Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 174 posts

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#161

Post by yebyen »

hansjorg wrote: post #155
anigbrowl wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started with a Nexus One and have purchased 5 android devices altogether. I'd consider myself a Google fanboy, and rely heavily on their service platform. But the next tablet I get will have to be an iPad or Surface Pro, because I make music and all the tablet-based music software worth talking about is on iOS. Google largely ignored the creative market in developing Android and made no effort to address concerns a…

It's a bit surprising that sound latency on Android is as bad as it is. It's not just apps for audio production that suffers, most any kind of audio toy is useless. For people who want to tinker with audio on Android, it's possible to swap AudioFlinger with PulseAudio[1] for lower latency (20ms vs 176ms)[2], but so far you have to build and flash your own AOSP image, so it's not exactly plug and play. [1]: http://www…

> but so far you have to build and flash your own AOSP image

I think you're going to see more people doing this, with the Nexus devices and the Transformer tablet. Maybe I've overestimated the popularity of the ASUS-branded hardware, but I have always had the best of luck with my TF-101 getting current ROMs and updates from the third-party vendors like TeamEOS.

Now that TeamEOS is gone, there's a void, so more people are probably going to learn to build the ROMs. There are even people picking up the torch[1] with the TeamEOS source code, taking their branches and picking up where they left off.

I know as consumers, we all want vendors to support their products... but as members of Open Source community, I see it's irresponsible to depend on them exclusively for forward motion, progress, and updates, and for freedom's sake it shouldn't be an impossible proposition to compile and flash your own ROM. (Just think if you bought an x86 computer with Ubuntu or Fedora and you couldn't re-OS it.)

[1]: https://github.com/timduru/

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#162

Post by jonknee »

micampe wrote: post #98
jonknee wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare any two items in the same category that are 65% apart in price and it probably wouldn't make a lot of sense to choose the cheaper one.

16GB Nexus 7 is $269, 16GB iPad mini is $329, the difference is 20%.

The version of the Nexus 7 I was speaking of is $199 or less (Amazon even has the 32GB for $199 right now). The new version is a little more expensive at $229, but blows the specs of the iPad Mini out of the water.

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#163

Post by brewdad »

cheald wrote: post #114
zbinga wrote: post #31

If this had [micro]SD card support, I would be pre-ordering one right now.

It's worth noting that you can use an OTA cable to plug a USB jumpdrive into it just fine.

Can you still? It looks like the Gen2 version has implemented SlimPort instead of the OTG port used on Gen1. This is a confusing decision in light of the Chomecast announcement.

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#164

Post by [deleted] »

baddox wrote: post #153
corresation wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which works better in the 4:3 format The entire computer and laptop market has overwhelmingly endorsed 16:10 and 16:9, and most content correspondingly adapted. This notion that the web was built for 4:3, or is somehow superior on it, seemed to rise out of nowhere the moment Apple happened to announce the iPad as 4:3.

I won't make baseless claims about "the average user," but I personally very rarely maximize a browser window on a desktop or laptop monitor. The aspect ratio of a PC monitor is, to me, much less relevant than for a tablet, because tablet displays are much smaller and most tablet platforms focus on fullscreen apps.

[deleted]

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#165

Post by Ecio78 »

mscrivo wrote: post #143
criley2 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I have never once experienced iOS level smoothness from my Note II, and I've run both stock TouchWiz 4.1 and a CM 10.1 4.2 variant called Liquidsmooth. Android is great, I wouldn't trade back to iOS for the world, but I've just learned to accept the hiccups, lag and odd behavior that hurts my "suspension of belief" (or whatever term describes the ability to believe that we're actually 'moving' things by touch…

I just flashed 4.3 onto my Nexus 4, and I'm happy to say those annoying hiccups are virtually non-existent now! They really bothered me before. Chrome and Facebook were the apps I most noticed the stuttering in.

Are you sure this is not only due to the fact that you've flashed a new rom (you say flash so it's not OTA, I suppose) so the system is freshly installed?

I should try it on my Nexus S that has become sluggish as hell (and I've tried different custom roms)

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#166

Post by yareally »

yareally wrote: post #132
mrbrowning wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to over-generalize based on one data point, but on my Galaxy Nexus I noticed that 4.2 pretty handily undid all of the improvements that 4.1 managed in this arena. It was indeed a paradise of smoothness for that one point release, though.

I'll be building 4.3 for the gnexus after it syncs, so we'll see how it is.

Anyone wondering, it's performing faster than 4.2 on the gnexus imho. Battery life is the same though. Superuser is problematic unless you undo a change in one of the /davlik files[1]. That makes the system partition mount without nosuid as it did before Android 4.3. The other solution is uglier, using SuperSU (which is closed source) and runs as a hacky service that most apps are not compatible with yet.

[1] https://android.googlesource.com/platform/dalvik/+/9907ca3cb...

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#167

Post by mikeash »

kunai wrote: post #144
mikeash wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are Despicable Me haters? They probably just need banana.

Or they could just go to New York New York Las Vegas and see that stealing the small Statue of Liberty is no small feat...

What with all the security in Vegas casinos, stealing the real one is probably easier.

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#168

Post by JeremyNT »

solnyshok wrote: post #157
JeremyNT wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the tethering thing with the Galaxy Nexus. There really is no need for a dedicated modem in the tablet, at least not in my case. I think one reason consumers prefer devices with their own modems is (intentional?) UI friction which makes "tethering" less convenient. In stock Android you cannot configure a device such that it will "use wireless if available, tether if not," which is what you really want to happen.…

Do you use such app? Could you point me to it?

Sure. There are multiple components, and I think it requires root (can't recall for sure):

* Force the phone to enable bluetooth tethering on every boot with Bluetooth Auto Tether: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.refluxa.and...

* Install Bluetooth Auto Connect on the tablet, which allows for the tablet to connect to the phone automatically: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.refluxa.and...

* Use an automation app (I prefer Llama https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.refluxa.and... ) to configure Bluetooth Auto Connect to happen when (e.g.) "screen on" and "wireless not connected", and configure it to disable Bluetooth Auto connect when "screen off" or "wireless connected." Add small delays here to avoid race conditions.

It all seems needlessly complicated, but the end result is that the device will tether if it is awake and cannot find wireless, and it will disconnect from the phone when it goes to sleep or when it does find wireless, which is exactly what I want.

Re: Google Unveils The New Nexus 7 Android Tablet

#169

Post by [deleted] »

jonknee wrote: post #162
micampe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16GB Nexus 7 is $269, 16GB iPad mini is $329, the difference is 20%.

The version of the Nexus 7 I was speaking of is $199 or less (Amazon even has the 32GB for $199 right now). The new version is a little more expensive at $229, but blows the specs of the iPad Mini out of the water.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN