[Closed] Who is pre-ordering a Google Nexus 7?

does it have a HDMI output?

Looks good, very keenly priced too. I've been very happy with my Galaxy Nexus so hopefully this will be equally well implemented.

Does it have a parallel port socket for my old printer?

Does it have a parallel port socket for my old printer?

No, but I am fairly sure I can find somewhere to stick it.

I would be tempted for that price although no SD reader or hdmi output is a bit annoying.

How often do you have to wind it up?

"is interested"

When is it out?
Do I have to wait for Santa to lug them over the Ice?
Will my bum look big in it?

[i]How often do you have to wind it up? [/i]

Just say 'I wish I could have afforded an iPad' to it three times a day to keep it wound up 😉

wwaswas 🙂

Just say 'I wish I could have afforded an iPad' to it three times a day to keep it wound up

Buy 2. That way you have spent the same, and if you tape them together its bigger....and possibly faster... although I have not looked into the science behind this statement.

That is cheap.
I guess that's going to kill off any other android tablet >£100

I guess I'd better make sure my app designs work well at 7" 1280x800!

Hmmm - does it come in white? 😉

Edit 2: No HDMI output

I'd expect it to have MHL (HDMI over uUSB) at the very least.

Why do these things have such piffling little amounts of memory? I have more than 16gb worth of music, and my collection isn't that massive. Add in a few films/TV programs and 16BG is useless really, never mind 8GB.

Flash memory is getting cheaperer and cheaperer. Hell, you can get a 32GB SD card for less than £20 retail, so why do these tablets not have at least 64GB?

It is a bit annoying to see a £50 price hike for 16gb rather than 8 seeing as the equivalent amount of money can pickup a 64gb MicroSD. If it had a microSD slot I wouldn't hesitate to order it today.

Still might have to pick one up to replace my Advent Vega.

Give it time. This time next year you'll be able to buy one that does twice as much for under £100.

Is 32GB the upper limit for an SD card or will those get exponentially better as well?

32Gb is the limit on the SDHC spec.

SDXC cards (a different spec, same physically, not backward compatible) theoretically goes up to 2TB but the cards are only up to 64Gb.

that's a summary of course, more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SDXC

[i]Give it time[/i]

I keep hearing this, but over the three or so years that tablets have been emerging the cost of memory has come down and down, so why isn't the capacity on tablets going up and up?

Planned obsolecense.

I guess it depends on whether you want it for home or away.
If at home, have all your storage elsewhere. My 16Gb iPad is only about a third full, because everything is either on the internet or on my NAS.

If away, I can understand the frustration. A card slot would have solved the problem, but probably pushed it above the 'magic' $200 point (they also removed HDMI to meet that price).

Unexpandable memory is the same PITA/extortion as apple are doing so waiting for at least an SD card.

The thinking is also though that you don't carry [i]All[/i] of your music etc you leave it in the cloud. (currently how I'm working)

Like the Nexus One phone it's there to test the water/inspire/set benchmark for the other manufacturers and demo the tech.

Will be getting Mark II I reckon

Interesting. Waiting to see the price of the Surface before I buy a tablet. Not got any android devices though so might be interesting to get one.

I think they want you tethered to their cloud rather than free to use it offline.

. Waiting to see the price of the Surface before I buy a tablet

Surface will be more.

The price of these things is dominated by the display/battery, smaller display = smaller battery = cheaper. Also google have a vested interest in cheap/free commodity hardware - it's not where they make their money on android. They're on record as saying the N7 is being sold at cost.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/28/3122811/nexus-7-manufacturing-cost-design-time/in/2885052

Of course, MS could "do an xbox" and heavily subsidise the surface, to make their money on Office.

It was *years* before MS made profit on making consoles at all. In fact, it was such a money sink I dunno if they've made a profit overall yet to balance the losses? I'd have to do the numbers, and I CBA just to argue on the internet 😉

If it had a microSD slot I wouldn't hesitate to order it today.

This, shame.

What's the socket on the left? Maybe I'm blind but they only mention the micro-usb and headphone socket in the article

[img] [/img]

Why do these things have such piffling little amounts of memory? I have more than 16gb worth of music,

Do you really need your entire collection with you at all times? Back in the days of the CD Walkman, did you walk around with a briefcase full of discs wherever you went? With the least efficient, lossless, uncompressed encoding you could come up with you'd still get a dozen albums into 8Gb of space, and at a reasonable compression rate you'd get a hundred.

