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Seven Days With a Nexus 7

redmonk.com

11–20 of 60 posts

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#11

My brother and I imported one each from the UK. After 4 days of use I am very, very happy with the hardware (display, sound, weight), but still have to get used to the software (changes in 4.x seem to confuse me, my phone still doesn't offer it. Sidenote: Never ever buy a phone from LG if you can avoid it). Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?).…

re: Google Now. The only ways I've seen it noticeable function is when you leave your current "home location" and if you turn on your Google web history (on the account that is tied to Chrome on the Nexus 7).

Since I neither leave my home location often nor want to turn on web history, for either of my accounts, it's relatively useless for me.

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#12
post #10

My brother and I imported one each from the UK. After 4 days of use I am very, very happy with the hardware (display, sound, weight), but still have to get used to the software (changes in 4.x seem to confuse me, my phone still doesn't offer it. Sidenote: Never ever buy a phone from LG if you can avoid it). Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?).…

> Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?). this is interesting, because for my usage, Google Now was one of the most useful additions in Jelly Bean. i use it all the time, and love the notifications about nearby public transit, time and distance notifications for appointments from my calendar and so on. it's pretty basic at present, but it's alrea…

I guess you are living in one of the rare places on earth where google maps works for public transit.

It's sometimes really frustrating to use technology in a place that is not the San Francisco...

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#13
post #9

The Nexus 7 is my first table and I'm still sitting on the fence about the whole experience. The version of Chrome is superb and it's a pleasure to surf, but there really are a lack of tablet specific Android apps. Some Android apps are also missing features present in their iOS counterparts. For example, the MLB app is very basic compared to the iOS version. I was hoping the 7 would be useful for reading PDFs, but i…

> The Nexus 7 is my first table and I'm still sitting on the fence about the whole experience. The version of Chrome is superb and it's a pleasure to surf, but there really are a lack of tablet specific Android apps. Some Android apps are also missing features present in their iOS counterparts. For example, the MLB app is very basic compared to the iOS version. I was hoping the 7 would be useful for reading PDFs, but…

I had no idea it was an issue until I started to search around about how to send the device back. At first it was just the left side was a bit above the edging, but after another day it was so bad that when I push the left 1/4 of the device it discolors the screen. I thought it was just shoddy hardware so I was really thinking about returning it for a refund, but then I read the reports about it happening to other people. I called support and they said they're going to ship out a replacement.

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?). this is interesting, because for my usage, Google Now was one of the most useful additions in Jelly Bean. i use it all the time, and love the notifications about nearby public transit, time and distance notifications for appointments from my calendar and so on. it's pretty basic at present, but it's alrea…

I guess you are living in one of the rare places on earth where google maps works for public transit. It's sometimes really frustrating to use technology in a place that is not the San Francisco...

Works great in Seattle as well.

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#15
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?). this is interesting, because for my usage, Google Now was one of the most useful additions in Jelly Bean. i use it all the time, and love the notifications about nearby public transit, time and distance notifications for appointments from my calendar and so on. it's pretty basic at present, but it's alrea…

I guess you are living in one of the rare places on earth where google maps works for public transit. It's sometimes really frustrating to use technology in a place that is not the San Francisco...

worked for me in Boston, Portland, ME and Portland, OR

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#16

My brother and I imported one each from the UK. After 4 days of use I am very, very happy with the hardware (display, sound, weight), but still have to get used to the software (changes in 4.x seem to confuse me, my phone still doesn't offer it. Sidenote: Never ever buy a phone from LG if you can avoid it). Especially Google Now, while certainly interesting, seems to be useless to me so far (or I just don't get it?).…

re: Google Now. The only ways I've seen it noticeable function is when you leave your current "home location" and if you turn on your Google web history (on the account that is tied to Chrome on the Nexus 7). Since I neither leave my home location often nor want to turn on web history, for either of my accounts, it's relatively useless for me.

For me, so far, it shows me

- Commuting times to several places

Here I don't know where it takes the address from. In the beginning it listed a couple off-by-one addresses for friends and family, by now (how..?) it resolved two of these addresses to contact names, so I have now a travel plan to visit my brother, dad or my company. It also includes a wrong address of my in-laws.

This is impressive, technically, but a little creepy and totally, 100% useless for me. I _was_ at these places, but I really don't plan to go there again anytime soon.

Why is this listed?

- The weather, for the local town I'm in. The Standard Thing (tm)

- A Google Translate widget to translate between German and English. I .. feel insulted. ;-) I used Google Translate a lot, in Israel, for Hebrew English. German English? I can do that myself, thank you very much.

Why is this listed?

- A widget that lists the exchange rate between EUR and ILS. Yes, I used to be interested in that, up until I moved back to Germany more than a month ago.

Why is this listed?

- The time and day of week. Off by one hour.

Again - no clue why. But this at least gives a hint:

Somehow Google decided that I'm still living in Israel. It shows me currency exchange rates, the time at 'home' and a translator widget (why between english and the local language though?).

My problem: I don't want _any_ of that. Mostly not because I don't feel that they add anything of value (they don't, for me), more because ~everything~ listed there is irrelevant/wrong. Since the whole idea of Google Now seems to be a magic sauce trying to find stuff that you want to be informed about, I'm unable to 'fix' my data set here.

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#17
I don't know why he mentions recommending to pure apple households. Surely if every computer (/phone/tablet) in your house is made by apple, you don't really care what anybody says about the competition.

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#19
post #17

I don't know why he mentions recommending to pure apple households. Surely if every computer (/phone/tablet) in your house is made by apple, you don't really care what anybody says about the competition.

Why not?

Re: Seven Days With a Nexus 7

#20
post #17

I don't know why he mentions recommending to pure apple households. Surely if every computer (/phone/tablet) in your house is made by apple, you don't really care what anybody says about the competition.

Or they evaluated the competition and decided that, for right now, especially in the context of the other devices they already own from Apple (which tend to work well together), those purchases were likely the best for them.
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