Finally about to plunge into to the world of tablet ownership and have narrowed it down to these two.

Nexus
+ives – faster processor, newer OS, relatively cheap
-ives – no (micro)SD slot, smaller screen

Galaxy
+ives – SD slot, bigger screen
-ives – slower processor, older OS, slightly more expensive

Leaning towards the Nexus myself, but anyone out there got experience of both and.or an opinion to offer. Will be used for surfing, video, bit of gaming, emails, etc.

slainte ❓ rob

Don’t play with the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 whatever you do then ;0)

Toyed with getting the ‘phone’ Note when I upgrade in November (but will probably go for an S3 anyway).

Don’t want to really spend as much as the Note 10.1 costs though, so not really in the picture.

slainte 🙂 rob

The note phone is lovely, love mine!

What about one of these. cheap as chips for what it is 16gb £109
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/blackberry-playbook-tablet-pc-32gb-10647931-pdt.html

I don’t see the point of a 7″ tablet now that phones are so good (and getting bigger).

druidh – a 4″ phone and a 7″ tablet are chalk and cheese in the real (sofa) world. My missus happily reads books on a 7″ (just like a paperback?). She’ll never do it on her iphone. An iPad is just too big.

Personally I’d get whatever that does what you want it to do now. Do you NEED an SD slot. Faster is always better!

#Edit – OP – I dont have either btw – am neutral.

Nah. If it’s for the sofa, then I don’t see the benefit of a 7″ screen. My daughter has a 10″ Tab and it seems the perfect size to me.

I’m eyeing up one if these. Look like a bargain. Terrible name mind.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B008BHJSGQ/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?qid=1347451693&ref_=sr_1_1&s=electronics&sr=1-1

Have a look at the BB Playbook. £109 at PC World. Can’t go far wrong at that price. Good size easy to carry while away and if it gets robbed at that price it won’t make you cry.
I’ve had mine about 12months and it’s been real handy. Only down side for some people has been if they are big on apps (doesn’t really bother me)
Movies,music,Internet have been spot on.
The one big down side is no Skype but has BB video chat if you know someone else with a BB that works ok.

I have the Nexus and really cannot fault it,I had a iPad 1 before which was great but browsing the web on it became a bit of a chore as safari seemed to get slower and slower with each of the IOS updates.

Thought I would maybe miss the bigger screen ,but as the Nexus screen is so clear its not a issue.

Easy to increase storage space on the nexus if you need it,buy a USB on the go cable from Amazon for about £2,this allows you to plug in USB sticks,powered hard drives,SD card adaptors etc,
With this you can store as much data as you want,not as intergrated as a SD card but still works.

I have the cable with a tiny Sandisk 16gb pendrive for playing movies.

Loving my nexus. I haven’t turned my laptop on since I’ve had it.

Are you talking Galaxy Tab 10.1 or Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, big difference in price. You can get the latter one from Dabs in white for £ 225 (£ 50 cashback through a Samsung offer). Does everything I want from a tablet, not as powerful as the original 10.1 or iPad, but then nearly a 3rd the price with that offer.

Nexus = smaller
Galaxy = bigger

How big a tablet do you want?

slight hijack,but may be of use to the OP:

My wife’s got a nexus and when I get my hands on it occassionally, I’m a little frustrated that it insists on displaying webpages and clips(youtube, vimeo, etc) portrait style and not landscape. My android phone will do it whichever way I want, am I missing something here? Otherwise, it’s great fun!

EDIT: google> youtube> sorted it! 😳

Nexus = smaller
Galaxy = bigger

How big a tablet do you want?

I’ve got a Nexus, great in a lot of ways (especially with iPlayer working) but am probably going to get rid because it’s not really big enough. 10’s too big – I need something in between!

Very pleased with my blackberry PlayBook. There aren’t loads of apps, but it is cheap, good for email, browsing, video, pics etc. It is much more slick than I thought it would be too.

Went for the Nexus in the end. So far seems pretty cool. Form factor is good and screen is very clear. HD playback is great and surfing is quick enough for me not to have switched on the laptop since I got the tablet this afternoon. Picked up and installed all the apps from my phone automatically which was nice. So far so good.

Thanks for all the advice/comments.

slainte 8) rob

Re: the lack of sd card slot – you can use USB sticks with a £2 USB otg cable /adaptor from amazon (and root privileges).

The nexus doesn’t feel a bit small does it? I seriously want a tablet and a 7″ is top of the list.I will use it for browsing, crappy games and facebook/twitter. Basically stuff I use my phone for but I will have the benefit of a bigger screen and not killing my phone battery.

No need to root the tablet to have USB sticks

There is if you want write permissions iirc.

How did you get Iplayer running on the nexus. Is firefox still the only way or has there been a better option found?

I was told I should look at a Sumvision Astro. 9.7 screen, ICS for £125. Supposed to be a bit of a cracker. Anybody else heard of it?

The specs on that look pretty good.

How did you get Iplayer running on the nexus. Is firefox still the only way or has there been a better option found?

No FF on mine

If buying Android, buy a machine that hasn’t had the OS mucked up.
Ie. get the Nexus.

