I bought one and just recently sold my iPad. Everyone I know who has one loves it and everyone who comes over and uses mine now wants one.
Ask HN: What happened to the Nexus 7?
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Re: Ask HN: What happened to the Nexus 7?
#12I see them all the time. I pre-ordered mine on launch and I've used it tons since. My iPad 3 normally collects dust as the N7 form factor is so much better and lighter for reading, despite the screen inferiority.
I read a lot of PDFs, specifically programming books. I like my 7" Android tablet (Kindle Fire 1st Gen) but I find the reading experience terrible in comparison to the iPad 3. There really doesn't seem to be any way to display technical books on a 7" screen unless they are specifically designed for such a task. I had to sell the iPad a while back, so now I may take a look at the 8.9" Kindle Fire to see if it's big enough to properly display my PDFs.
While I'm interested in it, there is one thing about the 8.9" Kindle Fire that really disappointed me already. They advertise $50 a year for a mobile connection, but it's only for the first year. When you take a look at the huge price increase between the Wifi and the ATT 3G version, it's not a discount, you are just being forced to prepay for your service. Other than that, it looks pretty nice.
Re: Ask HN: What happened to the Nexus 7?
#13Google / Asus pushed them through retail channels here (Netherlands) and it generated quite a buzz. Demand was much bigger than the supply, especially at first, because the retailers didn't realize there was so much interest in this device. I can't say anything real about the numbers, it wasn't Apple-like but at some point they sold more than 5000 a day (quite a lot for a small country like ours), I imagine total number of sales is around 100k. No one slept in front of a store, but lots of people tried to get one and had to wait a few weeks for the next batches to become available.
That said, I like mine but don't love it. The screen is quite bland and not a lot of apps cater to the form factor. I mean, phone apps work fine if the aim is to have bigger fonts and a bit more screen real estate, but only a handful of apps do something useful with the extra space. Also, a number of apps is blocking either the tablet version or phone version through the Play store, even though either would reasonably work. It's nice as a reader (for anything other than PDF, but reflowing formats are fine) and certainly more comfortable to hold than my Samsung Tab 8.9 or 10.1. JB is a nice plus but my phone and Tabs should eventually get that as well. Not getting rid of the 8.9 / 10.1 form factors any time soon, though. I treat it as yet another digital accessory for a tech-addicted lifestyle, non-essential yet nice to have.
Re: Ask HN: What happened to the Nexus 7?
#14Bought one as soon as it was available. My major problem with it is the same problem I have had with my Android smart phones: Lack of apps.
Almost all new Y Combinator startups choose iOS first. When Google has their $0.25 app sale, I had already purchased 95% of the apps they showed off.