Google’s Nexus brand is probably one of the most familiar names in
the tech scene, strongly associated with cutting edge devices meant to
show off the best that Google’s Android mobile operating system has to
offer. And as such, the search giant has used the brand to launch a
variety of devices, from the Nexus smartphones like the Nexus 4, to the budget-friendly Nexus 7 tablet, and now the much larger, Google Nexus 10.
Announced alongside the 4th Nexus branded smartphone, Google’s new 10 inch Nexus tablet is manufactured by Samsung, runs Stock Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and boasts some very appealing specs for it’s $400 price tag.
Tempting enough to make it your 10 inch tablet of choice? Read on for our Google Nexus 10 Review to know.
No headset unfortch, just like Apple’s iPad.
Ofcourse there’s also the fact that it’s made by Samsung, so it’s not like you really expected great design out of it, but the Nexus 10 actually doesnt look like anything the manufacturer has made so far, for what it’s worth.
It also feels pretty solid, which was nice. It’s not the best build quality we’ve felt, nor is it the most attractive device around, but it’s a clean, interesting enough design, though that one inch bezel around the display kinda makes it look a lot huger than it actually is.
Measuring 263.9 x 177.6 x 8.9 mm and weighing 603 grams, you’ll want to use the Nexus 10 with both hands since it can get tiring with one handed-usage. Still lighter than some of it’s rivals though.
The casing is a gunmetal-like color, which feels rubbery in the hand.
At the front of the device though, you have the gloriously sharp 10.05 inch True RGB Real Stripe PLS display. Seriously, I had to Google exactly what that display was called, because it looked suprisingly sharp, with resolution even higher than 1080p, at an insane 2560 x 1600 resolution.
That means you have pixel density of 300 ppi on a 10 inch tablet screen, which makes it quite fantastic. Everything looks super detailed, and pops with clarity.
Colors are a bit saturated though, and tones are a bit warm, but viewing angles are great and the display is bright enough to be visible outdoors, even under direct sunlight. Got to hand it to Samsung/Google for sticking something this impressive on a $400 tablet.
Like most Android tablets, there are no capacitive buttons or keys on the front, having just the LED indicator light underneath the screen.
And at the top, above the screen, is the front facing 1.3 Megapixel camera, which is capable of 720p video recording.
At the top of the Nexus 10, you have a dedicated power/screenlock key and volume controls. They’re raised enough so that they’re easy to find, though they can be awkward in portrait mode.
On the left side, you have the 3.5 mm audio jack, and a microUSB port for connectivity and charging.
And on the right side, you have the lone microHDMI-out port for video-out functionality.
At the bottom, you have the proprietary docking pins designed to accommodate whatever future accessories Google or Samsung comes out with for the tablet.
And finally, at the back you have a 5 Megapixel auto-focus camera with a single LED flash towards the middle of the dotted/patterned casing. You can also pry off that section, but it just reveals strange placeholders.
As such, performance benchmarks arnt anything to boast about, but thanks to project butter and various enhancements in software, performance is good. You can carry out basic tasks without any slowdowns or lag, though if there are multiple things going on, the processes can start to noticeably slow down. It’s not too bad, but it’s something that you can definitely see happening.
Apart from that, you can get the Nexus 10 in 16GB or 32GB versions, and you’ll have to be careful with your choice because there’s no microSD card slot on this one. The Nexus 10 is also only available in WiFi form currently, and there’s no word about a cellular version coming along.
In terms of connectivity, you also have NFC, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS.
Visually, it’s a lot similar to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and we’ve already covered 4.2 Jelly Bean in our Nexus 4 review, so we’ll try to talk about what’s new with the tablet version of 4.2 here.
But just incase you forgot, there’s the automatic resizing widget, and native widget support in the lockscreen that 4.2 brings along, and the DayDream feature which lets your Android device display useful information when idle or docked. Like Photo Albums, or news from Google Currents, etc.
