Nexus 7 2013 - Review after 2 years

As a technology lover, I have gone through many tablets. My first tablet was the iPad 2. A device, which didn’t have a clear purpose, yet I used it the most, compared to my phone and laptop at that time. Fast forward a few years later, I no longer own an iPad. I decided to try out Android, and what better way, than with an affordable Android tablet with guaranteed software updates. The Nexus 7 is clearly a tablet designed for masses. It’s not premium, but surprisingly solid. Just by looking at it, it doesn’t seem like a sub-200 $ tablet.

I could go into detail about each aspect of the tablet, but let’s go through this quickly. The display is amazing, but a bit small and not very usable in landscape. The camera is terrible, but who cares if it works for video calls. The speakers are stereo and sound decent. The battery lasts full day of intensive use and charging doesn’t take long. It starts to look like the almost perfect tablet. But… You can sometimes see the processor struggling. Dropped frames, aggressive multitasking management, occasional freezes. To be honest, I do not know the exact cause of the problem. It may be the relatively old hardware, but also Android. I also had a OnePlus One, an Android phone with much higher-end specs, and the experience wasn’t much better.

And this is the entire hardware story. I do not have any major issues with the device itself. If I wanted to point out something, there could be few things. For example, the screen sometimes doesn’t respond properly and the aspect ratio is not ideal. Of course, in 2016, things like faster internals and the new USB Type-C connector would be welcome, but that’s about it. I can forgive all those niggles, because Google offers a great tablet at a reasonable price. Plus, Google services, which I use on a daily basis.

Now, take a look at the software. It crashes and freezes more often than I would like. Even the built-in apps. And, don’t even get me started on the third party apps. There is a very limited number of apps fully-optimized for tablets and high resolution displays. The quality is not as good as on iOS. In fact, it is the completely opposite situation compared to iPads. Even today.  

This is the sad part. Google has the hardware and services, but the software is not as polished in terms of form, but most importantly, not as polished when it comes to function as well. How is it even possible, that an operating system on the market for more than 5 years crashes and freezes constantly.

I have had this tablet the longest out of all of the ones I have owned so far. I had the iPad 2, 3, 4, the Surface Pro 2 and 3. Now I have the newer Nexus 7 and the Surface Pro 4. I hope Google fixes the annoying issues, encourages developers to optimize their apps, and finally, creates an affordable Nexus tablet for 2016.