Hi out there to everyone in
Readerland! If you've been following the blog for a bit, you might recall that
every three months my life gets consumed by a battle with an Elder Hydra. Ok,
so the hydra is figurative but the net effect is the same: long hours spent
hacking away at an entity that just...won't...die. This particular iteration of
the recurrent battle is especially heinous, mostly for reasons I won't bore you
with, but also a couple of legitimately awesome reasons that I'll share in my
next post. Speaking of which, the next installment of this here blog will be
published in a couple of weeks rather than exactly a week from now. Why? You'll
find out soon enough, I promise. I also promise that the blog will resume a
regular posting schedule immediately after the break. So just hold tight after
today.
Though my conflict with the hydra
has taken up most of my time these past couple of weeks, I've not been left
completely in the dark with regard to Geekdom. The wide array of interactive
options and press coverage provided me with a much-needed escape from the
winter doldrums and brought me a live feed of the Consumer Electronics Show
(CES) out in warm, sunny Las Vegas. That spectrum of show and participant
feedback was particularly helpful in navigating the torrent of company updates
and product announcements that flood out of the show every year. Unfortunately,
also in keeping with CES tradition, a considerable percentage of the novel
items that made their debut at the event are barely past the prototype stage
and won't be available for you or I to purchase anytime soon. Is it awesome to
catch a glimpse of what the future may hold? Sure thing. Isn't it also a bit of
a tease to have such things paraded about, only to be told they're years away from actually being sold?
Very yes.
Alternately stymied and excited,
I wanted to share the details of a new gadget that's actually available for
purchase: the Nexus 10. Released to the market at the tail end of 2012, the
Nexus was to be Google's (made by Samsung) rebuttal to Apple's iPad 4 and
Amazon's Kindle Fire/Fire HD. Is this salvo into the increasingly competitive
tablet marketplace a solid one? The answer is a resounding yes.
For quite some time, the debate
had been, "Do we get a tablet or a laptop?" Both offered same desired
features: high levels of portability, a plethora of mobile entertainment
options, and all the means to remain connected with family and friends. The
laptop ostensibly offered more traditional computing (full versions of PC games
and word processing capabilities) while the tablet wove all the features of a smart
phone into the conveniences of an e-reader. The latter gave me pause; wouldn't
a tablet then just be a larger version of my Android phone? While the Nexus
does perform many of the same functions as a smart phone, the features it
offers that go above and beyond that ground my cynical suspicions underfoot.
The following points detail just how the Nexus 10 went about doing so.
Product Specs: The Nexus
10 boasts a 10.1 inch (25.65 cm) screen with a 2560 x 1600 resolution, a
measure that tops even the iPad 4. It runs on the Android Jelly Bean 4.2 OS,
has a 1.7GHz Exynos 5 (Cortex A-15) dual-core processor, Mali T604 graphics
chip, and 2GB of RAM. It's bigger than many tablets currently available, so it
will feel quite large if you're presently using a Kindle, iPad mini, or a Nexus
7. Despite the size, the tablet is hardly bulky and weighs in at only 1.39
pounds (630 grams). The actual chassis of the tablet is surprisingly pleasant
to hold, offering significant friction against the hand that allows the user to
feel entirely comfortable holding the device.
Audio/Video: The speakers
on the Nexus are on the margins and the back of the tablet, as is typical of
many Samsung offerings. The audio quality emanating from said speakers is decent,
but not superb. A pair of headphones easily smoothes out any auditory
roughness. The Nexus also features a 5 megapixel back-facing and a 1.9
megapixel front-facing camera, which allows for everything from photo snapping
to video chatting and recording. The microphone on the device is remarkably
sensitive and could certainly be used to capture even highly nuanced songs or
other audio.
