[Discuss] Google's Nexus 7

[richard.pieri at gmail.com (Richard Pieri)]

On 7/9/2012 3:25 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
> Anyone planning to buy the Google's Nexus 7 tablet?

Not I.  Tablets and I don't get along, in the sense that fingerprints on 
displays make me want to destroy.

It'll be interesting to see if Google can do the impossible.  Nobody to 
date has put forth a genuinely successful 7" tablet.  When it comes to 
portable electronics, the successful devices have either been very 
convenient to carry or very convenient to use.  Palm nailed convenient 
to carry with the original Pilot form factor.  Fits in a shirt pocket? 
Convenient to carry.  The utility of the Pilot didn't matter so much in 
the face of the carry convenience.

Apple cribbed from Palm with the original iPod.  At the time iPod was 
introduced the other HD-based players were big, clunky affairs the size 
of portable CD players (yeah, I just called a portable CD player "big" 
:).  iPod fit in the shirt pocket.

So what about iPad?  It won't fit in a shirt pocket so it fails the 
convenient to carry test.  But what about convenient to use?  That it 
has in spades.  It was designed to be the epitome of convenient to use.

And now the 7" tablets.  Smaller and lighter than 10" tablets so more 
convenient to carry.  Reasonable size screen so they're not a pain to 
use.  Best of both worlds.  But they're not.  They're the worst of both 
worlds.  They fail the convenient to carry test: they don't fit in a 
shirt pocket.  They fail the convenient to use test: the smaller screens 
are harder to see things on, and the on-screen keyboards are half the 
size of what's on the 10" units.

The 7" form factor has nothing at all compelling about it.  The 
question, then, is whether or not the break-even price point will be 
compelling enough to make Nexus 7 a must-have device.

-- 
Rich P.