I am a gadget freak so I buy a lot of gadgets to try out. I got my Nexus 7 yesterday.
Nexus 7 has gotten very good reviews and I was expecting to be impressed. After using it for a day, I am coming away less than impressed.
The reviews all said that the device felt more expensive than it is. I disagree. It feels like cheap plastic. Playbookfeelssolid becasue it is made out of metal. I definitely prefer the build quality of the Playbook.
The two are pretty much the same thickness and length. Playbook is maybe a half inch taller.Playbook is a little bit heavier too.The dimensions are comparable, neither has an obious benefit.
Nexus 7 has a higher resolution screen that is pretty dim, even on its highest setting. With auto-brightness disabled and the brightness cranked up to its highest setting, it is still not bright. Playbook's screen is better even though it is lower resolution.
Nexus 7 does not have an HDMI port and does not support an MHL adapter. This is a pretty big omission, in my opinion. I need HDMI for both business and for consumer use.
The big draw of Nexus 7 is that it uses the latest version of Android, Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean is pretty good. The claims that Google went to war on lag are true. It is a pretty nice experience, the best of any Android tablet so far. My gripe with Android is that it does not feel very well thought out. The home screens exist for no purpose other than widget placement and I find widgets pointless. This why Android OEMs have resorted to making giant weather widgets and clocks. I never know what to do with the homescreen to make it useful. I still don't. On Nexus 7, the home screen widgets exist to push Google Play products like apps, movies, books, and magazines. I got rid of those and still have no clue what to put there instead.
We all know what the PlayBook experience is so I won't go into it much. All I will say is that PlayBook never had to have a war on lag because it doesn't have any and never did.
One area where Nexus 7 wins in most areas is on core functions. PlayBook PIM apps simply take too long to load. I can load Mail on Nexus 7 in under two seconds. It takes around 10 seconds to load mail on PlayBook. I wish this could change. There are similar lag times when loading contacts and calendar. I prefer the Playbook Apps themselves but the load times are WAY too long.
Apps. Maybe one day we will no longer have to pound this drum. The Android ecosystem is much better than Playbook's. It feels odd to be able to Skype or use Netflix, as if it is no big deal. Even though PlayBook is better in so many ways, Apps are dragging everything else down. I will say this: PlayBook has lots of good games now. In fact, more than I will ever play. I just wish that the same old non-game suspects would be available on PlayBook.
PlayBook's integration with BB phones through Bridge has become a great feature. It is probably the reason that I continue to hang on to PlayBook and my Bold 9900. I use it all the time and it really enhances productivity. This is a killer feature but no one knows about it.
In sum, even though Nexus 7 is a pretty flawed product, its flaws are in some ways preferable to PlayBook's flaws. You can do more of the things more people want to do with Nexus 7 than with PlayBook. For the last year and more, we have all been complaining about the same things. Some have been corrected but some have not been addressed. It is unfortunate but RIMhas moved at its own pace.As much as I like PlayBook, I have NEVER recommended it to anyone even though I use it every day. This so because of its missing features. Nexus 7 may not be great in any one area but it is good enough in most things. Playbook is great in some things and is a complete failure in others. I'm still hopingthat these things get worked out . . .