First up, is the new support for multiple users, which really makes sense on a tablet. Smartphones are personal to us, but tablets are usually shared among a family, partners, etc. As such, it can come in very useful, and Google’s implementation allows each user to have the ability to personalize the UI and own specific media content which cant be seen by the other users of the tablet.
On the Nexus 4, the notifications panel flips over at the touch of a button, to give you access to a couple connectivity toggles (well, shortcuts actually), and lets you change screen brightness as well, right from the dropdown. On the Nexus 10, the notifications and connectivity panels are separated. You swipe down from the top left bezel to bring down the notification panel, and swipe down from the top right side of the bezel to bring down the connectivity shortcuts.
Apart from that, you have the usual organizer apps available, like on most versions of Android. There’s not much change in UI, though the apps make more use out of the extra tablet screen real estate. For example, the Calendar and people apps use a paneled view now. Though that being said, some apps like the Calculator and Clock apps just look like a larger version of the smartphone apps.
Coming to text input, the Android 4.2 keyboard is more suited to be used in landscape on the Nexus 10, because of the screen size. Everything’s super responsive, and there’s even a swype-like gesture based input method, where you just glide your finger from one alphabet to another to spell out a word, and the system automatically predicts what you were trying to say.
Works well enough, I’d say. In portrait, the screen is a bit awkward to use in either one hand or both.
Moving on, the email experience is just as satisfying as on the Nexus 4. Not a huge suprise, since obviously Android has the best Gmail experience of all platforms. Though that being said, most of the features of the Gmail app on 4.2 are now available in the latest version of the Android 4.0 ICS and 4.1 JB app as well.
On the internet browser side of things, you have Chrome as the stock browser on Android 4.2, which is great in terms of functionality, and can sync with Chrome on your desktop by just using your Google account.
It loads up and renders websites quickly, and navigation controls are smooth. No complaints as such.
Coming to multimedia, the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean gallery might appear to be the same as previous versions of Android, but it now has a lot of new editing features and keeps all the sharing functions from before, so it’s all good.
The video player doesnt have support for DivX/Xvid codec videos unfortunately, but if you happen to have videos that are encoded in MPEG-4 and H264, the Nexus 10 can play them back at up to 1080p resolution. Playback is smooth, and videos look great on the high resolution display.
Moving on to the Music Player, you have the same old Google Play Music app that has a cool 3D carousel and all the basic playback features that you’d expect in a music player, and even have a couple equalizer settings. The left and right speakers of the Nexus 10, sound great, have punchy audio tones, and dont distort even at high volumes.
Finally, since it’s a Nexus device so you dont have any bloatware pre-installed on the Nexus 10. Instead you have all of Google’s popular apps, from Google Map, Google Earth, Google Talk, Google+, YouTube, Google Voice Search and Google Now, yada yada.
And ofcourse there’s a gazillion apps on the Google Play App Store that you can download incase you’re missing out on anything.
All in all, Google has resorted to a very neat, minimalistic layout with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on a tablet. It’s still a bit of a transition between the smartphone and tablet version though, but you get used to it very quickly. I’d imagine there are also a couple bugs with the software, because on our retail unit, we noticed quite a few crashes.
You also have the fancy new “Photo Sphere” feature which stitches images together in a Google Street View like 360 degree view, but it’s unfortunately only viewable on Android 4.2 devices at the moment.
Coming to Camera Quality, we didnt expect much from a tablet camera, and as such the Nexus 10 delivers some pleasant enough shots. You have pretty average details, and colors seemed a little cold, but atleast they’re clear-ish. Low light shots are okay, though ofcourse there’s a lot of noise that creeps in.
Coming to video recording, results are about the same. The 1080p video quality isnt bad, but isnt too great either. You once again, have average details recorded at 29 frames per second, and audio recorded is clear enough. There is a bit of artifacting that occurs, and the automatic exposure can be moody.
That’s not bad at all, considering the screen. Though it’s worth noting that the tablet tends to get a little warm if you’re using it for a while.
