Asus Nexus 2 - some normally asked questions answered

New +ASUS  +Nexus 7  with starting price  $229 for 16GB model. The +Nexus   range has always been a darling for purist android users. After all, there is the promise of undiluted, first to get Android updates by +Google  itself.

However, even with the new enhancements announced by Google, one will certainly ask.

Question : Should you purchase this tablet?

Yes, I believe that Nexus range products holds much more advantage compares to OEM manufacturer.

Question : Why should I get one?

OS experience

Firstly is the customized UI such as Touchwiz from +Samsung Mobile  , Sense from +HTC and from also +Sony  . The advantages is that Nexus range receives much faster updates from Google due to that there is no customization from Google which results in smoother , buttery experience and also better performance. In the case of Samsung, I always finds that Touchwiz are normally sluggish especially when playing around with the widgets menu even when using a dual core gadgets.

For Sony, even with a quad core processing power with 2GB RAM, the occasional sluggish of the device can be felt quite easily. The customized UI wil certainly not help Sony get the second placing behind Apple’s Ipad any time soon.

Besides that , Nexus 7 also comes with lots of built in Google software are so easy to use in our daily life.

The very reason why pure android, Nexus range is loved everywhere.

Built quality

 Secondly Google employs Asus as the manufacturer of the new Nexus device, which has always been making top notch gadgets , both laptops and tablets. Asus devices has always been one of the best in the market, good customization, the lag was not noticable in their other products. Laptop wise, Asus Zenbook and Taichi ultrabook was built to almost perfection, one of the best in their class. Sleek, aluminium casing with unparalled perfomance. So we can be rest assured that the same quality material and products will be in the new Asus Nexus too.

Connectivity

 Say hello to HDMI ports, no more low resolution videos! NFC for your file transfer and also Google wallet. The rest are pretty standard which are WIFI, Bluetooth, and of course , Google Maps. (Was hoping there will be a major improvements since they bought over +Waze )

Price

 Quad core Snapdragon processor with 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, Jellybean 4.3 at only $229? No wonder everyone is rushing out to get one! It is the one of the tablets which has high end specs with dirt cheap pricing. A similar tablet with larger screen like Sony Xperia tablet Z will set your budget back by a few hundred dollar. A lower specs tablet like Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 with 7 inches is also significantly more expensive than that of new Nexus 7. One could ask, who in this world wouldn’t  get their hands on one? Not forgetting,  a Full HD 1920 x 1080 IPS display !

Questions: Then what is the problem of the new Asus Nexus 7?

Of course the supply. You can get your hands on this wonderful device firstly on Google Play and some physical stores. This will put off some people who wanted to change into a newer, high performing tablet at a price that would not hurt your wallet that much. And it seems that the global shipments wont be coming to your place anytime soon. Unfortunately, Google Play do not support also the purchase of Nexus products including Asus Nexus 7 directly in certain countries , they could only get them in a physical local IT store.

Secondly, there is also the problem, like any pure Android device, the new Asus Nexus 7 will be lacking of nice embeded propeoty software from manufacturers like Samsung and Sony. One of the main categories that we wil miss these software are the enhancements of pictures taken provided such as from Sony Exmor R™. Samsung has also embeded much of their own homegrown software such as eye detection and group play. The one that will be sorely missed is the wonderful motion detection that automatically calls the person just by motioning the phone near your ears. I always find that useful.

Below are some of the detail specs for your analysis.

Specifications

Operating System	Jelly bean 4.3
Network	3G/4G (LTE)
Display	7.02” 1920x1200 HD display (323 ppi)
	7 Inch
	Multitouch ( 10 point touch)
	Gorilla glass
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4Pro , Quad core 1.5 GHz
Memory	16GB/32GB
RAM	2GB (2048 MB)
Sound	Back speaker
	3.5 jack supported
Connectivity	Bluetooth, NFC, USB
Camera	Dual camera ( back - 5MP, Front 1.2MP
Power Supply	3900 mAh with wireless charging capability
Software	- HDMI port
	- Google Wallet
	- SNS integration
	- MP4/H.264 player
	- MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA player
	- Organizer
	- Image/video editor
	- Document viewer
	- Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
	- YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa
	- Voice memo
	- Predictive text input (Swype)

Android 4.3 and we still playing catching up

There are plenty of features announce for the new +Android  Jelly Bean 4.3 but there were only several key features worth noting.

Great new features

One of the new features is called quick response that allows you to reject calls easier but I am not exactly sure how it works and how well it works in the practical world. You certainly do not want to reject the wrong calls by some very important people especially your bosses.

Basically, it works when a call comes in and you're too occupied to take the calls, you can reject the call and send a message to the caller by using  third party apps. However, currently, none of the third party apps supports that function that well. It really depends on the apps developers to embed that function inside their apps.

There are also rumors by some Android fan sites that +Google  Voice may be updated to work with the service, but one could never be too sure of this unconfirmed report.

The second new addition uncovered by the site is called notification listener. According to the specs, it's right in the code of the update and it is a feature developers can embed in their  apps which are currently using the accessibility service to access system notifications. Most important, it allows the apps to be updated easily  without accessing accessibility settings which in fact can increase the performance of your gadgets. Before this, if an app were to discover a new notification in +Google Play , it would need to communicate with the accessibility settings in your device via +Google Play Store  before displaying the notification. So now, your apps can read notifications when there any any updates by the system, read them and update the apps to the latest versions , saving one step of the process the update hasn't hit their devices yet.

 One of the issues that had been dogging Android user is the decreased performance of their gadgets over time. Sluggish keyboards, slow opening of apps, and hang phone when browsing the internet. Android 4.3 now comes with TRIM.

TRIM is supposed to get rid of the sluggish performance and possibly enhance the Project Butter that comes with the earlier versions of Jelly Bean. Google’s Android works by instructing the flash storage that are built in your gadgets ( I am not too sure about memory storage) when to collect and recycle and recycles unused data pages and blocks The hopeful net results  is that devices that runs on the Android 4.3 will perform better and no longer become laggy and non responsive. Nexus tablets and smartphones will certainly see the performance improvements after the new update kicks in. From the source, it seems that the newly updated Jelly Bean invokes TRIM maintaince once every da ( 24 hours) with conditions that there is one hour on inactivity and for the battery power, it should be 80% full or 30% when charging

New updates to old features

Android 4.3 was announced by Google earlier today with disappointment due to the lack of new features. From the snapshot above, we can see that there was only minor changes to the android system with additions of several main features namely Bluetooth support ( increased to more advance type of Bluetooth) , More language support ( do we even care and need to wait several donkey months for this? ) , improvement in the text input ( still haven't get this right even with 4.3? and most of the manufacturers will just apply their own predictive keyboard anyway ). There were literally no new innovations except for the ones above. This updates just some minor improvements and building some senseless hype across the net which can be easily done in a simply patch.

What the new android still lacking?

One of the biggest problems with the new android Jelly Bean 4.3 is the unproven suceess rate of the TRIM enhancements to the performance of the gadgets. Android is too fragmeneted , too many manufacturers lay their own customizations , until the suppsoed enhancements does not work well , like in the earlier versions of Jell bean.

Besides that, we still face the problems of the support of new android to older devices, this update was supposed to enable lower end phones to enjoy the new smooth Android too.

Probably done this way to build the "credibility" of the new Google android chief. Well, we will see about that.

Thank god for the new +ASUS  +Nexus 7 

Video of android 4.3. Bleh~

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