Google Nexus 7 Tablet vs Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)
Mobile Computing Environments are in the middle of a highly competitive rivalry with the stationary PCs. On top of that, there is a heavy competition going on between the available mobile computing platforms, as well. As of now, the dominant computing environment seems to be smartphones, but it’s changing rapidly due to various reasons. With the introduction of enhanced and improved tablet PCs, the future is simply difficult to predict. As of today, 62% of worlds’ tablet sales account for Apple iPads and 36% accounts for Android tablets. As it depicts, Apple is the only company that hasn’t staggered a bit with the tablet sales whereas major vendors like Samsung, Asus and Huawei who uses Android staggered in the market for a while before gaining momentum. Even though this was the case, neither of these companies really succeeded in budget tablets. The only tablet that was renowned as a budget tablet was Amazon Kindle Fire although they use a heavily modified version of Android operating system. Given the situation, we anticipated that Google would interfere and take matters into their hands. That is exactly what has happened recently.
With the introduction of Google’s new brain child at their I/O Developers conference in San Francisco, the market for budget tablets is bound to take a turn. The first difference we spotted was that Google has ditched their normal Nexus companion Samsung and brought Asus in to play for this tablet. This may be because Asus has produced a quad-core tablet before Samsung did and they tend to be better than Samsung at making tablets. It’s a 7 inch tablet and seems like it’d be the next big thing in the tablet market due to various reasons. With this tablet, Google has also introduced their new upgrade for Android, Jelly Beans. Let us review the two tablets in question individually and compare them.
Asus Google Nexus 7 Tablet Review
Asus Google Nexus 7 is known as Nexus 7 in short. It is one of Google’s very own product line; Nexus. As usual, Nexus is designed to last till its successor and that means something in the rapidly changing tablet market. Nexus 7 has a 7 inch LED backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen that features a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at a pixel density of 216ppi. It is 120mm wide and 198.5mm in height. Asus has managed to make it thin as much as 10.5mm and rather light with a weight of 340g. The touchscreen is said to be made from Corning Gorilla Glass which means it would be highly scratch resistant.
Google has included a 1.3GHz quad-core processor on top of Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset with 1GB of RAM and a 12 core ULP GeForce GPU. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean which would make it the first device to run on this newest Android operating system. Google states that Jelly Bean is specifically developed to enhance the performance of the quad core processors used in this device and hence we can expect a high end computing platform from this budget device. They have made it their mission to eliminate sluggish behavior and it seems the gaming experience is highly enhanced, as well. This slate comes with two storage options, 8GB and 16GB without the option to expand storage using microSD cards.
The network connectivity for this tablet is defined by Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n only which can be a disadvantage when you can’t find a Wi-Fi hotspot to connect. This won’t be much of a problem if you live in a country that has a wide Wi-Fi coverage. It also has NFC (Android Beam) and Google Wallet, as well. The slate has 1.2MP front facing camera that can capture 720p videos, but it doesn’t come with a camera at the rear, and which may disappoint some. It basically comes in Black and the texture on the back cover is developed specifically to enhance the grip. Another attractive feature is the introduction of enhanced voice commands with Jelly Bean. This means Nexus 7 will host a Siri like personal assistant system which can answer your question promptly. Asus has included a 4325mAh battery that is guaranteed to last over 8 hours and that would give it enough juice for any general use.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) Review
This sleek slate seems to be the second generation of the 7.0 inch tablet range which has created a unique market for itself with the introduction of Galaxy Tab 7.0. It has 7.0 inch PLS LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels at a pixel density of 170ppi. The slate comes in either Black or White and has a pleasing touch. It is powered by 1GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM and runs on Android OS v4.0 ICS. The processor seems somewhat mediocre, but nonetheless, it would serve well for this slate. It has three variants with 8GB, 16GB and 32GB of internal storage with the option to expand using a microSD card up to 64GB.
Galaxy Tab 2 stays connected with HSDPA reaching a maximum speed of 21Mbps. The Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n ensures the constant connectivity, and it can also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot enabling you to share your fast internet connection generously. The built-in DLNA functions as a wireless streaming bridge that enables you to stream rich media content to your Smart TV. Samsung has been miser with the camera they include for the tablets, and Galaxy Tab 2 is no exception. It has 3.15MP camera with Geo Tagging and fortunately it can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 frames per second. The front facing camera is VGA quality, but that suffices for the purpose of video conferencing. Unlike Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Tab 2 comes with attractive TouchWiz UX UI and additional components from the ICS operating system. Samsung also boasts smooth web browsing and full compatibility with HTML 5 and flash rich contents. Another addition in Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is the support for GLONASS as well as GPS. In layman’s terms, GLONASS; GLObal Navigation Satellite System; is another navigation system with worldwide coverage, and it is the only current alternative for USA’s GPS. The battery life on this slate may go for 7-8 hours with the 4000mAh standard battery.
A Brief Comparison Between Google Nexus 7 Tablet and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)
• Asus Google Nexus 7 is powered by 1.3 Quad-core processor on top of Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset with 1GB of RAM and 12 core ULP GeForce GPU, while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 is powered by 1GHz dual core processor on top of TI OMAP 4430 chipset with 1GB of RAM and PowerVR SGX540 GPU.
• Asus Google Nexus 7 runs on Android v4.1 Jelly Bean while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 runs on Android v4.0 IceCreamSandwitch.
• Asus Google Nexus 7 has 7 inch LED backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen that features a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at a pixel density of 216ppi, while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has 7 inches PLS LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels at a pixel density of 170ppi.
• Asus Google Nexus 7 is slightly lighter (198.5 x 120 mm / 10.5mm / 340g) than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (193.7 x 122.4mm / 10.5mm / 344g).
• Asus Google Nexus has 1.2MP camera that can capture 720p videos while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has 3.15MP camera that can capture 1080p videos.
Conclusion
When we compared these two tablets, the differentiating factor was the cost. As we started the comparison, we pointed out that Asus Google Nexus 7 is actually a budget tablet and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 is a fully fledged tablet. Owing to the nature of the cost, we can see several cut downs from Nexus 7. To start with, it doesn’t come with HSDPA connectivity whereas, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has HSDPA connectivity. Nexus 7 doesn’t come with enough capacity as well since it doesn’t have the ability to expand the storage using a microSD card. On the bright side, Nexus 7 is definitely better in performance than Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 because it has a high end quad core processor on top of new Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset, and it also has an enhanced GPU which enables you to play games and multitask seamlessly. The resolution featured in Nexus 7 is also superior to that of Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and all these come with less than half the price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0).