+1 for the blackberry playbook especially since version 2 of the software. £129 for 64gb at currys you cant go wrong, you can also ‘side load’ android apps which gives you even more choice had mine 12 months and wont go back to ipad

Pc World for the playbook can’t go wrong at these prices

BLACKBERRY PlayBook Tablet PC – 16 GB
£109.00
was £169.00

BLACKBERRY PlayBook Tablet PC – 32GB
BlackBerry Tablet OS (QNX)
7″ LCD Touchscreen
ARM Cortex A9 processor
HD front & rear cameras
£119.00
was £199.00

BLACKBERRY PlayBook Tablet PC – 64 GBe
£129.00
was £559.00

“Can’t go wrong”.

Famous last words.
Try before you buy.

Or you could wait until next month and get a shiney new 7″ iPad.

Just a though.

That’ll never happen.

Jobs thought 7-inch tablets were too small. Apple’s user testing had revealed that “there are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touchscreen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them,” Jobs said. As a result, these tiny tablets would need to be sold with sandpaper, he predicted, “so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one-quarter of their present size.” He wasn’t finished: Because most tablet owners also have a smartphone, people would find that these tiny tablets didn’t offer anything they couldn’t do on their phones. “The 7-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad,” Jobs said. As a result, they “are going to be DOA.”

That’s a load of balls. How can he say a 7″ tablet is too small for fingers while peddling a 4″ phone. Talking Bollocks or smoke and mirrors, they need to launch a iPad mini so they don’t loose too much market share to the nexus.

That’s a load of balls. How can he say a 7″ tablet is too small for fingers while peddling a 4″ phone. Talking Bollocks or smoke and mirrors, they need to launch a iPad mini so they don’t loose too much market share to the nexus.

Here’s the excerpt of Mr. Jobs’ speech from October 2010, followed by audio:
I’d like to comment on the avalanche of tablets poised to enter the market in the coming months.

First, it appears to be just a handful of credible entries. Not exactly an avalanche. Second, almost all of them use seven-inch screens, as compared to the iPad’s near 10-inch screen.

Let’s start there. One naturally thinks that a seven-inch screen would offer 70% of the benefits of a 10-inch screen. Unfortunately this is far from the truth. Screen measurements are diagonal. So that a seven-inch screen is only 45% as large as iPad’s 10-inch screen. You heard me right: Just 45% as large.

If you take an iPad and hold it up in portrait view, and draw a horizontal line halfway down the screen, the screens on seven-inch tablets are a bit smaller than the bottom half of the iPad display. This size isn’t efficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion.

While one could increase the resolution to make up some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one-quarter of their present size. Apple has done expensive user testing on touch interfaces over many years, and we really understand this stuff.

There are clear limits of how close you can place physical elements on a touch screen, before users cannot reliably tap, flick or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps.

Third, every tablet user is also a smartphone user. No tablet can compete with the mobility of a smartphone–its ease of fitting into a pocket or purse, its unobtusiveness when used in a crowd. Given that tablet users will already have a smartphone in their pockets, giving up precious display area to fit a tablet in their pocket is clearly the wrong tradeoff.

The seven-inch tablets are tweeners. Too big to compete with a smartphone; too small to compete with a iPad.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFAjfUT8wZI[/video]

FWIW I reckon any size will work as everybody is different however as we all know Steve is right about everything shiny and they did spend a lot of money working it out…..

It might do.

Steve’s not here anymore and Tim likes to make money, lots of money and then some more money to cover the huge pile of money he’s made, in money.

We’ll find out in October innit. The 7’s not about competing with the iPad as there are no worthy competitors yet. iI’s to kill off the middle ground competition.

kelvin – Member
“Can’t go wrong”.

Famous last words.
Try before you buy

Had one for the last 12 months! It’s been good I don’t use many apps which is where it falls down slightly. You can now side load android apps apparently. Movies its good, Internet its good, email its good its a handy size for travel or just sat on the couch watching porn if that’s your bag it can handle flash unlike ipad. So tried and liked and for £109 I personally think it’s a bargain and at that price if you drop it or it get’s nicked then your not going to cry like a baby.

The seven-inch tablets are tweeners. Too big to compete with a smartphone; too small to compete with a iPad.

Translated… we’re too busy selling 4″ and 9″ tablets to mess around with a third size.
Having only two sizes to worry about helped get app developers on board.
That was years ago though… they’d be mad not to have a tablet at all three screen sizes now…
…doesn’t mean that they will bring out an in between size, just that I think they should.

Erupton, glad you like the PlayBook, I found it slow and limited when I had a play on it.
No worse than any of that generation of ‘Droid tablets though.
Google wasn’t ready then. RIMs attempts to fill the gaps were poor. Amazon and others little better.
Google IS ready now though, just about, and the Nexus7 is probably the first “finished” ‘droid tablet to appear. They’ll be more I hope…

After reading bits of this thread with interest, I looked at the Nexus and the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 for a birthday gift for my 10 year old lads birthday. Looked at the cheaper ones, whilst good value, the processors seemed really slow. In the end got him the Toshiba 10 inch quad core nvidia jobbie on a cashback deal for a new mobile with PCWorld. So far its really really good!

I found it slow and limited when I had a play on it.

In what way Kelvin? Just out of interest. considering you can running several operations consecutively unlike other tablets.
I’ve had little problem with mine they all have their qwerks but £109 Is a bargain. I use mine for browsing FB movies and Music mostly and it does it well. Couldn’t justify spending any more on one and pretty glad I didn’t.

Nexus here. Had it since ‘just before’ they were officially on sale.
Love it. I thought that the screen would be a bit small, but no issues with that at all.

Forget using an otg cable, etc. for extra storage though. Not without rooting the device and voiding the warranty anyway.