Google's Second Generation Nexus 7 Benchmarks 205
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."
well gosh (Score:3, Funny)
I better buy one quick then
Re:well gosh (Score:4, Insightful)
Yawn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Yawn ... (Score:5, Funny)
Tough customer. I suggest you just keep waiting until Google introduces its wearable solar powered subspace search appliance.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm with on this, sadly.
The gadget geek in me really wants this tablet. But the truth is that my year-old tablet, though not nearly as performant as this new toy, is perfectly fine for the only thing I actually use it for: reading e-books. The processor and memory don't make any difference. The screen is kind of tempting, but would mean more to me if I did real work on my tablet (I care a lot about my laptop screen resolution).
Tablet makers are going to have to come up with something pretty innovat
Re: (Score:2)
Then wait until next year for the next better model.
I bought a nook color 2.5 years ago when they first came out. I enjoyed the 7" form factor but I couldn't find a decent replacement. when the new nexus 7's were announced I was happy. I got even happier when amazon and best buy started releasing them for sale 5 days before the official launch.
But I plan on keeping it around for the next 2-3 years and make sure I get my money's worth out of it.
Re:Yawn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, then don't buy one, and don't bother to let us all know how underwhelmed you are -- we're underwhelmed that you're underwhelmed.
But you have NO idea of what that would be, and you're going to sulk until such time as they do? Right.
And for the most part, this has been true in the industry for a very long time now. The machine on my desktop now is an exceedingly boring direct descendant of the one that sat on my desk 25 years ago -- a screen, keys, and a box full of stuff to make it go.
With a 4 digit ID, you should bloody well know that. Name 5 truly revolutionary pieces of technology in the last 25 years in the realm of computers ... anything which came from existing technology in any way doesn't count. Because, after all, that's just evolutionary which seems to make you sad.
Tell you what, you go build something freakin' awesome, and when you get back, we'll all piss and moan about how it's not nearly cool enough.
Your existential malaise is something best savored by yourself.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, then don't buy one, and don't bother to let us all know how underwhelmed you are -- we're underwhelmed that you're underwhelmed.
But you have NO idea of what that would be, and you're going to sulk until such time as they do? Right.
And for the most part, this has been true in the industry for a very long time now. The machine on my desktop now is an exceedingly boring direct descendant of the one that sat on my desk 25 years ago -- a screen, keys, and a box full of stuff to make it go.
With a 4 digit ID, you should bloody well know that. Name 5 truly revolutionary pieces of technology in the last 25 years in the realm of computers ... anything which came from existing technology in any way doesn't count. Because, after all, that's just evolutionary which seems to make you sad.
Tell you what, you go build something freakin' awesome, and when you get back, we'll all piss and moan about how it's not nearly cool enough.
Your existential malaise is something best savored by yourself.
While everything derives from everything(standing on the shoulders of giants) there are a couple of things that absolutely spring to mind:
-This ePaper thing. I've watched it growing from an idea to the Kindle eco system. It absolutely changed the way I consume the written word.
-Media compression. I have ripped all my CDs which I collected since the late 80ies. I've ripped all my DVDs which I bought since the 2000s. I've rebought a lot of my comic collection in a digital format. That also absolutely chang
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Better hardware means more interesting software...
Re:Yawn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
/sarcasm
Re: (Score:3)
I think that's an over simplification but ultimately we are reaching that point in the smartphone/tablet market. The very first devices were heavy, had low res screens, couldn't run or store high quality video, had shockingly bad cameras etc. Each year the new models were better in ways that were genuinely meaningful to users.
I just upgraded from a galaxy S2 to an S4 purely because my old contra
Re: (Score:2)
it gonna be great, really
No, not really; it's a fucking Buick. :)
Re: (Score:2)
It was GB, not MB and I am with you. I have three dual Nehalem quadcore rack servers (DL380 with 8 SAS/SATA bays and 6 pcie slots, 1 GB BBWC, redundant power and all that) in a rolling rack in my garage retired from vmware duties with 96GB RAM each. Can't think of anything useful enough to bear the watts and fan noise to do with them. 36 3+ Ghz IA64 Xeon cores, 72 threads and 256 GB of RAM and I can't be bothered to power it up. If you had told me five years ago I could be in this position I would have
Re: (Score:3)
You're right, Gigs. I must be getting old.
I hear you on the rack stuff. I've got enough stashed away to start a small ISP, if it was 2003 again. Glad I passed on that Cisco 7509 a few years back. But I remember back in the late 90s we were the hot kids on the block (or in the telco hotel) with a pair of T3s going into one.
