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

Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 486 posts

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#301

Post by anigbrowl »

w1ntermute wrote: post #221
meritt wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it we have amazing 16:10 2560-by-1600 in a 10" tablet but commonplace laptops (13-15") rarely surpass 1680x1050 or even worse 1366x768? Sometimes, on high-end models, you can pay an extra $200 to "upgrade" to 1920x1080 (I'll leave my rant about 16:10 vs. 16:9 for another time). Technology is so ridiculous at times.

> Why is it we have amazing 16:10 2560-by-1600 in a 10" tablet but commonplace laptops (13-15") rarely surpass 1680x1050 or even worse 1366x768? Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling. > Sometimes, on high-end models, you can pay an extra $200 to "upgrade" to 1920x1080 Because they know they can rip you off, and because it's a lot more expensive to produce high resolution dis…

Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling.

Yes they do. It's just not automatic - you tweak it in control panel to suit your preferences.

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#302

Post by mahyarm »

tomjen3 wrote: post #274
dude_abides wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very impressive pricing! On the other hand, it doesn't support LTE. When will Google realize that basic things like fast network speed are more important than fancy things like face unlock and NFC.

Honestly why do you want LTE? You are going to burn through your data alotment very, very fast.

With LTE everywhere comes bigger data allotments. It's very easy to get 10/10 Mbps with LTE.

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#303

Post by dbecker »

achompas wrote: post #213

The "iPad mini vs. other 7" tablet" battle has been going on for a week, but if nothing else I hope these new Nexus tablets force Apple to move away from $100 jumps for memory and $130 jumps for radio. The ~$450 I paid for a 32GB iPad mini would net me two base Nexus 7s. Alternatively, for $100 less I can get an equivalent Nexus 7...with cell radio. Those jumps add up!

It can work either way. They could lower their prices, because otherwise people will move from Apple to the cheaper devices.

On the other hand, if the price conscious consumers move to competitors, they may raise their prices (because only people willing to pay a premium are interested anyway.)

Empirically, their are many examples of competition leading to lower prices. But the entry of low cost generic drugs have historically caused the associated branded drugs to raise their prices.

It's hard to predict which way it will work in the tablet market.

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#304

Post by eco »

tomjen3 wrote: post #274
dude_abides wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very impressive pricing! On the other hand, it doesn't support LTE. When will Google realize that basic things like fast network speed are more important than fancy things like face unlock and NFC.

Honestly why do you want LTE? You are going to burn through your data alotment very, very fast.

What I like about LTE is the decreased latency (rather than the higher peak speed).

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#305

Post by dbecker »

mtgx wrote: post #227
mtgx wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And with that crazy resolution.

@merrit - Because it has not been a focus of laptop manufacturers. Instead the focus has been faster CPU's or bigger hard drives. Going premium on the display, means you have to cut on something else to deliver the laptop at the same, and I don't think Intel is going to cut on their CPU prices anytime soon. In some laptops, Intel's chips take up to 40% of the BOM price. That leaves little wiggle room for experimentin…

My eyesight isn't great, but I can't tell the difference between the resolution on my "retina" devices and resolution on other screens. Can most people tell the difference?

If not, this marketing and competition on resolution may be distracting us from issues that have a bigger impact on our usage experience.

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#306

Post by martythemaniak »

fr0sty wrote: post #14

And someone finally implements the killer-feature for the "Family Tablet": Multi-Account Support: > But what makes Nexus 10 unique is that it's the first truly shareable tablet. With Android 4.2, you can add multiple users and switch between them instantly right from the lockscreen. We believe that everyone should have quick and easy access to their own stuff -- email, apps, bookmarks, and more. That way, everyone ca…

Shameless Plug: Kytephone (https://www.kytephone.com/) adds a de-facto multi-account support to any Android phone or tablet running 2.2 or above.

It's aimed at adding accounts for kids and while it's not as extensive as the baked-in one (kids can't have their own gmail account for example) it does come with goodies such as time limits for games.

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#307

Post by fluidcruft »

gutnor wrote: post #211
wmf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, these prices look almost too good to be true. Other Android vendors may be getting some serious indigestion from this.

Other vendors have already failed, except on the low cost. Samsung rules the phone market, it is everyday closer to become synonym with Android and could be tempted to secede like Amazon. That is not a good situation for either Android or Google - and except Google breaking the price, there is little else that can revive the market a little bit.

Good luck if Samsung thinks they can strike it out on their own without Google Play, Google Maps and Gmail.

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#308

Post by TillE »

eropple wrote: post #254
king_jester wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a while since I jumped into Android dev, so I'm curious if you could elaborate more on the things you are finding annoying and/or confusing. Also, are there things about Android development that you like more than iOS development?

I never did iOS development in anger; I just really, really don't like Obj-C or Xcode from dealing with OS X programming. A few things that come to mind off the top of my head: -Again, the documentation isn't well-written. It almost all feels like it's written either by an engineer with little writing experience or a technical writer without engineering experience. There have been times when I've had to re-read passa…

For games, I'd definitely recommend the NDK, which lets you write cross-platform code with OpenGL. Or just go with Unity and C#.

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#309

Post by bitcartel »

illumin8 wrote: post #289
bitcartel wrote: post #27

It won't be long before the usual suspects start claiming - screen resolution isn't important - multi-user accounts are overly complex - low prices mean the devices are cheap and nasty

It sure wasn't long before the Google apologists started clamoring that you don't really need LTE anyway.

It doesn't matter what Apple or Google fanboys think, consumers have real choice in the Android market.

Some phones offer LTE, others have a removable battery, provide expandable storage, are waterproof, have wireless charging or even hold two sim cards. It's great!

Re: Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

#310

Post by wutbrodo »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #251

This stuff is blowing my mind. On every single spec, Nexus exceeds the iDevice equivalent. The Nexus 4 has two NFC radios, a higher res screen, is thinner and lighter and is less than half of the price of the iPhone 5. (edit: That's unfair, I forget about LTE, though I understand why Google skipped that) Similar things hold for the Nexus 10. Am I the only one really surprised? (This is of course not to mention the nu…

I don't have that clear a picture of the mobile landscape over the past couple of years (since the last time I was in the market for a phone), but has this not consistently been the case? I remember hearing as far back as 2010, "Specs aren't everything, android fans are obsessed with numbers". The price of course is rather new, but to my memory, this latest comparison really seems entirely in line with the last couple years of the smartphone landscape.
Post reply on HN