Google's budget tablet range gets a new big brother
The
Google Nexus 10 was only announced around a week ago but in many
circles it had been anticipated since the announcement of the Google Nexus 7.
After all, if Google was entering the tablet field directly then how
could it resist the potentially very lucrative 10-inch market?
And
here we are, just a few short months after the Nexus 7's launch and
Google is taking the fight to Apple, going head to head for tablet
supremacy. It's not going to be an easy fight for Google; the iPad has always been in a league of its own and has a serious head start, but Google isn't entering the fray unprepared.
At
£319 for the 16GB model the Google Nexus 10 is £80 cheaper than the
equivalent iPad 4. In fact even the 32GB model, with its price tag of
£389 comes in at slightly under a 16GB iPad 4 and a whole £90 cheaper
than a 32GB one.
Don't think that just because it's relatively
cheap it's not a premium, powerhouse device either. With a
retina-searing 10.05-inch 2560 x 1600 Super PLS display, it's even
higher resolution than the latest iPad, with 300 pixels per inch against
the iPad 4's 264ppi. That
makes it the highest resolution tablet in existence. With a display
that beautiful it's reassuring to know that it uses Corning Gorilla
Glass 2 to keep it in pristine condition.
It's no slouch under the
hood either. With a dual-core 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos processor and 2GB
of RAM it should have no problem keeping pace with the fastest Android
devices. It comes with Android 4.2 out of the box and being a pure
Google tablet it will be one of the first devices to get the next
version of Android too, keeping it up to date and future proofed for as
long as possible. It's
the same tactic used for the Google Nexus 7 - produce top end hardware
at the lowest price possible to get people buying. It's even learnt a
few lessons from the Nexus 7, as this time is isn't bothering with a
cripplingly small 8GB model and making a 32GB version available from day
one.
Early sales of the Google Nexus 10 have been extremely
promising. Despite the slightly higher price tag compared to other
tablets on the market, the Nexus 10 has sold out on Google's Play Store
on multiple occasions, with buyers clearly entranced by the super high
resolution screen and larger dimensions. It's remained a top seller over
the Christmas period, and stock is starting to slowly creep back
online, although it's currently only for the 16GB version.
Right
now the Google Nexus 10 is Wi-Fi only, but if you want 3G or 4G you
might not have to wait too long, as the Nexus 7 has just been made
available with 3G, so we expect the Google Nexus 10 will follow suit.
Features
The
Google Nexus 10 feels quite weighty, particularly if your last tablet
experience was the Nexus 7, but at 603g it's pretty average for a tablet
of this size, and comes in lighter than the iPad 4.
With
dimensions of 203.9 x 177.6 x 8.9mm it's slightly longer and thinner
than a new iPad, giving it more of a wide screen experience for watching
movies.
The slightly curved edges make it comfortable to hold in
two hands for long periods (one handed holding is pretty much a
non-starter), though if you're planning to watch movies on it you might
find that your hands start to ache before the credits roll, so it would
be worth getting a stand of some kind for it or just finding something
to rest it on.
There are rumours of a pogo stand coming soon which
would allow magnetic charging on the dock, but we're still awaiting
official confirmation of that.
It's also not quite as comfortable to hold as the Nexus 7, not just
because of their relative weights, but also because the back of the
Nexus 7 is slightly soft and warm, while the Nexus 10 is cold, hard
plastic through and through. Though on the plus side it's rubbery, which
provides grip.
The Google Nexus 10's 2GB of RAM is double that of the iPad 4, Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 or the Nexus 7.
While it's only a dual core device, each core is clocked at 1.7GHz,
which is just about the fastest we've come across on a tablet, trampling
all over the poor Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 with its mere 1GHz dual
core processor. It
also comes with Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC support, although the former spec
isn't the low-power sensor technology we expect to come on most devices
these days.
The Nexus 10 comes with an enormous 9,000 mAh Lithium
polymer battery, promising 9 hours of video, 7 hours of web browsing or
90 hours of music.