I agree absolutely that there should be more storage, and a £40 price hike for an additional 8Gb of NVRAM which I could buy as SD at retail prices for about five quid is taking the proverbial, but reasoning that you can't fit everything you own onto it seems a little churlish to me.

More pertinent for me would be, can I fit all my maps, applications and games (which will often be larger than their phone versions if the iPad is anything to judge by) on there?

That's a mini-HDMI socket, but doesn't appear on the specs, so probably just on the pre-production ones/for demos etc.

It looks like mini-HDMI, but I read somewhere that there's a connector for a docking station, so it might be that?

No, docking connector is a row of dots on the side.

Also all the hands-on etc explicitly mention all connectors....except the HDMI so I assume are told it's not on the final ones.

Back in the days of the CD Walkman, did you walk around with a briefcase full of discs wherever you went?

Check you with your La-De-Da CD walkman, some of us had tapes bought from that there market, 3 for a fiver

some of us had tapes bought from that there market, 3 for a fiver

The Maxell ones that came with a free set of headphones?

[i]Do you really need your entire collection with you at all times?[/i]

Well, as storage costs so little, why shouldn't I? I do on my 6 year old 32GB iPod, and on my phone (thanks to a 32gb SDHC card), which means I can listen to whatever I want, when I want, instead of thinking 'what will I want to listen to today' and pi$$ing around syncing a selection of albums.

[i]Back in the days of the CD Walkman, did you walk around with a briefcase full of discs wherever you went?[/i]

No, but we're no back in those days, are we? I thought things were supposed to have moved on.

Well, as storage costs so little, why shouldn't I?

The counter argument is, when data access costs so little and is so prevalent, why should you bother? 😉

(playing devil's advocate here, I get your point!)

I do on my 6 year old 32GB iPod

I used to listen to my music collection now I listen to spotify and don't access my stored music.

(devils advocate here too)

Well, as storage costs so little, why shouldn't I?

we're no back in those days, are we? I thought things were supposed to have moved on

Sure, I don't disagree. But that said, you've still got a device that can hold [i]half of your entire music collection[/i] and fit in your pocket. I dunno, you're right of course, but I can't shake the feeling that it's a little crazy that we're then all sat here going "well, what about the other half?!" Memory is relatively dirt cheap, but I guess part of me is still fairly in awe that we're anywhere near where we are at all.

Smartphones have come of age in the last couple of years, and are finally starting to deliver on the promises made by the old Windows Mobiles, Palms and Psions. Every time I've bought one I've thought, this is it, this will change my life, and usually been crushingly disappointed. Finally, I think it has.

This week I've been in London. Before leaving the flat, I can get up-to-the-second bus timings on my phone to see what's due at the stop outside. I see that there's a bus in a minute and another in ten. I know that I've no chance of making the first but can finish my coffee at my leisure and still easily make the second. On the bus to the Tube station I don't know how to get to where I'm going but I can fire up a Tube route planner. It tells me the optimal route, taking into account engineering works which mean I have to take a bus replacement service. I text my OH and let her know the time I'll be arriving. Once at the Tube, the platform signs are down, but that's ok because TFL expose this information to an API; to wit, there's an app for that. I know now there's a Tube due in two minutes.

On the tube, it's a boring ride, so I stick my headphones in and settle back with some music and an eBook.

At my destination stop, via the bus replacement which was easy to find thanks to the transport guide, I use GPS powered mapping software to work out how best to walk to where I'm going. But I remember, my OH wanted me to pick up some stuff from a chemist, so I search the map for the nearest Boots. There's three nearby, and I need a bigger store rather than just a corner pharmacy, so I pull up photographs of each storefront to see what they look like. I walk over to the largest, and on my way I check for any offers they're doing, getting a code for 10% off my next purchase.

I leave Boots, and spot an awesome looking statue opposite. I think, my photography-geek mates would love that; so I take a picture, hit a button and upload it to Twitter, where anyone there who knows me can see it instantly.

I hook up with my OH. I'm a few minutes late, but I was sharing my location so she could see from her phone that I was only round the corner. We're going for dinner, and in the mood for Italian, so I pull up a list of Italian restaurants, ordered by distance from my current location. I can see one a couple of minutes' walk away but I know nothing about it. I go to their website to check the menu (yes, they have a reasonable veggie selection), then go to a reviews app to read what people have to say about it. Mediocre food, terrible service, the one across the road is far better. Good job we checked, we'll go there instead then.

