MaximumPC Head To Head: Google Nexus 7 vs. Apple iPad

[ericlp]

reading my latest November 2012 issue of MaximumPC the Nexus 7 and Apple iPad go Head To Head and the winner is...The Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 won 3 out of 5 rounds: Size and Form Factor, Performance, and User Interface. The iPad won Display and Content Ecosystem.

Kinda surprised price was not one of the rounds but we know who would of won that.

I agree with the write up...I've had the nexus 7 for about 3 months and I couldn't be more than happy. It does everything I want with ease... Tho I admit I love Gmail and have several accounts and it handles them all and google maps with the GPS is great!

I've never had a drop out on my wifi. And the colors and DPI are good for me. Could it be better? Sure... but it's still I find very very good. Best part is I'm not locked into iOS. I hate apple products and will avoid them at all cost. But I'm a tech guy so I like to change it up a bit. I find the balance of the nexus 7 to be perfect for me. But I'm sure others are just fine bowing down to a locked Box apple feel. No thanks. I absolutely can not stand Itunes tho I do love drag and drop!

I'm buying another one soon for my girlfriend's birthday.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Almost bought a N7 but I'm gonna wait til the iPad mini comes out. Not the huge fan of the N7's display and I think the 7.85" screen is going to make web browsing better in portrait mode.

 

[Red Storm]

I will say that after using a Nexus 7 for a while now, the iPad just feels unnecessarily large.

 

[Eug]

I will say that after using a Nexus 7 for a while now, the iPad just feels unnecessarily large.

Yup, except I felt the iPad was unnecessarily large even before I had the Nexus 7.

 

[Insomniator]

Never really liked the 10 inch form factor, 7-8 seems much better even for business use.

 

[Oyeve]

I wanted to get the N7 but went with the Tab 2 7". Primarily for the expansion capabilities and the RF blaster. I was really torn with the speed of the N7 over the tab 2 but decided I could sacrifice speed for the stuff I really could use: Expandability and the RF.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

reading my latest November 2012 issue of MaximumPC the Nexus 7 and Apple iPad go Head To Head and the winner is...The Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 won 3 out of 5 rounds: Size and Form Factor, Performance, and User Interface. The iPad won Display and Content Ecosystem.

Kinda surprised price was not one of the rounds but we know who would of won that.

I agree with the write up...I've had the nexus 7 for about 3 months and I couldn't be more than happy. It does everything I want with ease... Tho I admit I love Gmail and have several accounts and it handles them all and google maps with the GPS is great!

I've never had a drop out on my wifi. And the colors and DPI are good for me. Could it be better? Sure... but it's still I find very very good. Best part is I'm not locked into iOS. I hate apple products and will avoid them at all cost. But I'm a tech guy so I like to change it up a bit. I find the balance of the nexus 7 to be perfect for me. But I'm sure others are just fine bowing down to a locked Box apple feel. No thanks. I absolutely can not stand Itunes tho I do love drag and drop!

I'm buying another one soon for my girlfriend's birthday.

they left out the loose screen category as well

 

[zerocool84]

I definitely enjoy the larger screen of the iPad since browsing on larger screens is always preferable but holding it for any extended time gets tiring so that's why I appreciate the smaller tablets.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

I definitely enjoy the larger screen of the iPad since browsing on larger screens is always preferable but holding it for any extended time gets tiring so that's why I appreciate the smaller tablets.

it mainly due to it being made of a block of aluminum. 10 inch android tablets arent that heavy

 

[JimKiler]

Interesting. Tom's Hardware also preferred the portability of the Nexus 7 over a iPad. But otherwise seemed to prefer the iPad.

But as a Nexus 7 owner i love it and cannot believe how easy i can use it for PC tasks without saying i wish i was at my desktop. I could never say that with a netbook.

 

[Ravynmagi]

it mainly due to it being made of a block of aluminum. 10 inch android tablets arent that heavy

The retina display needs twice as many backlighting LEDs and a battery that's I think is about 50% larger to power all those extra LEDs.

 

[Kenmitch]

I bought the 8gb Nexus 7 a while ago. Only issue I have is brightness after playing a game. When game exits the screen is brighter. If I hit the power button to put it to sleep then wake it up it's fine afterwards. Figure it's a driver issue. I'm not much of a app guy so space is of little concern to me.

Did kinda like the form factor of the Samsung Galaxy 8.9 lte I sold better tho. Software sucked tho.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I wouldn't consider "size" to be a win or loose category. Some people want larger screens, others want smaller screens.

But Google/ASUS definitely did something good with how they designed the bezel around the 7 inch screen. I love how they made the bezel much smaller in portrait mode so I can wrap my hand easily around the back, and in landscape mode gave me a larger bezel to grip it from the edge. Well thought out.

I have to disagree with the performance win though. I have both tablets. My iPad 3 is faster in pretty much everything. Nexus 7 is pretty fast for Android and isn't far behind my iPad 3, but it certainly hasn't passed it in my opinion (I'm basing this on my daily real world experience with both tablets, not benchmarks).

I love Android user interface a lot more. Apple has made it clear that they want their OS to be boring and forgettable, they want the focus to be on the apps. But I think this is a mistake they should have rectified by now. People want the OS to be part of their tablet experience, not just a screen full of icons to apps.

I really like both my iPad 3 and Nexus 7. I use them both daily for different things. Sometimes I feel like I need a larger screen or a particular app that is better on iOS. Other times I want something smaller and lighter.

The Nexus 7 has some hardware shortcomings that prevent me from considering it better than my iPad 3. The screen is poorly calibrated, the speaker is abysmal, and the range on the wifi isn't that great. But for the $250, it's a pretty nice tablet and I'm happy with it.

 

[bigrash]

Love my Nexus 7.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I got a Asus TF700 and think it's fine as far as size goes, but I was looking for something more of a netbook replacement and that's what swayed me.

If I was looking for more of a mobile reading and video device then the Nexus 7 would be my choice.

 

[Lyfer]

Thats like comparing cakes to pies. Why would you compare a 7inch tablet that runs a completely different OS to an iPad that is 9.7inches? They should be running head to head with a Motorola 7" xyborg or a Samsung tab 7 2.0.

Btw pie > cake.