In theory that gives it slightly more juice
than a Nexus 7 but possibly slightly less than the iPad 4 with its
monstrous 11,666 mAh battery. Unfortunately,
much like the iPad 4, the battery in the Google Nexus 10 can't be
removed. So you don't have the option to swap in a spare when it runs
down, while if it ever wears out you're out of luck.
Following
suit from the Nexus 7, the front of the device is a single sheet of
glass, with no buttons to spoil the lines. We've already mentioned how
jaw dropping the display resolution is, but it's worth noting that it
has superb viewing angles too. We tried looking at it in every
conceivable position and from different distances and the display was
always clear and sharp. It
even fares well in bright sunlight; well, the brightest we can find in
gllomy winter anyway. It became harder to see but never became totally
washed out. Plus you can turn the brightness up pretty high, which helps
burn through the glare.
It's not a total victory though, as
while the resolution is un-paralleled the contrast between colours is a
bit muted - they're never as bright or deep as they could be -
especially if you've seen the amazing Super AMOLED HD screen on the Samsung Galaxy S3. There's
a black border around the display that you can rest your thumbs on and a
narrow speaker running the length of each of the shorter sides.
The
1.9 megapixel front camera lens can be found in the middle of one of
the longer sides, which suggests that unlike its little brother, the
Google Nexus 10 is intended to be used primarily as a landscape device.
Next to it you'll notice an ambient light sensor, which will
automatically dim the screen in low light. At
the opposite side there's a little indicator light that flashes
whenever you get a notification, be it an email, a reminder or whatever
else. When it's not flashing it's all but invisible.
The top edge
of the Google Nexus 10 houses the power button, which is also used to
sleep and wake the device. Just to the right of that there's a volume
rocker. It's a great position as they're easy to reach whether you hold
the tablet in portrait or landscape. Our only minor complaint is that
the volume rocker is only slightly bigger than the power button, making
it easy to mistake one for the other. On
the left edge there's a micro USB port, used for charging the tablet or
to connect it to a PC or other USB device. Next to that there's a 3.5mm
headphone port.
On the right edge there's a micro HDMI port, which was sorely lacking from the Google Nexus 7.
On the bottom edge there's a magnetic pogo pin charging port, which is used to connect it to a dock.
Turn
the Google Nexus 10 over and you'll find a big speaker at the top,
along with the main 5 megapixel camera lens, which is also capable of
shooting 1080p video at 30fps. Below that the casing is a hard, rubbery
plastic shell with the words 'Nexus' and 'Samsung' stencilled into it. The
Google Nexus 10 feels sturdy and well made and it doesn't look cheap,
but it also doesn't look particularly premium. That's a bit of a
problem, particularly when it's been positioned as an iPad 4 competitor.
It's not just the plastic shell that lets it down, as the
rounded shape makes it look a bit childish - like a 'my first tablet'.
And while we're on the subject of the plastic shell, the Nexus 7 was
plasticky as well, but the mottled, slightly soft back on that was far
more aesthetically pleasing and felt nicer to hold as well. That's
not the Google Nexus 10's only problem either, as with no micro SD card
slot there's no option for expandable storage. Sure the iPad 4 doesn't
have that either, but micro SD support has always been one of the key
differentiators between Android and iOS - although Google has always
been against it on the Nexus brand, so we weren't hopeful it would pop
up here.
It's arguably a bigger problem here than on a phone too,
because tablets are all about media consumption, so it's expected that
you'll be loading it up with films, music and games.
32GB will
still probably be enough for most people, but the 16GB version may
quickly start to feel limiting. In any case, it's a not unexpected
omission, but with such a wallet-pleasing price tag it's far from a deal
breaker.
Interface and performance
When
you turn the Google Nexus 10 on you're greeted with the standard Jelly
Bean lock screen. It displays wallpaper, which can be changed to
anything of your choosing.
