By: iPadfanzz Editor on April 2, 2013
Google has starting taking orders for the Nexus 7 32GB variant in India in advance of its April 5 release date. The orders can be placed online at the Google Playstore.
The Nexus 7 costs Rs 15,999 (US$295) for the 16 GB internal storage, expandable to 32 GB variant, with a shipping time of 3 to 7 days.
When you look at its specs, you may get puzzled how ASUS was able to get the price down to $295 so effectively. The Nexus 7 sports a 1,280x800-pixel-resolution IPS screen, which is sharp and bright. The display is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass for protection. The Nexus 7 outclasses the iPad Mini's screen's 1,024x768-pixel resolution and delivers sharper text and images than Apple's 7.9-inch tablet.
The Nexus 7 houses a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM. It also has a separate 12 core graphics processing unit (GPU) for gaming, in addition to an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer. Such powerful specs makes the tablet sure fun to play top-end 3D games like ShadowGun and Dark Meadow.
The tablet is also equipped with 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi support, Bluetooth, GPS, and support for Google's NFC-based technology, Android Beam. With Android Beam you can send Web pages, maps, and files, but not apps, to a compatible Android device. To work, the device must touch the upper-right corner of the other tablet's back to work. In terms of holding, the Nexus 7 is noticeably lighter than the Kindle Fire HD, but isn't as wispy as the iPad Mini or Nook HD.
The OS of the tablet now has V-sync which is designed to run at a solid 60fps. With a quad-core Tegra 3 1.3GHz processor on the back, the Nexus 7 makes every other tablet at the price look slow.
The camera is quite basic at just a 1.2 MP front camera and there is no rear camera either. In addition, there is no SIM card slot for support. The power / lock and standby buttons are on the top right corner, and both microUSB and the headphone jack are located at the very bottom.
In Android 4.2 you’ll see the familiar tray on the bottom of the home screen by default filled with Google services apps such as Play, Music, Books, YouTube, and Magazines. In addition, another folder will house Chrome as well as Google Maps, Google Plus, Gmail, and other services. In the middle there is the apps button. Swiping up from the home button and across the apps button takes you to Google Now, Google's predictive personalized helper. Google Now uses voice recognition to field queries and displays information such as the current weather, local bus schedules, and nearby restaurants.
The Google Nexus 7 has already received a lot of flak among long-term Android fans for its lack of expandable memory, but it still managed to retain its versatility.
The Jelly Bean OS has changed the default system browser from stock Android to Chrome. The browser minimises the intrusion of its UI elements to give maximum screen real estate to the webpage in question.
In the US, Nexus 7 owners get to use Google Music to stream their music collections from the cloud, as well as the option to buy TV shows and magazines from the Google Play store.
Set to playing an SD-quality Divx file at full charge, and at 50 per cent brightness, the 4326mAh battery on the Google Nexus 7 lasts for over eight hours.
Overall, Google and ASUS and Google have done a really good job in delivering the Nexus 7. The combination of a quad core SoC, IPS panel, solid construction, and the latest version of Android all for such a lower price point, makes its truly desirable.