All this from a little black box in the palm of my hand. Man, I love living in the future.

Smartphones have come of age in the last couple of years, and are finally starting to deliver on the promises made by the old Windows Mobiles, Palms and Psions. Every time I've bought one I've thought, this is it, this will change my life, and usually been crushingly disappointed. Finally, I think it has.

All this from a little black box in the palm of my hand. Man, I love living in the future.

I am once again disappointed in the dollar to sterling conversion as is the case with all electronic goods it seems. $199 equates to about £127 and not £159 + £9.99 P&P.

The lack of micro SD is also a pain but you could use a flash drive with micro USB to USB adapter. Not ideal but at least you could transfer on the on the move rather than tethering to the "cloud".

Acer are also launching the Iconia A110 (replacing the A100) which has pretty much the same specs, Tegra 3 Quad, multicore GPU, HMDI out, Micro SD slot but it does not have an IPS screen. Again touted at $199 so may wait and see what these finally sell at.

[url= http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/05/acer-iconia-tab-a210-a110/ ]Acer Iconia A110[/url]

I am once again disappointed in the dollar to sterling conversion as is the case with all electronic goods it seems. $199 equates to about £127 and not £159 + £9.99 P&P.

£127 + 20% VAT is much nearer £159 though. And those in the US will have to pay sales tax on top of the $199 depending on what state they're in anyway.

I am once again disappointed in the dollar to sterling conversion

As per verses, I am once again disappointed in people's insistence on comparing apples to oranges. Add the VAT on, in the same way US buyers will add sales tax on, and at todays exchange rate the price you pay is a shocking £5.40 more than the us price 😉

Why do these things have such piffling little amounts of memory? I have more than 16gb worth of music, and my collection isn't that massive. Add in a few films/TV programs and 16BG is useless really, never mind 8GB.

'cos they want you to use google cloud services, which is after all what google is all about (I have 6000 tracks on google music for example).

Well, as storage costs so little, why shouldn't I?

The counter argument is, when data access costs so little and is so prevalent, why should you bother?

Also kind of depends on where you are based, and where you're likely to use it. Mobile device with mobile data is something I'd want when I'm away, not at home. 3G roaming makes it uneconomical for that "everything in the cloud" concept. 3 hour drive from here can get me in to 5 different countries, 5 hour drive in to a further 2.

Then the "unlimited" data, seems to be, well, "limited" 😉 (Friend got a rollocking from GiffGaff for using too much data on their "unlimited" 3G. Apparently "unlimited" really means "unlimited general surfing and checking email etc.", not downloading a movie and 3 albums.)

So I would certainly be wanting local storage, at least for a decent portion of MP3's etc. Can still have everything in "the cloud" too.

Oh and a microSD slot would be very very useful indeed.

Cougar - get where your coming from. But sometimes you've just got to switch off the phone and let fate hit you square in the face with a haddock.

We've had utterly disappointing anniversary meals for all 7 of our anniversaries, technology could destroy this streak and my anecdote library would be the poorer for it.

lol brassneck

Hhmm, was going to splash out on a galaxy tab2 7, looks like it has been a catalyst for cheap 7 inch tabs to come to market.

Should wait I guess.....

Not sure I like the widescreen ratio - good for watching movies, not so great for readings magazines, A4 documents etc.

And a bit odd that they skimped on the SD slot - surely that is a key advantage of Android over IPad?

When is it due out?

Pretty soon I think? 2-3 weeks?

cos they want you to use google cloud services, which is after all what google is all about (I have 6000 tracks on google music for example).

I'd assume they'd need to launch it with the tablet. It'd also explain why the tablet is most definitely not available everywhere

When is it due out?

Shipments of the 16Gb one that'll be sold retail to hit retailers in the UK on the 20th, on sale shortly after, is the word.

Didnt think we could get Google Music in the UK yet?

Not officially, no.
But that doesn't mean you can't use it.

This week I've been in London. Before leaving the flat, I can get up-to-the-second bus timings on my phone to see what's due at the stop outside. I see that there's a bus in a minute and another in ten. I know that I've no chance of making the first but can finish my coffee at my leisure and still easily make the second. On the bus to the Tube station I don't know how to get to where I'm going but I can fire up a Tube route planner. It tells me the optimal route, taking into account engineering works which mean I have to take a bus replacement service. I text my OH and let her know the time I'll be arriving. Once at the Tube, the platform signs are down, but that's ok because TFL expose this information to an API; to wit, there's an app for that. I know now there's a Tube due in two minutes.