At the top the time is written in big
white writing. Below that there's the day and date in smaller writing
and lower still a padlock icon, which you can slide left to launch the
camera, right to unlock the tablet or up to launch Google Now. We've
seen Google Now before on the first version of Android Jelly Bean 4.1;
it shows 'cards' with useful information determined based on the time,
day and your location, along with any custom parameters you've put in
place. So for example it might display a card with the local weather
every morning, along with one showing traffic details for the route you
take to work.
Throughout the day it will update with upcoming
calendar events and interesting nearby places. It's a great idea, a sort
of visual virtual assistant, but it felt a bit too limited as it only
had a handful of cards on offer. Android 4.2
has seen it get a bit of an overhaul with loads more cards added. These
include things like flight information, event, hotel and restaurant
booking confirmations, movie times at local cinemas, interesting photo
spots in the local area and more besides. All in all it makes Google Now
a lot more full featured and a lot closer to fulfilling its potential. As
before, Google Now can be launched from any screen by dragging the home
button upwards, and for anything that isn't covered by your cards you
can initiate a voice search, which will either give a spoken answer like
Siri or perform a web search and display relevant results.
It
can also be used to perform simple actions such as launching apps and it
does a pretty good job of understanding what you're asking.
Google
Now is a great feature and it's now even more useful; however, it's
better suited to phones than tablets, as you're more likely to have your
phone on and with you throughout the day. Not to mention the fact that
it requires a data connection and right now the Nexus 10 is Wi-Fi only,
so you won't be able to use Google Now all that much when out and about. Once
on the homescreen it's standard, familiar Android through and through.
There's a search bar at the top which can be used to search both Google
and the tablet's contents through text or voice.
The voice search is the same as the one used in Google Now, so you can get spoken answers and launch apps with it.
At
the bottom of the screen you'll find the standard Android dock, which
initially has icons for the app drawer, the Chrome browser, Gmail, Play
Books, Play Movies, Play Music, YouTube, and Google Play in it, along
with a folder full of other Google apps such as Google Plus, Maps,
People and Currents. Of course other than the app drawer these can all
be removed from the dock or swapped for other apps and shortcuts. There
are five home screens available for you to fill with whatever apps,
folders and widgets you want and you just swipe across the screen to
flip between them. The screen is incredibly smooth and responsive as
you'd expect from a high end tablet.
There's no sign of judder or
slow down, just silky smooth transitions, which is impressive as even
the quad core Google Nexus 7 has the occasional hiccup but in our time
with the Nexus 10 it performed almost flawlessly. A
black bar at the bottom of the screen contains the back button, which
cycles back to the previous screen you were on. To the right of it
there's the menu button which takes you back to your homescreens;
alternatively if you swipe upwards from it Google Now will open.
Finally,
to the right of that there's the multi-task button. Tapping that brings
up thumbnails of all your open apps and windows; tapping on one will
switch to it while swiping across it will close it. It's worth
re-iterating that none of these are physical buttons, they're software
ones. At
the very top of each screen there's another thin black bar showing the
time, the battery level and any active connections, such as Wi-Fi.
Swiping down across the black bar brings down the notifications bar and
this is a bit different to what we're used to. Previously there was just
one notifications bar, but with Android 4.2 you get two.
Slide
down across the left side of the screen and you get the familiar one
with the time and date at the top and any un-cleared notifications
listed. These include things like emails, calendar events and social
network updates. It shows you the sender (where applicable) along with
the first couple of lines of text to give you a preview of the contents,
while tapping on it will open the full message or details. An icon at
the top right of the notifications screen will let you clear it. So
far, so familiar, but if you slide down from the top right of the
tablet screen you'll get a different notifications bar altogether, or
rather, a settings bar. It's a thin black strip that takes up roughly
half the width of the screen and is overlaid on top of whatever screen
you were on, much like the standard notifications screen.
However
rather than notifications it has options to adjust the brightness, turn
aeroplane mode on or off, turn Wi-Fi on or off and more. You can also
get to the main settings screen from here.