It's sad how some of this stuff ages, and how loud the fans are.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I've got a 24 thread/48GB/108TB system in my back bedroom in spread across a couple 3U Norco chassis (desktop-style PSU and cooling and thankfully almost no noise) that can service a dozen 3Mbit real-time video transcoding requests through Plex and still has the horsepower to run five not-insubstantial Guest VMs at the same time. That machine actually saves me money because it replaced four i7 rigs that I had been using but I can't imagine what possible reason I could have for any more hardware than that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:well gosh (Score:5, Interesting)
I was planning to pick one up until I read this. [androidandme.com]
Re: (Score:3)
I am the target market, I bought two original Nexus 7s, and later a Nexus 10, and I love them. This news is deeply distressing, I was already unhappy at the number of binary blobs needed to make the N7 and N10 go, to find out that the N7-2 won't even have public restore images as a result of them is a deal breaker.
I've just gone from "will buy an N7-2 when the budget allows" to "totally disinterested". You can't even try out third party ROMs on your N7-2.
You've missed the boat, Google. You forgot what it wa
Re:well gosh (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah ... unless you're planning on modding it with AOSP [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
In which case, it's the tablet to boot right now; because that's currently an unsolved problem...
Android 4.3 breaks many Bluetooth keyboards (Score:5, Informative)
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 [androidcentral.com]).
Re: (Score:2)
It supports low power mode (as does the previous version as of 4.3) ... wonder if the implementation on the tablet or the keyboard is a little sloppy.
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately my Zippy keyboard seems to work fine.
Yeehah!
Re: Android 4.3 breaks many Bluetooth keyboards (Score:2)
Amazing device. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Reports like yours out weigh any benchmarks.
Haven't we learned never to trust benchmarks [slashdot.org] yet?
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't we learned not trust anonymous coward reporting?
Shachar
Re: (Score:2)
OK, then. Here's a non-AC review. Yesterday, I gave my gen 1 Nexus 7 to my wife and brought home the new model. The original has been one of the best consumer electronics experiences I've ever had. The improvements in gen 2 are incremental, but substantial. There was nothing wrong with the old model, but the new one seems even snappier, looks better, and has the same high-quality build. I gave the first model a beating and it never gave me a problem.
I had my doubts about the usefulness of a 7" tablet
Re: (Score:3)
No offense intended, but this isn't a review. Come again after you've actually used it.
Personally, I do not intend to buy the new Nexus 7 at least until it will be possible to build AOSP for it (but I might go out and buy the old one now :-). That said, I have nothing for or against it.
All I'm saying is that your comment did not add information. The comment you'll write in 24 hours likely will, however.
Shachar
Re: (Score:2)
No offense intended, but this isn't a review. Come again after you've actually used it.
Personally, I do not intend to buy the new Nexus 7 at least until it will be possible to build AOSP for it (but I might go out and buy the old one now :-). That said, I have nothing for or against it.
All I'm saying is that your comment did not add information. The comment you'll write in 24 hours likely will, however.
Shachar
The old Nexus 7 is an amazing thing. I had bought the 3G version on a whim and immediately regretted it. I did all my mobile computing on an Asus Transformer Prime, took it everywhere with me and really couldn't justify buying another toy. Long story short: I carry my Nexus 7 around with me all the time and my Transformer stays at home.
I WOULD have bought the Nexus 7 if there wasn't that AOSP bruhaha. We've been warned for months and still we get a Nexus device that isn't supported by AOSP because of propr
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The Nexus 4 is the same. I have the previous Nexus 7 tablet, and the Nexus 4 is vastly faster and smoother. The N7 is apparently a very similar, slightly faster processor. Sucks about the current AOSP situation though.
Re: (Score:2)
"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."
Bugged I presume by a couple of three-letter agencies? Seriously, I'd stick to my generic China tab, which I can very well afford to brick and run fast enough for my browsing, ebook reading and occasional puzzle games. Here's a car analogy: Not everybody needs a Lexus to go to work.
Vote with your wallet (Score:2, Informative)
No open source driver, you can keep your hardware!
If you don't mind a dead battery (Score:2, Interesting)
It certain does not excel on the battery life metric.
Re: (Score:2)
Compared to?
According to TFA, it's "up to 9 hours." The original Nexus 7 had 10 hours, so it's an hour less. But considering it has to drive that Retina-like display, it's pretty darn good.
Re:If you don't mind a dead battery (Score:5, Informative)
Compared to?
