Nexus 7 Tablet Review

Nexus 7 Tablet Review 

Like other Nexus-branded devices, the Nexus 7 tablet isn't actually hardware manufactured by Google (as you may have noticed, thanks to the suffix). As the Mountain View company has done with Samsung, HTC and Motorola in the past, it paired with Asus to design and manufacture its slender tablet.

And make no mistake: the Nexus 7 tablet by Asus is more of an effort to stomp out Amazon's unwelcome (and forked) version of Android more than an attempt to dethrone Apple's reigning tablet champ.

That thrown-down gauntlet has been picked up by the Amazonians already though, thanks to the emergence of the Kindle Fire HD, which is offering more storage and the same specs for the same price. Winning.

The Nexus 7 Tablet good news is that very little has been sacrificed along the way, unlike with Amazon's initial offering. According to Android boss Andy Rubin, Google's profit margin bears the brunt of any sacrifices made, from selling hardware at cost and from tossing in generous perks such as £15 of Google Play credit for every Nexus 7 owner.

Design Nexus 7 Tablet

On paper, the specs for the Nexus 7 are quite impressive. Powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 processor with 1GB RAM and either 8GB (priced at £159 in the UK) or 16GB (£199) of onboard storage, this tablet runs circles around the Kindle Fire, rivaling many competing Android tablets at twice the price (or more).

The 7-inch 1200 x 800 HD backlit IPS display packs a respectable 216 pixels per inch onto the screen. Sure, it's not quite as impressive as a third-generation Retina Display iPad at 264ppi, but given the price, you will have little to complain about from the display.

The front of the Google Nexus 7 tablet by Asus is devoid of hardware-based buttons, but a 1.2MP front-facing camera rests at the top of the tablet front, which is covered entirely by Corning glass (we're assuming Gorilla Glass, but Google isn't confirming).