Despite the fact that
they would both fit on the screen (in landscape orientation at any
rate), you can't bring both of these bars down at once, as trying to
bring a second one down will close the first. Tapping
on the app drawer at the bottom of your home screen brings up a list of
all your apps. You can swipe between pages, much like you swipe between
homescreens. Tapping on an app will open it while long pressing it will
let you add it to one of your homescreens, delete it or view
information on it (such as the size). There's
also a widgets tab in the app drawer, which lets you see a preview of
how any widgets would look, while long pressing one lets you place it on
the homescreen. When placing a widget or app, anything else on the
homescreen will move around to accommodate it. You can also create
folders to keep things organised.
Messaging and settings
The
keyboard on the Google Nexus 10 is very accurate and responsive,
there's never any delay when typing and unlike the Nexus 7 it features
haptic feedback to provide more of a tactile sensation. Another new
feature of the keyboard is 'gesture typing'.
This works a lot
like 'Swype' - an app which has been available on certain handsets for a
while now. Specifically it lets you slide your finger across letters to
create words rather than typing them. It's surprisingly fast and
intuitive and for our money it works at least as well as Swype. There's
also a fairly accurate voice option, which lets you speak what you want
to type - although it's not accurate enough for us to have full
confidence in it. However
you choose to enter text, the keyboard also does a good job of
predicting what word you're trying to enter and auto-correcting any
mistakes.
It's a big keyboard too, meaning that it's easy to hit
the right key and as a result mistakes are rare to begin with. Despite
the size there's still plenty of screen visible with it open, both in
portrait and landscape. As always with Android if you don't get on with
the keyboard there are plenty of alternative options available from
Google Play. The
settings screen can be accessed either from a button on the
notifications screen or from its own dedicated icon and as the name
suggests this lets you tweak all the various options on the Google Nexus
10. For the most part it's identical to the settings screen on any
other Android device, with options for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, display,
storage, privacy and more. However
there is a new addition in the form of 'Daydreams'. This lets you set
up a custom screen saver whenever the tablet is docked or charging.
There
are options for a clock, photos from your gallery, moving colours or,
perhaps most interestingly, stories from sources you're subscribed to on
Google Currents. It's a minor feature and you may prefer for the screen
to just turn off when plugged in (which is still an option), but it's a
nice addition if you want it.
All in all the Google Nexus 10 is
slick, fast and powerful. The current version of Android combined with
top flight specs make it as smooth to operate as an iOS device.
It's
almost as intuitive as well, but with an added layer of customisation
available if you want it, making it suitable for both those new to
tablets and the more tech savvy. It boots up in around 17 seconds and
shuts down in around 14, times which are fast enough to make it a
convenient device to use even just for a few minutes at a time.
Browser
Right
now the only way to connect to the web on the Google Nexus 10 is via
Wi-Fi. We expect a 3G version will turn up before long, but for the time
being it's MIA. On the Wi-Fi front what you get specifically is
dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n. It also supports Wi-Fi direct. Browsing
on the device is lightning fast, with text and image heavy full desktop
sites loading in around 5 seconds. With the screen's 2560 x 1600
resolution pages look crystal clear and rarely need zooming at all. If
you do decide to zoom in you can do so with a pinch or a double tap, and
none of the shine is lost, with everything just as crisp and clear as
when it's zoomed out.
Scrolling on the browser is generally fast
and smooth, letting you glide around pages with ease and making it very
fast to navigate. We say generally because surprisingly there were a few
occasions where it seemed a bit jerky (namely content-heavy sites), but
never enough to spoil the browsing experience. The
Google Nexus 10 comes with the Chrome browser, one of the best mobile
browsers around and isn't a million miles away from the desktop version.
The top of the screen contains the address bar, which you can
tap on to type an address or search query. There's also a microphone
icon at the right hand side of it, which lets you use voice search.
To
the left of the address bar there are forwards and backwards arrows,
allowing you to move backwards and forwards through pages that you've
visited. There's also a refresh button to reload the current page.
