So I ordered a Nexus 7 2
by AnttiYesterday I went an ordered a WiFi-only Nexus 7 2 1. Me, a guy who’s somewhat deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem! Also, me, who’s been pretty vocal about how dumb it is to buy a tablet without cellular connectivity. Yep. Here’s why:
- I read a lot of books.
- Most of the stuff I read is technical (contains source code), thus PDFs are the only viable format.
- E-ink readers suck at PDFs, I need a good color display and a fluid reading experience.
- My current 9.7” iPad is too heavy for comfortably reading books.
- iPad mini has a perfect size and weight, but it’s screen makes my eyes bleed after using retina-only devices (iPhone, iPad, MBP).
- Retina iPad mini’s won’t be here this year. (Or so I believe. If they really release a retina mini next month, awesome, then Nexus goes to my wife and I’ll just buy that for me, problem solved!)
- Looking around the tablet space, I see iPads (ruled out above), Surfaces (also heavy and clunky) and the Android options.
- If I’d go Android, it’d have to be vanilla, Samsung is not coming to my home.
- Thus leaving me pretty much with just one choice: the new Nexus 7.
Regarding the WiFi-only choice, it’s simple:
- Reading books while commuting requires no connectivity.
- I already have two ways to get online while mobile; my iPhone and my iPad.
- WiFi-only Nexus is way cheaper than the LTE one.
Nexus 7 came to retail stores yesterday here in Finland. The cheapest price for the 16-gig WiFi model I’ve seen is €269, substancially more than the $199 US price (granted that’s without any taxes while Fi-prices always include taxes). But still, seems a lot! I browsed around and found that Amazon UK sells the device for £179 plus a few pounds for delivery. I ended up paying a total of €220, almost a whopping 20% less than the RRP in Finland.
Now I wait for the device to arrive, should be here around next Friday. I’ll be sure to write up my experiences in the Android land shortly after that.
Related: worst product name in the history of mankind has to be the smartcover knockoff Amazon tried to upsell me. It’s called: drumroll please…
Tweeted that yesterday. Took three tweets.
- What a douche name! I know iPads nowadays are also named in a similar fashion, but it actually took me quite a many checks on various e-commerce sites to be sure I was looking at the new Nexus 7 2 2013 and not the old sucky one. ↩