According to TFA, it's "up to 9 hours." The original Nexus 7 had 10 hours, so it's an hour less. But considering it has to drive that Retina-like display, it's pretty darn good.
Battery life as tested in a lab, rather than leaving it up to the manufacturer.
Tablet Battery Life
Nexus 7 (2013) 7:15
Apple iPad mini 12:43 (WiFi)
Apple iPad (late 2012) 11:08 (WiFi)
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/29/nexus-7-review-2013/ [engadget.com]
Re:If you don't mind a dead battery (Score:4, Informative)
from the comments:
"CNET, in their battery test, which plays a video at equal and measured brightness levels across devices, found the following results for the new Nexus 7 :
Video battery life (in hours) : Google Nexus 7 (2013) 11.5, Apple iPad Mini 12, Google Nexus 7 (2012)10.1."
Re: (Score:3)
The iPad Mini costs a lot more than a Nexus 7. If you really need >7 hours active use per day out of your tablet you are gonna have to pay for it. If you prefer Android there are other tablets or external battery packs.
It's hardly surprising that the Nexus 7 has a lower run time than the iPad mini. They weigh about the same (iPad slightly heavier) but the Nexus 7 has a much better screen, which of course needs more power to run. If you plan to spend 7 hours looking at a 7" screen it might as well be a go
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I have the original, and even brand new the battery life sucked
...and charging over USB takes forever. But it is quite fast when using the original docking station.
Re:If you don't mind a dead battery (Score:4, Informative)
That's the manufacturer's claim. The tests I've seen, using real-world things like more than 50% brightness and wifi put it at about 6-7 hours. Similar tests on iPads Minis regularly get 9-10+ hours.
But brightness is the key power sucking feature. And nobody I know runs any android tablet at full brightness.
You might have to do so outside on a sunny day. but typical living room / office use I have the brightness slider almost to the lowest possible setting. In a bright room I might move it up, but never so far as a quarter of the way.
Disclaimer: not a nexus tablet.
Re: (Score:2)
Also brightness should be measured in absolute terms (nits). One tablet's 50% is not the same as another.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know a single person who has a nits meter.
Re: (Score:2)
Me either :) But the good tech review sites have them (Anandtech, for example)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: If you don't mind a dead battery (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
In related news (Score:5, Informative)
I was going to buy it... now I won't
Here's your chance to put up or shut up (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not signing up for the Edge, but equally, I'm not buying this device.
I only like to buy a product when I can walk into a store and fork over cash for it, or at least order it up and then order another one if I need to. Speculating isn't my thing.
Not Buying it (Score:5, Insightful)
No Replaceable Battery
No ROM possible.
Just plain NO.
-Hack
Re: (Score:2)
Actually battery replacement isnt impossible.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+7+2nd+Generation+Teardown/16072/1 [ifixit.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Also no flash slot.
Re: (Score:2)
Also no flash slot.
I had thought that was a huge problem when I got my old 32GB Nexus 7. I'm used to my 64GB Transformer Prime which I have fitted with a 64GB MicroSD and a 128GB SD Card. It isn't such a huge problem but I can live with that limitation on a device I mainly use when commuting. I wouldn't be able to live with it on my regular tablet.
Re: Not Buying it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
My old 2.4GHz P4 idled at 39W including spinning HDD, GPU, etc. *Most* new systems don't even do that well. And even if you find something *slightly* better on power, even in the parts of the US with the highest electricity costs, it'll take many, many YEARS (if not DECADES, particularly if your system is usually powered-off or hibernated/suspended) for your purchase to
When does a toy become a tool? (Score:3)
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?
Products that can be produced using a tablet (Score:2)
Crap ... (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Most/many big box stores have a 14/30 day return policy, if you're feeling exceptionally rude.
Why does this compare to the iPad 3? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Two years? The iPad 3 was released March 2012. That's not even a year and a half ago. In any case what they should be comparing it to for an apples to apples (no pun intended) comparison is the iPad Mini, which has a similar form factor.
I agree, and the benchmarks show that the nearly year-old iPad mini does darn well in comparison. The new Nexus 7 isn't a benchmark horse by any means.
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7176/56538.png [anandtech.com]
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7176/56539.png [anandtech.com]
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7176/56541.png [anandtech.com]
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7176/56543.png [anandtech.com]
I couldn't reproduce the benchmarks (Score:2)
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.
No micro SD slot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Microsoft v. TomTom (Score:2)
it's Google arrogance that keeps SD expansion off Nexus devices
How are you sure it's Google's arrogance and not Microsoft's [slashdot.org]? Perhaps Google is just trying to avoid another Microsoft v. TomTom.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because someone forces Google to use FAT filesystem.