A
star in the address bar lets you quickly bookmark pages while an icon
at the far right lets you open new tabs, view your bookmarks, share the
current page or access the browser settings screen. The
settings screen in turn has most of the options you'd expect, from auto
filling in forms, to which search engine it should use, as well as
options to save passwords, block pop ups and more. There's no Flash
support, but in practice we didn't really miss it - although you will
currently butt up against the lack of support until HTML5 video becomes
more prevalent across the web.
If you have more than one tab open
these will all be visible at the very top of the screen and you can
switch between them with a tap. You can also open or close tabs from
here, so there's no need to delve into the menu. Bookmarks
are shown as thumbnails and from the bookmarks menu you can see your
most visited sites. If you enable syncing between devices you can also
view and access tabs that are open in Chrome on other devices.
It's
all very straightforward and intuitive but there are plenty of other
browsers available for download if you don't get on with Chrome.
Whichever
browser you use, the Nexus 10 is one of the best tablets on offer for
web browsing. Pages are crisp and clear, they can be displayed in their
full screen glory without the need to zoom in and sites load very
quickly.
Movies, music and books
Media
is the lifeblood of any tablet so we'll say it straight off - the
Google Nexus 10 does not disappoint in that regard. Google Play will
always be the first stop for media consumption. You can rent and buy
movies and there's a respectable selection on offer. There are also
thousands of books available to download. Movies
and books each have their own dedicated apps too, in the form of Play
Movies and Play Books. These are primarily players, but there are also
links in them to the relevant parts of Google Play for all your
purchasing needs, and they work really well.
The Play Movies app
displays images of all your side-loaded videos, along with information,
such as the run time and a synopsis. It also displays suggestions for
things to buy or rent - that may or may not be a good thing depending on
your outlook, but it's not very intrusive.
The Google Nexus 10
can also support a wide range of codecs, with anything from MP4 to H.264
to DivX playing happily on the device. We even got some AVIs chugging
away on here, so you'll be fully stocked in a way Apple can't / won't
manage on the new iPad 4. Once
you actually play a video you get a progress bar along the bottom which
you can drag or tap to move to different points in the video; tapping
the video itself will pause it and an icon at the top right allows you
to share it to supported services, such as YouTube.
It's a basic
set of options but it covers the important stuff. More importantly HD
videos look stunning on the Nexus 10 and they sound pretty good too, as
even the internal speakers can reach a respectable volume, and being
forward-facing mean the tablet can be happily used without headphones
(as long as nobody else is around to annoy).
You're not limited to
the stock player either, as there are dozens more available from Google
Play, many of which are a lot more fully featured.
Movie Studio and YouTube
A
'Movie Studio' app also comes pre-installed and this lets you create
video projects by filming or importing videos, then splicing them
together, cutting bits and adding images and music or other sounds. It
doesn't allow much depth, but again there are other video editors
available to download, some of which are free. There's
also a dedicated YouTube app included with the Nexus 10, putting the
entire YouTube library at your fingertips. This is nothing unusual as
most phones and tablets come with a YouTube app, but it's quick, easy to
navigate and gives you yet another way to consume media. There
are so many other video apps available to download though. For example
there's a Netflix app on Google Play, which gives you full access to the
streaming service on your tablet - assuming you have an account. Play
Books is pretty similar to Play Movies in terms of its features.
There's an attractive display of all your books when you open it.
Tapping on any of them will take you to the point you last read up to
and let you continue reading.
Once again the high resolution
screen makes this a joy, as text is crisp and clear. You can read in
portrait or landscape and reading in landscape gives a great impression
of a real book, with two pages visible at once. You swipe to turn the
page and an attractive page-turn transition accompanies it. You
can have books read aloud, change the typeface and font size, add
bookmarks and notes and more. As with most other things on Android
you're not limited to the stock reader either, there are all sorts of
others available from Google Play, including Kobo and Kindle, which have
their own bookstores attached.