While it might not have the best design on a tablet, you have the highest resolution tablet display out there right now, and the performance to boot. Previously, the iPad was the only recommendable tablet, since you had a Retina display, and a simple to use UI. With the Nexus 10, you have an even higher resolution screen, on a much more minimalistic Android 4.2 Jelly Bean UI that’s way, waaaaay improved compared to the horror that was Honeycomb. And it’s much cheaper.
At the end of the day if you’re looking for a 10 inch WiFi tablet, you gotta admit, the Nexus 10 is really worth the price tag. Definitely recommended.
Announced alongside the 4th Nexus branded smartphone, Google’s new 10 inch Nexus tablet is manufactured by Samsung, runs Stock Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and boasts some very appealing specs for it’s $400 price tag.
Tempting enough to make it your 10 inch tablet of choice? Read on for our Google Nexus 10 Review to know.
The Retail Package:-
The Nexus 10 comes with the usual amount of in-box contents, such as a microUSB cable, wall charger, and quick start guide.No headset unfortch, just like Apple’s iPad.
The Design:-
The design of the Google Nexus 10 is pretty similar to the Nexus 7. It’s meant to be a budget friendly device, and as such it has a rather modest look to it.Ofcourse there’s also the fact that it’s made by Samsung, so it’s not like you really expected great design out of it, but the Nexus 10 actually doesnt look like anything the manufacturer has made so far, for what it’s worth.
It also feels pretty solid, which was nice. It’s not the best build quality we’ve felt, nor is it the most attractive device around, but it’s a clean, interesting enough design, though that one inch bezel around the display kinda makes it look a lot huger than it actually is.
Measuring 263.9 x 177.6 x 8.9 mm and weighing 603 grams, you’ll want to use the Nexus 10 with both hands since it can get tiring with one handed-usage. Still lighter than some of it’s rivals though.
The casing is a gunmetal-like color, which feels rubbery in the hand.
At the front of the device though, you have the gloriously sharp 10.05 inch True RGB Real Stripe PLS display. Seriously, I had to Google exactly what that display was called, because it looked suprisingly sharp, with resolution even higher than 1080p, at an insane 2560 x 1600 resolution.
That means you have pixel density of 300 ppi on a 10 inch tablet screen, which makes it quite fantastic. Everything looks super detailed, and pops with clarity.
Colors are a bit saturated though, and tones are a bit warm, but viewing angles are great and the display is bright enough to be visible outdoors, even under direct sunlight. Got to hand it to Samsung/Google for sticking something this impressive on a $400 tablet.
Like most Android tablets, there are no capacitive buttons or keys on the front, having just the LED indicator light underneath the screen.
And at the top, above the screen, is the front facing 1.3 Megapixel camera, which is capable of 720p video recording.
At the top of the Nexus 10, you have a dedicated power/screenlock key and volume controls. They’re raised enough so that they’re easy to find, though they can be awkward in portrait mode.
On the left side, you have the 3.5 mm audio jack, and a microUSB port for connectivity and charging.
And on the right side, you have the lone microHDMI-out port for video-out functionality.
At the bottom, you have the proprietary docking pins designed to accommodate whatever future accessories Google or Samsung comes out with for the tablet.
And finally, at the back you have a 5 Megapixel auto-focus camera with a single LED flash towards the middle of the dotted/patterned casing. You can also pry off that section, but it just reveals strange placeholders.
The Hardware:-
The higher a screen resolution, the more processing power required to keep performance smooth. And as such the it’s surprising to know that the Nexus 10 is powered by a dual-core 1.7GHz ARM Cortex A15 based Exynos 5 chip. Though there’s 2GB of RAM and a quad-core Mali-T604 GPU to keep performance top notch.As such, performance benchmarks arnt anything to boast about, but thanks to project butter and various enhancements in software, performance is good. You can carry out basic tasks without any slowdowns or lag, though if there are multiple things going on, the processes can start to noticeably slow down. It’s not too bad, but it’s something that you can definitely see happening.
Apart from that, you can get the Nexus 10 in 16GB or 32GB versions, and you’ll have to be careful with your choice because there’s no microSD card slot on this one. The Nexus 10 is also only available in WiFi form currently, and there’s no word about a cellular version coming along.