Microsoft and the SD Card Association force this. If the user removes an SDHC card from a mobile device and inserts it into a PC running Windows, it had better be formatted FAT32, or Windows will "helpfully" ask the user to erase all the data on it and reformat it to FAT32. And for cards 64 GB or bigger, I was under the impression that use of exFAT was part of the SDXC spec.
Re: (Score:2)
Nexus 7 (Score:2)
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.
Ordered mine and got it yesterday (Score:2)
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 nat
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I will agree with you on that, if the nexus 7 2nd gen had a micro sd slot it would be the greatest tablet ever at this moment and no other tablets would even compare.
Google/Asus hit it out the ballpark with the 2nd gen nexus 7. They do make 1 piece OTG adapters though if you don't want to use an OTG cable
here is a 1 piece OTG adapter: http://amzn.com/B00BFYH11Q [amzn.com]
it's 1 piece, gives you full usb access to add external drives, you can also use xbox 360 or ps3 controllers to play many games, the FPS is kinda fun
Not a worthy successor (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not a worthy successor (Score:5, Insightful)
How the fuck does this get +5 insightful. iPad = No expansion, iPad mini = No expansion, Nexus 7 = No expansion yet they are all selling very well thank you and I bet sales of portable DVD players are looking pretty pathetic by comparison. They clearly are credible replacements, even if they don't fit some peoples use cases. How full of yourself do you have to be to believe that something not suiting you means it's not going to sell, especially when faced with a shit load of evidence that it already is.
iPad 3??? (Score:2)
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
MIDI Support (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why oh why
Duh. Because they want "the cloud" to become the new normal.
Re: (Score:3)
Your face, your friends faces, your family faces, video clips, locations, times, what you pass on the way to work, what you do on weekends..parties..hobbies
No more taking the card out.
They want "the NSA cloud" to become the new normal.
Microsoft holds patents on VFAT and exFAT (Score:3)
Re:Microsoft holds patents on VFAT and exFAT (Score:5, Informative)
That's a long, complex line of useless excuses.
There are so many simple solutions.
When you stick a card in a phone, just have it pop up a "would you like to format this card for this device?" question.
For compatibility with exFAT, let people buy an app that adds the support.
if formatted by the phone, stick 2 partitions on it, the first a normal FAT that's tiny (or even dos), and stick FS drivers on it.
Or just say, no, you can not put the card in a machine. For example, look at the replaceable hard drives in PS3's. That'd give the maker the ability to use any FS they want, and that would even make it more suitable for expanding the local storage, which would make the whole thing more user friendly / transparent to the user.
Or they could just license it and pay the couple pennies a device (there are already multiple implementations for andoid).
There are other Android devices that include support and are cheaper (ex. Galaxy Tab 2 7.0), so it's also proven possible and feasible.
Former posts are right... they just want the cloud.
Re: (Score:3)
That's a long, complex line of useless excuses.
Sometimes legal arguments take a form that may resemble "a long, complex line of useless excuses" to an outsider, where "so many simple solutions" each have their own distinct flaw.
When you stick a card in a phone, just have it pop up a "would you like to format this card for this device?" question.
The problem here is that you can't make it clear enough to an non-expert user (that is, to the majority of users) that this will cause irreversible data loss. First, reformatting from exFAT to something else will cause the user to lose all data stored on the memory card. Second, when the user reinserts the memory card in a Window
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
if formatted by the phone, stick 2 partitions on it, the first a normal FAT that's tiny (or even dos), and stick FS drivers on it.
Just say "no" to loading kernel-mode code from someone else's SD card. The potential for malware and potentially phone-bricking bugs is just too high.
Re: (Score:2)
Just say "no" to loading kernel-mode code from someone else's SD card.
How is this advice helpful even when the code carries a digital signature showing that "someone else" happens to be the manufacturer of the tablet that you're holding? And why must file systems necessarily run in kernel mode?
Re: (Score:2)
The FAT patents are easy to work around. They only cover the generation of an 8.3 filename from a long filename. Linux avoids them by simply not generating an 8.3 name. Presumably if you tried to read a disk with such files on it in an old ore-LFN version of DOS you might have a problem.
The invalid short name design-around (Score:2)
Linux avoids them by simply not generating an 8.3 name.
I've read about a patch [osnews.com] 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?
Re: (Score:2)
Almost nobody wants to reprogram (Score:2)
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.
Then let's name and shame (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)