The Nexus 10 size, however, is not the most conducive to reading, as it's rather large and the screen expansive. In
addition to Play Books, the Nexus 10 also comes with 'Currents', which
lets you set up feeds for websites that you like and then it presents up
to date content from them in a layout that looks a lot like a magazine.
It's a very attractive app and a great way of consuming web media.
Finding
both books and videos on Google Play is easy to do, with an image
focussed layout, categories and the ability to search for specific
titles or authors. Finally
we come to music and Play Music really is an impressive beast. Not
because of the options, they're fairly standard, allowing you to sort
music by artist, album, song or genre and create playlists, along with
an equaliser to play with.
You can also pause and play your music
or skip track from the notifications bar and the lockscreen, so you
don't lose control if you leave the player. It's
a decent selection of settings and an attractive player, with a
carousel of album artwork that you can glide through to find what you're
looking for, but it's nothing amazing. So why are we so impressed?
Because you can upload up to 20,000 songs to the cloud for free and
stream or download them to any PC or Android device.
We'd wager
that 20,000 songs is more music than many people even have and not only
does it provide a handy back up, but it gives you access to them
anywhere with an internet connection. This is the future of the cloud
right here, or at least we hope it is, and it goes a long way towards
overcoming any internal storage limitations. The
implementation isn't perfect, you can unsurprisingly only stream your
music using the Play Music app (though there's nothing to stop you
downloading it and then listening to it on other players). We also had
some issues getting our music uploaded, first off it's incredibly slow -
uploading 20,000 tracks will likely take days or even weeks.
Secondly,
thousands of our tracks encountered errors during upload and were
skipped over as a result. It seems that uninstalling the PC client and
then re-installing it sort of helped, causing some of the missing tracks
to upload, but we still encountered errors on a large number.
But
if and when you get your music online it really is fantastic having
free access to your entire library on the move - and it's much, much
cheaper than the same service on iTunes Match or from Amazon, which only
allow a limited amount of uploading (or none at all) before having to
spend £21.99 to achieve the same thing.
For any music downloaded
to the tablet you also have plenty of other players to choose from, so
you're not totally tied to Play Music, and the internal speakers are
decently loud. Most
of the media players (both Google's own and those available for
download) have widgets too, which lets you access and control them from
your homescreen.
In terms of supported file types for music and
video you're looking at MP4, H.264, DivX, WMV, MP3, WAV, eAAC+, WMA and
Flac, so a pretty impressive selection, but there are plug-ins and
players available from Google Play that cover just about every
unsupported file type, for example MKV's. So whatever format your media
is in you should be able to get it to play one way or another.
Aside
from downloading or streaming you can also get media onto the Google
Nexus 10 by plugging it into a PC through the micro USB port. Once done
you can access the tablet through Windows Explorer and easily copy and
paste or drag and drop videos, music and books to and from it.
A
micro HDMI port lets you hook the Nexus 10 up to a monitor or screen and
view media on that, while Wi-Fi direct allows you to stream content to
supported devices.
The only real failing on the media front is the
lack of a micro SD card slot, and even with cloud storage for music
that really is a big deal, as Google's free cloud service doesn't help
for videos or games or for when there's no internet connection.
Its
absence is no surprise, since Google seem to have shunned micro SD
support for its whole Nexus range, but it's still disappointing. If you
plan to use the Nexus 10 for media you should think very carefully about
what size to buy, since that internal storage is all you get and it's
very easy to fill 16GB. It's
a tough call as to which of the iPad 4 or Nexus 10 is the better media
device. The Google Nexus 10 is far more versatile, with support for just
about every file type under the sun, numerous players to choose from,
widgets and free cloud storage.
The iPad conversely is a lot more
locked down. It supports far fewer file types, everything has to be
synced through iTunes and you're pretty much stuck with Apple's iPod
player. But it's also got simplicity on its side - things either work or
they don't and there's not much to get to grips with.