On the tube, it's a boring ride, so I stick my headphones in and settle back with some music and an eBook.

At my destination stop, via the bus replacement which was easy to find thanks to the transport guide, I use GPS powered mapping software to work out how best to walk to where I'm going. But I remember, my OH wanted me to pick up some stuff from a chemist, so I search the map for the nearest Boots. There's three nearby, and I need a bigger store rather than just a corner pharmacy, so I pull up photographs of each storefront to see what they look like. I walk over to the largest, and on my way I check for any offers they're doing, getting a code for 10% off my next purchase.

I leave Boots, and spot an awesome looking statue opposite. I think, my photography-geek mates would love that; so I take a picture, hit a button and upload it to Twi...

Then the battery runs out, I have no idea where I am or where I'm going as I've relied on the phone to tell me what to do. I try to find a payphone but there's none about as BT have removed them due to lack of use. I sit in the street hugging my knees and sobbing until a kindly police officer gives me directions.

ftfy. 😀

I find it mildly amusing that you think that London no longer has phone boxes yet still has kindly policemen.

But I remember, my OH wanted me to pick up some stuff from a chemist

I can't believe you needed to rely on your own memory.

With all this technology available at our fingertips, and you're still having to think with your own actual brain.

I was interested until i saw the woeful lack of memory....as a fully paid up Android fanboy i think forcing users to move to cloud based storage will back fire eventually and as long as Apple keep offering 32Gb+ storage on their phones and tablets then the smart money will continue to go there....hurt me to say that, anyway....

....also disappointed it hasnt got 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi is fine in my house when it can happily leach off my home hub thingy but what about in the car etc?....you're then at the mercy of Wi-Fi hotspots or turning your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot for the tablet to use but this of course eats into the data allowance of the phone contract.

I'm still really struggling with the tablet concept.
Apart from the larger screen they dont seem to offer anything more than a decent smartphone....i cant put all my laptop pictures, music, videos on one due to lack of memory....connectivity away from the home is likely to be hit and miss....they lack the external ports and connections for HDMI, printers etc....they're neither fish nor fowl, surely the point of IT is to make life easier?...less physical clutter around the house etc etc....none of these tablets are good enough for me to ditch my laptop so i'd end up with a smartphone, a tablet and a laptop!....WTF?!....no thanks, i'll stick to a smartphone and laptop for now cheers.

I had in my 'to-do' list, and the meal was in our shared calendar so I didn't forget what we'd arranged. (-:

In seriousness, I do take the point about over-reliance. Following tech (eg, satnav) blindly is a recipe for disaster; plenty of anecdotal stories around of people driving into rivers because their GPS told them to.

It's no excuse to disengage your brain. The fact of the matter is that without the tech I still could have looked at tube maps on the station walls, worked out routes manually, asked a local where the nearest shop was etc etc. Point is, it just makes things so much [i]simpler[/i] having such a powerful tool to hand in such a conveniently portable format. Why would I [i]not [/i]use it? How many people buy an iPhone and only ever use it to send text messages and play Angry Birds? Now that's madness.

I could similarly suggest that nailguns are fantastic. You could argue "well, they are until the battery runs out, then you're screwed" or "what's wrong with hammers?". But if I've actually got a nailgun, and choose instead to knock nails in with the heel of my shoe, well, then I'm a bloody idiot.

Mm, nailguns.

this of course eats into the data allowance of the phone contract.

Still seems more cost-effective to have a single larger data contract than two discrete smaller ones, n'est-ce pas?

I'm still really struggling with the tablet concept.

Me too, TBH. I don't really have a need, personally, for a laptop-replacement tablet. The 7" form factor appeals because it's then something that can live in a coat pocket, but so is a phone.

I think some of your arguments are short sighted though. Hit and miss connectivity? Between wifi and tethering to the phone that's most bases covered; in the event that neither of those are available, your laptop won't fare any better. Ports and connections? Really, when was the last time you plugged a printer into a laptop? Cables are so last year.

