Google Nexus 7 Review of Reviews

The Nexus 7 has gone on sale and to help you decide if you should buy one we have rounded up the opinions on Google's 7in tablet, which is the first Android device to run Jelly Bean.

Google first announced its Nexus 7 Tablet at the company's I/O Developer Conference at the end of June 2012, although there had been some fairly spot-on rumours before that.

The device features a 7in 1,280 x 800 HD display, quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 1GB RAM, either 8GB or 16GB internal storage, scratch resistant Corning Glass, a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera and Android Beam NFC technology.

It is on sale in the US and has already sold out at a number of online retailers. It has also just begun shipping in the UK, with a price of £159 for the 8GB tablet and £199 for the 16GB model. Not bad for a device that apparently costs £97 to build, before marketing and other costs.

Pretty much every tablet has been given the title 'iPad killer' at one point or another. And pretty much every one has failed to make a dent in Apple's dominance in this market.

Will the Google Nexus 7 be tainted by the same phrase? At the rate they are reportedly selling, it should have a great shot at gaining a significant share of the tablet market.

Let us know what you think about your Google Nexus 7in Tablet in the comments below. Well, that's if you can get into the box to look at it (and manage to avoid the multi-coloured ninjas).

Google Nexus 7: Review of Reviews

Ben Rooney at the Wall Street Journal

Google's Nexus "sets the standard for smaller Android tablets" proclaims Rooney, pausing two paragraphs in to exclaim: "This is a nice tablet."

His review is not a total love-in, though and he does pick up one major annoyance: the screen. "It's not the fact that it's not in 16:9 ratio, which is fine, nor is it the quality of the display. (Until Apple introduced its 'retina display' it would have passed without merit.) No, it is the fact that no matter how much you shake the thing on the home screen it won't switch from portrait to landscape view."

Rooney says this gets very confusing when some apps run in landscape, some in portrait and some will re-orientate and he suggests that, "maybe we have come to expect too much but the option of being able to change the orientation of the home screen would have been nice."

He declares that "this isn't an iPad killer" before qualifying that statement by saying "it isn't intended to be." From his summing up, sounds like other Android tablet makers have the most to fear from the Nexus 7.

Charles Arthur at The Guardian

Like Rooney, Arthur just could not get over that annoying screen and its strange transitions.

"Many apps understand that they may be used on a tablet and so orient themselves when you hold them in landscape. But hit the home button to go back and - bam! - you're forced back to portrait mode. This is jarring."

He is also not very forgiving of the poor battery life, even if he suggests it could be a firmware problem in his early review model. Asus, which made the gadget, claims 9.5 hours battery life.

"I charged it on a Wednesday, streamed about 10 minutes of a movie (Transformers: Dark of the Moon - my brain couldn't bear watching any longer than that) on Thursday, and by Friday morning with no extra interaction it was dead. This wasn't a one-off - the battery simply didn't seem to hold charge."

Jelly Bean also did not add much to the experience, looking and acting like Ice Cream Sandwich, "but tweaked in ways too small to be very obvious."

And the Nexus 7's chance at being used as a business machine? Dismissed with the line that Twitter and Facebook might be fine but you're not going to be editing spreadsheets or documents in a hurry.

Following a fairly negative review about the Nexus 7 it gets four out of five stars. Go figure.

JR Bookwater at TechRadar

You will not find the phrase iPad killer in TechRadar's review. In JR Bookwater's opinion the Nexus 7 is more of an effort to stomp out Amazon's unwelcome and modified version of Android than it is an attempt to dethrone Apple's reigning champ.

"This tablet runs circles around the Kindle Fire, rivalling many competing Android tablets at twice the price (or more)," he says, suggesting Amazon's fiery kit is in for a dousing.

The build quality seems to surprise most reviewers as that is normally where the budget gets slashed on these kind of devices. That is not the case with the Google Nexus 7, though.

"While the Nexus 7 is primarily plastic and glass, it certainly doesn't feel cheap," Bookwater says.

Battery life was not as much of an issue in this review, even if the choice between 8GB and 16GB storage was not really seen as much of a choice.

Overall, 4.5 stars out of five.

MG Siegler at the Techcrunch

Over at Techcrunch, Siegler offers an iPad lover's take on the Nexus 7. When the URL of the article ends like this: "omg-he-likes-it-he-really-likes-it" it is clear he is offering something more than the expected Google bashing.

"I like the Nexus 7. I /really/ like it," he says, in case you had not worked out where he was going with this. He follows up with, "To be clear, the product isn't perfect. But no product is." We can picture the Apple fans hugging their MacBook Airs and telling them how beautiful they are already.

"Normally when I get a review unit of a non-Apple product, I have to force myself to use it to get a sense of how I might use it in the real world. But with the Nexus 7, I actually find myself wanting to use it," he continues, ending the review by performing the Japanese rite of Seppuku before the internet trolls can post their first comment.

No, wait, sorry, that's not true. He ends it by sounding a lot like a gangster eyeing up a nice tablet market and suggesting it would be a shame if something happened to it. "For now, Apple's not in this space. And the clear winner in this space is the Nexus 7."

Who's he kidding, we all know Apple is coming.