Then there's iTunes too, which has the edge over Google Play in terms of media content. Where
Apple once had an advantage with its Retina display Google have not
only closed the gap but actually topped it in resolution terms at any
rate.
That said the Nexus 10 isn't quite so impressive with its
handling of colours, as they're never as deep or rich as some of its
competitors - the iPad included.
If you're moderately tech-savvy
and not already entrenched in iTunes, then we'd give the Nexus 10 the
edge, but if you want to keep things simple or already have your whole
library in iTunes, then the iPad wins.
Apps and games
Google
Play is your one stop shop for apps and games on the Google Nexus 10.
Android recently matched Apple for number of available apps, hitting
700,000. It continues to grow faster than Apple's app store too, so it
will likely be the first to hit the big 1 million.
Of course it
also doesn't have the quality control and approval process of Apple's
store, so a large number of those apps will be totally useless, but that
still leaves hundreds of thousands of genuinely worthwhile ones. Navigating
the store is easy, with everything split into categories and you can
also just search by name if you know roughly what you're looking for.
Purchasing apps is easy too, as you simply register your bank details
with Google and then you can buy and download anything in a couple of
taps.
If you've already got an Android device you can also ask the
Nexus 10 to sync with your account and automatically download any apps
that you've previously purchased. In
terms of apps, as opposed to games, Android fares pretty well against
Apple. Thanks to being such an open system there are many types of apps
that you won't find at all on iDevices, such as new launchers, plug-ins
that let you customise the lockscreen or notifications bar, new
keyboards and more.
As a general rule if there's something you
don't like on the software side, or something you wish you could do,
there'll be an app to fix it. It can be very liberating and lets you set
up your Nexus 10 exactly how you want it.
You're not even limited
to using Google Play to find apps as there are several other stores
around as well. There's a lot of overlap in apps between the stores of
course, but they're not identical. There
aren't all that many apps on the Google Nexus 10 out of the box though.
Other than the various media apps, it comes with a Calendar, which of
course can be synced with your Google calendar and supports reminders.
There's
also a calculator, a clock with a stop watch and timer, and a gallery
(which syncs to your Google account - so any pictures you take on your
phone can be viewed on your tablet and vice versa). Then there's the
standard selection of Google apps - Maps, Navigation, People, Earth and
Google Plus. Plus
of course you get the Gmail and Email apps that come with most Android
devices. These are quick and easy to set up - in fact Gmail sets itself
up, you can get push notifications for new emails and reading and
composing emails in either of them is a breeze.
Where Android
doesn't fare so well is games. Don't get us wrong, there's a huge
selection available, but it's dwarfed by what's available on Apple
devices and thanks to the huge number of different Android devices with
different specs, many game developers are reluctant to develop for the
platform.
Unfortunately it's a situation that's not likely to
change for the foreseeable future, so if you plan on playing a lot of
games on your tablet, an iPad should always be your number one choice. That said, playing games on the Google Nexus 10 is a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Once
again the stunning screen really helps, allowing Android games to
dazzle like never before. With its 1.7GHz dual core processor and 2GB of
RAM it doesn't miss a beat in terms of performance either, effortlessly
tackling HD games with no noticeable drops in frame rate.
Camera
The
Google Nexus 10 has a 5 megapixel camera, along with a secondary 1.9
megapixel front facing snapper. As ever we're really not sure how useful
having a camera on a tablet is.
The front facing camera makes
some sense as it could be used for Skype and other webcam things, but we
have trouble envisaging anyone taking their tablet out to snap pictures
on. If anything the front camera should maybe get a boost in quality,
even if it meant dropping the megapixel count on the rear camera.
Using
the Nexus 10 has done nothing to change our minds about the usefulness
of a camera on a tablet. It managed to capture some reasonable quality
snaps but nothing particularly eye catching.
In fact it can't
even match the camera performance of most high end smartphones, which
really makes it a bit pointless, since a smartphone is both more
portable and by extension more likely to be with you when you're out and
about. Plus taking pictures on a tablet inevitably leaves you looking
ridiculous. Still,
if you do decide to use your Nexus 10 as a camera there are at least a
few different settings to play with. You can turn flash on or off and
pick between a handful of scene modes, such as 'action' and 'night'.