HDMI does seem to be a bit of a dropped ball on the N7 though. The prototypes had a proper HDMI port, but it'd appear that the production model doesn't even have MHL, which is lunacy.

you can buy a 500gb portable drive that creates its own wireless network for around £150 - large devices are a thing of the past IMO

Cougar you cheeky sod, i plugged my printer into the laptop to print work stuff off just this week!....i'm not down with the kids yet re. wireless printing.

Part of my confusion with tablets is that my smartphone has become the tool i use away from the home to watch videos on, listen to music, play games, keep my diary, sat-nav etc etc....i only really now use a laptop when i need to do some typing for work or uni....basically smartphones have become so good i'm struggling to see where a tablet fits in....if smartphones were crap, like they were not too many years ago then i'd be first in line for a tablet....it just seems like an IT accessory for the sake of it.

I have an HTC Flyer I got for £189 (would have been £8 less but they denied my cashback claim). It does have a micro SD card reader and HDMI output (via an adapter). I can take the SD card out of my camera after a ride and immediately do a slideshow in the pub. I was sceptical at first but it's much better for viewing websites than a phone!

Cougar you cheeky sod, i plugged my printer into the laptop to print work stuff off just this week!....i'm not down with the kids yet re. wireless printing.

There's a weird / wired pun here somewhere I'm sure. (-:

I'm more and more coming to the conclusion these days that cables are really only appropriate for permanent connections. For example, at home I have a printer directly connected to a desktop PC acting as a home 'server'. Portable devices print over wifi to that PC.

smartphones have become so good i'm struggling to see where a tablet fits in.

That's pretty much where I'm coming from. What you're gaining, primarily, is screen real estate. And when your phone display is 960x540 you're not gaining a heck of a lot with a 1024x600 tablet. You could get the same effect by simply holding your phone closer to your face.

You could get the same effect by simply holding your phone closer to your face.

not very useful if 10 people are looking on 🙂

I was interested until i saw the woeful lack of memory....as a fully paid up Android fanboy i think forcing users to move to cloud based storage will back fire eventually and as long as Apple keep offering 32Gb+ storage on their phones and tablets then the smart money will continue to go there....hurt me to say that, anyway....

I can't really see the problem myself. I have a 16GB phone and a 16GB ipad and neither is near full. Depends what you are after I suppose, but storage space isn't a biggy for me.

That's pretty much where I'm coming from. What you're gaining, primarily, is screen real estate. And when your phone display is 960x540 you're not gaining a heck of a lot with a 1024x600 tablet. You could get the same effect by simply holding your phone closer to your face.

Many people struggle to see what's on an iphone screen because it's so small, and holding it closer is no use if you can't focus on it.

Many people struggle to see what's on an iphone screen because it's so small

Do they?? Do you mean old people, possibly with cataracts?

glenh....agree with you re. memory, i have 500-odd tracks on my ipod....it totals 4Gb space, makes no odds to me whether i have this music on my phone or separate on a dedicated MP3 player but i have friends with 10,000 tracks (of shit mainly) on their ipods and who carry around episodes of TV shows to watch later....for them storage is important.

Also if i bought a tablet i'd like to be able to ditch the laptop, therefore i'd need enough memory to move across all my work and uni stuff, all the photos on there, etc etc....just doesnt seem feasible at the moment, i'd like a tablet with Wi-Fi and 3G compatibility, the kind of memory that Netbooks have at least (i cant see that impinging on form factor too much) and HDMI connection....not too much to ask is it?

I've just tried to pre order one off Play+ and it can't do it..

HoHum..

Does this mean they've sold bucket loads and I'm last in line?

GrahamS - Member
Many people struggle to see what's on an iphone screen because it's so small
Do they?? Do you mean old people, possibly with cataracts?

No, I mean most people over 45 or so, who are presbyopic (which happens to everyone eventually).

An while I'm not that age myself yet, reading text on most web pages on an iphone is pretty difficult for me (although that could improved significantly if the damn browser did some text reflow).

Turn phone into landscape, double tap text to zoom to paragraph level. That makes most sites very readable (including this one) even for the over 45s.

HDMI connection....not too much to ask is it?

I was thinking about this, and my earlier comments about wires.

DLNA is the solution, I'd hazard.

Why do these things have such piffling little amounts of memory? I have more than 16gb worth of music, and my collection isn't that massive. Add in a few films/TV programs and 16BG is useless really, never mind 8GB.

Flash memory is getting cheaperer and cheaperer. Hell, you can get a 32GB SD card for less than £20 retail, so why do these tablets not have at least 64GB?