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Looking to get a tablet in the next week. I want the price to be under $400. Any solid advice?

Windows, iOS, or Android? Again, top usage pattern, and what size/weight do you need? Any special battery life requirements? Or any other requirements?

Would the 2013 Nexus 7 tablet be enough tablet for you? Or do you need something bigger/more powerful? Because at the price, I'd say the Nexus 7 is an absolute steal.

Try out different ones (find them at your local store or buy several of them at Amazon or other place where you can abuse return policies), see which one you like more, buy it

Nexus 7 2013 is the best tablet, per Ars. It is honestly so much value for the money.

TheEmrys wrote:

Nexus 7 2013 is the best tablet, per Ars. It is honestly so much value for the money.

It does beg the question of physical attributes over OS ecosystem & vice versa. Not sure how to answer that question.

Yeah, sorry the OP was not very specific. I think the Nexus 7 32 GB does look like the best choice at the moment, though. I'd really like to have a memory card slot, which the Nexus 7 does not have, but I'm not sure I need it so bad that it's a deal breaker.

I'm taking a trip to Deutchland next week and need a tablet to be able to stay in touch with the wife and kids and to get info as needed, so skype and email and general web browsing and google maps.

flip-mode wrote:

so skype and email and general web browsing and google maps.

Why not just rely on your current smartphone for all this? Or get a new one (possibly with a discount), with good quality frontal camera. Would be cheaper than buying a tablet for a single trip...
Or get a Kindle Fire HD 7", it can also do all of these for cheaper price.

JohnC wrote:

flip-mode wrote:

so skype and email and general web browsing and google maps.

Why not just rely on your current smartphone for all this? Or get a new one (possibly with a discount), with good quality frontal camera. Would be cheaper than buying a tablet for a single trip...
Or get a Kindle Fire HD 7", it can also do all of these for cheaper price.

Phone = no, I refuse. But your reasoning behind the Kindle Fire HD 7" is worth considering.

Kindle Fire is a good tablet - it has front camera, WiFi, Skype app already preloaded and only $160 new for 7". "Stock" Android is pretty restrictive but you can sideload necessary apps very easily, or just flash it with less restricted ROM for full access to all apps/features.

Just a heads up: The new Nexus 7 is not available yet in Germany. Also, bring your receipt.

I'm going to take it to Deutchland, not going to be buying it there. I went ahead and ordered the new Nexus 7 32gb from Newegg. It'll give me the stock android experience, guaranteed updates, and that sweet pixel density of 1900x1200 on a 7" screen.

Firestarter wrote:

Just a heads up: The new Nexus 7 is not available yet in Germany. Also, bring your receipt.

My first thought when reading this was the potential of selling the device when you're done with it before leaving German - possibly for a profit. Hence the receipt... Something to consider, certainly.

Hello from the nexus 7-2013!

That was quick. Must have paid a bit for shipping, eh?

DancinJack wrote:

That was quick. Must have paid a bit for shipping, eh?

no it shipped from Memphis Tennessee to Cincinnati Ohio in 2 days

This thing is great but I will always suck at touch screen typing and I hate speaking to a device.

An updated version of the excellent Blurex case won't be available for the new Nexus 7 FHD until 8/21. You can choose black, green, purple, red or blue.

I moved this thread to the Mobile Tech forum.
--JustAnEngineer, SBA forum moderator

Still love my iPad for the record!

I did get a case made by solo that works very well. It uses elastic corner clips to hold the device in place. This works better than some other cases that I tried that used a kind of custom molded form that would fit the original Nexus. The problem with that is that the original Nexus apparently was a little bit larger than the Nexus FHD. The form fitting cases design for the original Nexus 7 don't work so well for the new Nexus 7. But this case with the corner clips works great.

I have to say after using the Nexus 7 for a while voice recognition is absolutely stellar. I mean it's really just totally fantastic.

Using Google now is also fantastic.

The lack of a memory card slot is quite a bummer but I guess I'll get over it.

Just sitting idle all day the tablet only used a couple percent of the battery. On a Saturday using the thing intermittently all day it used about 50 percent of the battery. That's just browsing and checking email and web surfing and things like that and just a little bit of watching video but not very much of that. So I'm pretty pleased with battery life on this thing.

The 7-inch form factor is perfect. Not too big not too small. The screen resolution is very good. I'm pretty happy with this thing.

http://solo.net/classic-universal-fit-t ... er-booklet

This is the case I have. Picked it out of a dozen options at Micro Center. I picked another one first but had to return it because it fit too loosely. In the end I'm quite happy with this one. I think it will do a great job of protecting against drops because of the way the elastic clips would allow a bit of "give" on impact.

Also the way that it will swivel to allow the Nexus to be propped up in either portrait or landscape mode is quite nice.

The iPad is more than "In". It's in because it's the most flawlessly executed device. It Just Works more often than any other tablet, and lets you stop having to worry about the fact that you're holding a computer in your hand.

On the other hand, if the tweakability of Android is your thing, then there are also some great tablets to be had. But don't count out the iPad just because a bunch of hipsters also own them.

Buub wrote:

The iPad is more than "In". It's in because it's the most flawlessly executed device. It Just Works more often than any other tablet, and lets you stop having to worry about the fact that you're holding a computer in your hand.

In a year of ownership I've never had the Nexus 7 fail to Just Work. It's flawlessly executed.

I have the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. I have to say it does everything I throw at it very well, good battery life, and a GPS that is astoundingly sensitive. Picks up GPS inside of buildings, in the forest, etc. It has become my mapping tool of choice when backpacking even though it is heavy-ish. Still less than a book + GPS. All games I play in it run very well also, makes a great reader and the S-pen is a lot of fun to dink with.

Make sure in any case to get Eufloria-HD. Damn cool indie game.

The new Nexus 7 is very nice as well, but I hate to say it... the resolution is wasted on such a small screen. I have excellent vision, and I still have to look very closely to tell the resolution difference between the old and new apart from color/contrast differences. At normal viewing distances, perhaps just a touch smoother text. I was in Staples two days ago buying my wife the Kindle 7" HD at deep discounts and got to compare the two Nexus devices. Almost bought her the new Nexus 7, but the HD for $159 was a steal, thought it was even cheaper on the weekend but I missed it.

Oh, don't underestimate the value of expandable memory. The microSD slot has come in very handy for sharing high-res photos and storing music collections.

The nexus 7 has been perfect so far. As for the resolution being wasted - I don't feel that way. Higher resolution at a lower price than most other tablets just means good value - not waste. It's great for viewing pictures.

flip-mode wrote:

The lack of a memory card slot is quite a bummer but I guess I'll get over it.

Get a USB OTG cable. Hell, they're usually about 3$, get three or four. Once you have those, you can connect all sorts of fun things to the USB port on the Nexus. I personally have used mine for USB drives (thumb only, HDDs need too much juice), an Xbox 360 controller, piggy-back charging my phone off the Nex10's huge battery, and an EXTERNAL FULL SIZE KEYBOARD. Lolwut.

USB OTG is just great fun. It's clearly something that got slipped in by geeks like me, probably because the costs approach zero.