Yesterday evening I bought a Nexus 7 and have had a short
time to start to get a feel for it. My first impressions:
- Setup – quick and easy, it linked instantly to wifi, no problems at all.
- It is a lovely size, I can hold it comfortably in one hand whilst keying in messages, or searches with the other! The touch screen is very quick and responsive, it rotates as required.
- I have done a podcast test, I downloaded an audio recording app which can be e-mailed, so I made a recording, as if I was a student, posted it to me as a teacher and used the recording to add to a group podcast in Audacity! Sadly I had to do a file conversion before I could use it in Audacity – but that was my first trial, there may be an app that will do it.
- It has a WordPress app – yay J I have not used it yet, but I guess I should be able to update the WordPress blog that I work on frequently if not at a computer.
- I downloaded Google Drive – so have access to all of my own and shared Google docs, brilliant for collaboration.
- I downloaded two camera apps, one takes a picture and reproduces it in sketch format, at can also be used as a video recorder. The other tool real images and then had masses of effects that can be added to the image. Sadly the camera is forward facing only, so can be used for face to face VOIP apps such as Skype, could be used for interviews, but it is not a device to take photographs of places.
- Pocket / Chrome / Dropbox / Flip / Facebook / Linkedin and maybe more apps yet, I just signed into and got my content – perfect!
- I clicked on an arrow saying Navigation – and found a beta satellite navigation system. I put in our nearest town and watched it find the town. I put it down and went into the kitchen but could soon hear talking – it was telling me where to go. Even in an old stone house it had found satellites to follow. When I did go into town later – it led the way! I was amazed.
- The TED videos, BBC News - great..
I have not had time to play with much yet, I am still
looking for apps to perform various tasks but first impressions are that it
would be perfect for a school device. It links wirelessly, has loads of
opportunities for learning and collaboration and the price, at £199 for the
16GB one is good. Its 9.5 hour battery
life is great for school, I guess that this is if it is used constantly, I have used mine for an
hour here and there today but it is not showing signs of running down yet, it
has more than half of its battery image still showing power.
Two things that I would like to see for my own use:
3G accessibility
A mini sd card for extra storage, though I can use Google Drive
A forward facing camera
However I think it is a delight, I am thrilled with it!
