Nexus 7 (2013) - Mini Review
by Brian Klug on July 27, 2013 12:54 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Snapdragon
- Qualcomm
- Android
- Mobile
- APQ8064
- Nexus 7
- Android 4.3
The real highlight of the new Nexus 7 is of course the much higher resolution display. At 1920x1200 the Nexus 7 is now the highest resolution 7-inch tablet. This new IPS panel is made by JDI (Japan Display Inc) and boasts better viewing angles, 30 percent more gamut than the previous one, and of course better dot pitch of 323 PPI. Alongside that the new Nexus 7 also doesn’t have the always-on dynamic brightness and contrast (NVIDIA Prism / smartdimmer) that many including myself found frustrating with the original Nexus 7. On the new version the equivalent functions are enabled only during full screen video playback. This is a huge improvement since with the feature enabled on the previous Nexus 7 I always felt that greens were undersaturated and some dynamic range clipped.
I did a lot of asking around about how Google calibrates its panels, and was told that in the case of the Nexus 7 there are two stages. The first is the calibration done by JDI on the panel at a high level, the second is an additional calibration at time of manufacture, per device. This sort of thing is relatively standard, but I’ve always been curious about what stages cost extra money – certainly it’s a baseline expectation for the panel supplier to supply a close-enough LUT, but getting Delta E even lower I’m told requires additional expenditure.
It turns out that the new Nexus 7 is actually very close to sRGB this time around, with overall gamut being just a bit bigger than the sRGB color space. In the GMB Delta-E and saturations Delta-E measures, arguably the two most relevant for color accuracy, the new Nexus 7 is second only to the iPad 4, and better than the iPad Mini in color accuracy, a significant step forwards from its predecessor.
The new Nexus 7 also goes very bright, up to 583 nits, with excellent contrast of 1273. This is again not achieved using any dynamic contrast cheating since those functions are thoughtfully disabled.
On the display side of things I’m very pleased with how far the Nexus 7 has come, and it’s obvious that display quality was a big focus for the 2013 model.
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doobydoo - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - link
I guess this it what happens when you compare devices nearly a year apart...smartypnt4 - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
I'll have to agree with you and others here. I do much prefer the 8" size to 7" (as an aside, the 8" 16:10 seems to be the best of both worlds that I've used. Sadly only Samsung makes one of those.), but that screen would have me buying the N7 every time.I've used the iPad Mini countless times trying to convince myself the low PPI and comparatively worse color accuracy (vs. my current 4th gen iPad) wouldn't matter, but I can't sell myself on it. The screen on the mini is disgraceful in 2013. By pure numbers, it traded blows (and was often beat) by the 2012 Nexus 7, to say nothing of the 2013 N7. I can't deal with a screen like that in 2013. Not when it'd become the worst screen I use daily.
Now that the N7 is out, honestly, Apple has no excuse not to show up with a "retina" iPad mini this fall. If they do, it'll be a tough choice for me to make on which to get, but at that point, you really can't lose. If I was buying this instant, there's no competition. The Nexus 7 has too many advantages over the Mini for me. I understand if you value form factor to the exclusion of everything else, though. I've been known to do that myself on occasion.
guidryp - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
"Now that N7 is out", doesn't really apply, the iPad Mini design was likely set in stone 6 months ago. They can't just change their mind when someone ships something better than expected.I think we are only 50% likely to see a Retina Mini and if we do, the price will likely go up as well, so it still won't be huge competition for the N7.
smartypnt4 - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
My point was this: previously, it was speculated that the iPad mini in "retina" guise didn't exist Due to the technical limitations presented by trying to pack a screen like that into a chassis this small and light. Now that ASUS/Google have made it apparent that something can be performant and thin and light, while having a screen that's about on par with the iPad 4 in terms of color and contrast, no Apple apologist can claim that there are technical limitations on creating an iPad mini with an awesome screen.Unfortunately, I have a feeling that you're right on the likelihood of getting a retina mini. Then again, I was adamant that the iPad 3 wouldn't have a 2048x1536 screen, so what the hell do I know? And if it does so happen that ewe see a retina mini, I doubt it'll be in any way a competitor to the Nexus 7 due to the cost of the thing. I'd love to see it stay at $330 to keep some semblance of competition alive, but I'm starting to doubt that'll happen. Only time will tell, I suppose.
doobydoo - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - link
Well arguably they haven't done it properly - because the FPS we're seeing on all of the onscreen benchmarks it vastly inferior to that on the iPad Mini.Anyone can shove a high res screen in, but packing the power to drive that screen was the challenge, and I don't think Google (Asus) have done this.
Also - the iPad Mini was not retina because it was released nearly a year ago, technology changes.
doobydoo - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - link
I doubt they'd push the price up - they didn't when they made the iPad retina.Impulses - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
8" 16:10 would be my preference too, but for $230 and being a Nexus device I'll easily settle for 7". I can't stand 4:3 and I can't fathom why a ton of people seem to enjoy web browsing in landscape (even with 16:10 tablets!).Mugur - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
... and I though I was alone. Yes, after playing with all sizes, 8" 16:10 seems to be the option I like best. But this Nexus looks so nice... :-)zhenya00 - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
The N7 doesn't show 1920x1200 pixels of content though. I presume that the new N7, like the old, shows some lesser number of points, probably still 960x600 points, meaning that it has less effective resolution than the mini, especially in width where you'll notice that it is often unable to show the entire width of a web page. In my opinion this is what makes the iPad so perfect for web browsing; it fits the majority of modern web pages perfectly in portrait orientation with no wasted space and no side-scrolling necessary.abazigal - Sunday, July 28, 2013 - link
I expect the ipad mini 2 to be identical to the ipad4 in terms of specs. A6x processor, 1gb of ram, 326 PPI (little reason to go higher when retina apps run well on such specs). We may see a 8mp camera, but otherwise, I don't see much differentiating it from the Nesux7 apart from ecosystem.Let's admit it. For all this comparisons, the Apple users are still going to stick with an ipad, while the Android users are going to get the Nexus7, simple because they are all too deeply invested in their ecosystem of choice to consider switching camp. You have your google play, I have my app store. I value my airplay mirroring just as you want to root your ROM.