There's also a panorama mode and the big new feature - 'Photo Sphere'.
Photo
Sphere extends the panorama idea by letting you take full 360 degree
photo's, which can then be viewed in a similar way to Google's 'Street
View' service- letting you look up, down and around. In practice- like
panorama shots, it's a series of connected photos.
Unlike
panorama it doesn't always look particularly seamless with odd
distortions often appearing in the image where someone has moved or
photos have overlapped. Still it's a neat concept and a decent way of
bringing a scene to life for those times when video is just too 2011. The camera produces natural colours and a decent amount of detail- but never threaten 'proper' phones or cameras.Click here for the full resolution image The camera continues to perform well when used indoors with flashClick here for the full resolution image Without flash even quite well lit interiors appear dark.Click here for the full resolution image Even when using action mode 30mph traffic comes out blurred.Click here for the full resolution image Without night mode the camera struggles to pick out anything in the dark but does flood with orange light.Click here for the full resolution image Panorama mode works well with quite pleasing results, although takes 20 seconds to process.Click here for the full resolution image Click here for the full resolution image
We're
not sure whether Photo Sphere is much more than a novelty, but we
reckon there will be occasions where it's of some use. Taking a Photo
Sphere image takes a lot longer than a single photo or even a panorama-
so if time is of the essence then you're best off resisting.
Video
The
Google Nexus 10 can shoot video in full HD 1080p, but as with the
camera we struggle to muster much enthusiasm for it, as we can't think
of many occasions when we'd find ourselves reaching for our tablet to
film on rather than our phone.
Again, the one real exception is
the front facing camera, as we could see that getting some use for Skype
and the like, but the main video camera, not so much. Still, with just
about every other tablet on the planet packing photo and video
capabilities Google and Samsung would be foolish to omit it from this.
The
video camera's performance roughly matches photos when used indoors. It
captures solid quality footage and doesn't take long to refocus when
panning.
The video camera manages a reasonable amount of detail in
outdoor scenes, though some of that is lost on objects in the
background. Fast moving vehicles appear slightly blurred but don't come
out too bad.
Battery life
The
Google Nexus 10 comes with a pretty hefty 9,000 mAh lithium polymer
battery. But although it's a big battery it's also got a big screen to
power- slightly bigger even than an iPad's. Google and Samsung are
claiming that it will offer 9 hours of video, 7 hours of web browsing or
90 hours of music. They're all pretty solid figures and in general the
day to day performance matched them.
For general mixed use the
battery performed admirably, easily seeing out a day or more with a mix
of web browsing, reading, listening to music and taking a fair few
photos and videos. That's with it on all day and emails and Facebook
updates being pushed to it. But
when watching videos it didn't fair quite so well, with the battery
dropping by 1% every five minutes or so. We ran our standard battery
test on the tablet- turning the screen to full brightness, putting
emails and social networks to push notifications and running a ninety
minute video from full battery.
At the end the Nexus 10 had
dropped to 71%. That's a slightly faster drop than we seemed to
experience anecdotally during general use.
The only difference
was the screen brightness, so it seems clear that the screen is by far
the biggest drain- particularly when turned to full capacity.
Thankfully
you shouldn't need it on full brightness most of the time. Plus you can
set it to automatically adjust the brightness based on your
environment, which is probably your best bet if you want to make sure
you're always getting the best experience while maximising the Nexus
10's battery life. Indeed
with the screen off, even with music playing, it can go around 40
minutes without a noticeable drop, so the 90 hours of music claim
doesn't seem too unrealistic.
The gist of all this is that battery
life will depend on what you use it for, but since most tasks require
having the screen on and that's such a big drain it's ultimately pretty
average. Not bad enough to let the side down, but not particularly
impressive either.
No comments:
Post a Comment