So Google dropped the Nexus 7 on Friday and I've spent the last two days reading every take imaginable. Some people are genuinely excited. Others are doing the typical "Android tablets are still garbage" thing. I think the reality is somewhere in between, but honestly closer to the excited camp.
Look, I get the iPad skepticism. I've been saying for months that Android needed a real answer to the iPad mini before it even existed. We've had plenty of Android tablets floating around, but they've all felt like either oversized phones or poorly thought-out iPad knockoffs. The Nexus 7 isn't trying to be an iPad. That's the whole point.
First, the price. One hundred and ninety-nine dollars. I know people are going to say "but the iPad 2 is only $399" and act like that's relevant, but come on. That's two hundred dollars more. That's a real difference. That's not "well, if you're going to buy a tablet anyway" money. That's enough to change the math for a lot of people. I spent that much on a decent external hard drive last month and barely blinked.
The hardware itself isn't revolutionary. Seven inch screen, Tegra 3 processor, decent build quality. It's not going to blow anyone away who spent months drooling over iPad reviews. But it doesn't need to. It's meant to be a book reader and video player and casual browser, not a design tool replacement. The screen is sharp enough. The processor is fast enough. Honestly, I think a lot of tech reviews completely miss the target audience here because they're written by people who need top-tier specs for everything.
What actually interests me is Jelly Bean. Android 4.1 isn't some revolutionary new OS—it's an incremental update. But it's the kind of incremental update that matters. Project Butter is supposed to smooth out the UI stuttering that's plagued Android forever. If Google actually pulled this off, it changes how Android feels, not just how it benchmarks. I haven't played with one in person yet, but the demos look legitimately smooth. No weird jank when scrolling through lists. That sounds small until you realize how much it affects the whole experience.
The real story here isn't that the Nexus 7 is an iPad killer—it's not, and anyone saying that is being silly. But it's also not some meaningless also-ran. It's the first Android tablet that doesn't feel like it's trying to apologize for existing. It's the first one where the manufacturer actually seemed to think about the size and what you'd use it for instead of just scaling everything up from a phone.
I'm also genuinely interested to see what this does to the tablet market. If Google can actually ship these in volume at $199, other manufacturers have to respond. Samsung's been floundering with tablets. Motorola's already out of the game. Amazon's still making phones for some reason instead of focusing on their own tablets. The Nexus 7 might actually force some actual competition in the tablet space, and we haven't had that since the original iPad became instantly dominant.
One thing that bugs me though: the storage situation. Sixteen GB base model. No microSD expansion. I get that Google wants you in the cloud: it's their whole ecosystem strategy. But come on. Some of us live in places where internet isn't guaranteed to be fast or available all the time. I want to download a few movies to watch on a flight or load up some music without burning through mobile data. This is my main criticism, and it's mostly because I think it's penny-wise and pound-foolish. You're saving maybe five dollars on the hardware bill by ditching the microSD slot, but you're potentially losing customers who want local storage.
Anyway, I'm curious to see where this goes. I might actually pick one up in a few weeks once the initial shipping crunch clears. For $199, the worst case scenario is I've got a really expensive book reader. The best case is I've finally got a tablet that doesn't feel like a compromise, and the Android tablet market actually becomes worth paying attention to again.