Ten years ago today, Google released the 2nd-generation Nexus 7, just days after a surprise announcement. Back then, Android tablets still felt fresh and exciting. It seemed like anything was possible, and things could only improve from there. Well, we know what happened next. But the depressing state of the tablet market to come was in no way the fault of the Nexus 7. In fact, this is still one of the best Android tablets ever made, and it’s worth looking back and showing it the honor and respect it deserves.

  • ShortFuse@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    iPad Mini is about the same dimensions, though slightly wider.

    All other Android tablets that exist in that space have horrible CPUs.

    • Saneless@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Or just some terrible flaw that’s obnoxious

      I have some 8" Lenovo tablet I got years and years ago. It’s fine for videos and such and that’s where I use it most. It also has 2 forward facing speakers. Very decent, balanced sound. Low on space because android sucks under 64GB but it’s manageable

      Any “upgrades” to it over the years have had single speakers or some other annoying flaw so I haven’t upgraded

      I’ve tried Samsung ones but even their newer ones are slower than my 5 year old one. It’s so annoying

        • Saneless@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Ok, that makes it even more sad what they’re doing. Feature wise it was already worse in my experience, but actually worse for performance? Geez

          Guess I’ll just have to keep my Tab4 8 alive even longer

        • unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I had the T10 and it was horrible. The display was poor and pixelated and it took the entire first day to update software, which was required on first login.

          I seriously thought to return it, the update was taking so long. Eventually it let me log in.

          But then it lasted six months before the screen glitched out and stopped working.

        • ShortFuse@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          None of those are 8.x inches. They’re all 10" or greater. Once we’re talking 10+ inches, I’d just use a Surface Go. It seems nobody besides Apple wants to sell a tablet in that form factor that has decent speed.

          Even the Lenovo M9 is vastly superior to the M8 in terms of CPU. Good 8 inch tablets outside the iPad Mini don’t exist. I’d gladly pay $400 for something that’s good on Android. I’ve even thrown money away for a Dell Venue 5855.

          The only reason I stopped using my Tab S 8.4 was because you can only get so far trying to keep it alive with LineageOS.

        • Saneless@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          All Samsung? And maybe that’s the case, relatively, but going from Lenovo with pretty much stock android to a newer Samsung was a very noticeable downgrade

          • Mike Stevens 🇦🇺 S23U@lemdro.idM
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Sorry yes, those are all Samsung model names that I was listing.

            Well, I can’t speak for the Lenovo experience as I’ve never used one, and I’ll happily admit that any Samsung device needs a little tweaking to begin with, but I use my Tab S8 regularly for editing 60mb RAW photos off my full-frame camera and I can confidently say it performs very well.

            My daughter uses my Tab S6 Lite and it’s more than up to meeting her demands — which includes a lot of educational games and so on.

            My son uses my Tab S4 and he’s had no complaints either.

            I mean, there’s not much else a tablet is meant for, really!

            • Saneless@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              And now that I look it up, it’s a $500 tablet? This discussion was around the cheap media consumer ones that are $150 give or take. At $500 I would just get a $1000 laptop