Here’s a price listing for you to watch over the next few days. Wal-Mart has the old Nexus 7 tablet on sale, refurbished, $150 for the 16-gig version. Why watch it? Because Google is highly expected to announce the new Nexus 7 today. In fact, Best Buy already has it up for pre-order at $229 for the 16-gig, $269 for the 32-gig version. If that happens, the old one might just get even cheaper.
The specs for the new one look pretty good. 1920×1200, which means it should do 1080p video. Android 4.3, so the newest of the new operating system. The price is tempting, too, especially since I have a Best Buy gift card loaded with a bunch of money sitting around from a failed TV purchase, and sadly I broke my Zeepad tablet yesterday.
It’s been a truism in my circle of on-line friends that if you’re going to buy an Android anything, there’s Google-branded products and then there’s everything else. The thinking goes that if you buy from Google, they have a strong incentive to keep you happy and continuing to use their online services, so they’ll make sure you get the latest updates as soon as they come out. You buy from someone else, what do they care about updates—they’ve already got your money.
I’m not sure that’s necessarily 100% true, but I’ll say this: you don’t have to worry about any company’s proprietary extensions or restrictions on the Android OS if you’re going Google. The slight premium in price over an Amazon- or B&N-branded tablet seems like a small price to pay for that.
Even the old refurbished Nexus 7 is by all accounts a decent tablet. It has a few minor design flaws, but would be heavenly fast compared to the snail-speed Zeepad. It will be interesting to see if the price drops any over the next few days.
You wouldn’t be unhappy with an original Nexus 7 if you want to go cheap. It’s a nice device. My biggest gripe with it is the tiny ridge around the edges that irritate my thumb if I use it to read for long periods of time. And that’s a tiny gripe.
It’s so nice to have a clean version of Android.
Remember that post about how the old Nexus has become a mess … yeah, I’m falling into the camp now.
Sometime it’s annoyingly slow and lags. The charge port has become so loose that it doesn’t want to hold any of the 5-6 chargers I have in the house that would fit it. Eventually, I may have to buy the charging docking station, but I really shouldn’t have to because I have chargers that fit.
Then, when I do get it fit on a charger here, the OS automatically re-boots itself. I’ve had this device for one year. I still really enjoy – when it’s working properly – but I’m am disappointed with with its response in that time