Media/Apps: The Nexus aptly handles video from Netflix,
the Amazon Prime library, and Hulu/YouTube. Any hiccups I experienced while
watching episodes of Archer or Futurama were almost exclusively due to internet
connectivity blips rather than the Nexus. The picture clarity was amazing and
there was no distortion, regardless of the viewing angle. The available apps
are largely the same as those available on any Android phone with the sole
exception of the Amazon suite of applications, which was a bit disappointing. Note: the Kindle app does work on the Nexus, so you can use it as an e-reader.
Unsurprisingly, all other Amazon apps will not function on the Nexus, because, of course, its not a Fire HD. There are a considerable number of
available games, nearly all of which benefit from the large, high definition
screen. A select number of applications
are considerably better on a tablet (Pinterest, TED, Bloomberg, YouTube, and,
of course, the Google suite of apps) than they are on a phone or even a
desktop; only a few apps were markedly worse (Facebook).
General Utility: The most pleasant
surprise I encountered (and continue to encounter) with the Nexus 10 is just
its sheer functionality. It should be noted here that I'm a heavy user of all
things Google (Gmail, G+, blogger, Google calendar, Google drive, etc) so
having all those features that I already utilize in a highly accessible locale
is uber handy. If you're similarly ensnared in Google's far-reaching web then
you'll almost certainly love its aggregator/summary function which synchs all of
the above applications into a single feed. Example: opening the aggregator will
present you with a snapshot for your day. It will present you with all your
appointments, important events to keep in mind (like birthdays), have a running
countdown to much-anticipated events, provide you with the weather forecast,
craft a synopsis of what your friends are up to, create a reading list of
recent posts from blogs you follow, and track any inbound packages in real
time. It's essentially what Facebook desperately wishes it was. Any of the
above can be activated and interacted with by voice commands, which work
decently (about 65% accuracy, 90% precision and 10% unintentional hilarity).
The keyboard is also extremely viable. Is it like a physical keyboard? No. Is
it light-years better than what you'd find on a phone? Definitely. Lastly, the battery life is respectable. It
requires charging overnight most nights, but easily lasts through the day
without issue, even after heavy use. You can go 2.5-3 days at a time without
recharging with light to moderate use.
Other perks: The Nexus 10
is one of the very few devices presently on the market that does not require
the owner/user to link the tablet to an existing account with a wireless
provider. There are no data plans attached. Seriously. This is not another iteration
of the nonsense Amazon tried to pull with the Fire HD that claimed no data plan
was required, then buried the truth that one would be necessary after a year of
use in the extra fine print. However, no data plan means that the tablet is not
3G/4G capable in its own right and is entirely reliant on nearby wireless hubs.
Keep this in mind if you're in a rural area or otherwise receive spotty
wireless. Once the Nexus gets connected it's lightening fast, but will waver
and shut down all web based functions the moment it's taken clear of a hub.
Like all android devices, all background settings, interfaces, and applications
are managed entirely by the user. You have complete freedom to make your
experience with the Nexus anything and everything you want it to be. The Nexus
also allows for the creation of multiple "profiles" for individual
users in a household, which allow each user their own UI and privacy controls.
Cons: Like all new
technology, the Nexus is not without its flaws. The screen itself is extremely
sensitive and can often lend itself to "misclicks" (we haven't taken
off the protective plastic covering and still occasionally get this).
Additionally, the OS is prone to freezing and/or crashing every now and again
(basically locking up entirely, then rebooting after about 30 seconds). In the past month or so our Nexus has crashed about
4-5 times. No data has been lost nor any critical functions disrupted, but it
can be irksome. The dimensions of the device sometimes do not align with the
intended resolution of a given app, which can distort the overall image. Also,
though the tablet has a USB port, it is meant to interact with the charger rather
than act as a gateway for USB capable devices. It was a bit disappointing to
not be able to link the Nexus to an external hard drive, but there are workarounds
available to facilitate the transfer of data. Lastly, Flash does not yet work on the Nexus, but this may be remedied in the future.
In all, an excellent bit of
hardware and a promising offering by Google/Samsung. It's definitely worth your
consideration if you're in the market for a tablet and/or use the Google suite
extensively.
