3 processor, 1280x800 screen, 16GB base model for $199. That's competitive pricing. But competitive with what, exactly? An iPad that costs $399 and does basically the same thing? A form factor nobody's actually sure people want?
I keep reading reviews talking about how perfect this is for Google Play content consumption. As if people have been desperately waiting for a tablet-sized screen to check email or read comics. The Kindle Fire did the tablet thing and actually made it weird—it was essentially a content delivery machine, heavily customized, tied directly to Amazon's ecosystem. People understood what it was for. The Nexus 7 feels like Google asking, "But what if we did iPad, but with Android instead?" which isn't really a differentiation strategy.
The form factor itself is awkward. Seven inches splits the difference between "phone I can use one-handed" and "device I can actually use for serious work." It's optimized for neither. My 10-inch iPad is legitimately useful for writing and heavy content consumption. My phone fits in my pocket. What does a 7-inch tablet do better than either of those? Watching videos is worse than my phone because the screen's bigger but still too small to enjoy, and it doesn't fit comfortably in one hand for more than a few minutes.
But maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe Google's betting that developers will actually build for this form factor, and Android apps will finally feel designed for tablets instead of being blown-up phone interfaces. The Nexus 7 runs pure Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), with no OEM skins and no carrier bloatware. That alone makes it interesting for developers who want to see what Android's actually capable of without manufacturer customization mucking it up. And $199 is cheap enough that early adopters won't feel like they're throwing money away on an experiment.
The real test isn't whether the Nexus 7 outsells the iPad. It won't. It's whether Google can create an actual ecosystem around it. Can publishers build real content? Will game developers optimize for this screen size? Or is it just going to be another Android device where the same mediocre apps run stretched across a bigger screen while everyone complains about fragmentation?
I'm tempted to buy one when they launch, mostly out of genuine curiosity. I want to see if Android actually works better at this size, or if it's just more of the same. Honestly, $199 is low enough risk that I probably will grab one. But Google's got to sell me on something bigger than "it's cheaper than an iPad."