In terms of connectivity, you also have NFC, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS.
The Software:-
Android got a bit of a facelift with 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and was Google’s attempt to bring together the smartphone and tablet experience into one UI, and it’s been marginally improved with 4.1 and 4.2 Jelly Bean which is what you have on the Nexus 10.Visually, it’s a lot similar to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and we’ve already covered 4.2 Jelly Bean in our Nexus 4 review, so we’ll try to talk about what’s new with the tablet version of 4.2 here.
But just incase you forgot, there’s the automatic resizing widget, and native widget support in the lockscreen that 4.2 brings along, and the DayDream feature which lets your Android device display useful information when idle or docked. Like Photo Albums, or news from Google Currents, etc.
First up, is the new support for multiple users, which really makes sense on a tablet. Smartphones are personal to us, but tablets are usually shared among a family, partners, etc. As such, it can come in very useful, and Google’s implementation allows each user to have the ability to personalize the UI and own specific media content which cant be seen by the other users of the tablet.
On the Nexus 4, the notifications panel flips over at the touch of a button, to give you access to a couple connectivity toggles (well, shortcuts actually), and lets you change screen brightness as well, right from the dropdown. On the Nexus 10, the notifications and connectivity panels are separated. You swipe down from the top left bezel to bring down the notification panel, and swipe down from the top right side of the bezel to bring down the connectivity shortcuts.
Apart from that, you have the usual organizer apps available, like on most versions of Android. There’s not much change in UI, though the apps make more use out of the extra tablet screen real estate. For example, the Calendar and people apps use a paneled view now. Though that being said, some apps like the Calculator and Clock apps just look like a larger version of the smartphone apps.
Coming to text input, the Android 4.2 keyboard is more suited to be used in landscape on the Nexus 10, because of the screen size. Everything’s super responsive, and there’s even a swype-like gesture based input method, where you just glide your finger from one alphabet to another to spell out a word, and the system automatically predicts what you were trying to say.
Works well enough, I’d say. In portrait, the screen is a bit awkward to use in either one hand or both.
Moving on, the email experience is just as satisfying as on the Nexus 4. Not a huge suprise, since obviously Android has the best Gmail experience of all platforms. Though that being said, most of the features of the Gmail app on 4.2 are now available in the latest version of the Android 4.0 ICS and 4.1 JB app as well.
On the internet browser side of things, you have Chrome as the stock browser on Android 4.2, which is great in terms of functionality, and can sync with Chrome on your desktop by just using your Google account.
It loads up and renders websites quickly, and navigation controls are smooth. No complaints as such.
Coming to multimedia, the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean gallery might appear to be the same as previous versions of Android, but it now has a lot of new editing features and keeps all the sharing functions from before, so it’s all good.
The video player doesnt have support for DivX/Xvid codec videos unfortunately, but if you happen to have videos that are encoded in MPEG-4 and H264, the Nexus 10 can play them back at up to 1080p resolution. Playback is smooth, and videos look great on the high resolution display.
Moving on to the Music Player, you have the same old Google Play Music app that has a cool 3D carousel and all the basic playback features that you’d expect in a music player, and even have a couple equalizer settings. The left and right speakers of the Nexus 10, sound great, have punchy audio tones, and dont distort even at high volumes.
Finally, since it’s a Nexus device so you dont have any bloatware pre-installed on the Nexus 10. Instead you have all of Google’s popular apps, from Google Map, Google Earth, Google Talk, Google+, YouTube, Google Voice Search and Google Now, yada yada.
And ofcourse there’s a gazillion apps on the Google Play App Store that you can download incase you’re missing out on anything.
All in all, Google has resorted to a very neat, minimalistic layout with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on a tablet. It’s still a bit of a transition between the smartphone and tablet version though, but you get used to it very quickly. I’d imagine there are also a couple bugs with the software, because on our retail unit, we noticed quite a few crashes.
The Camera:-
You have a 5 Megapixel camera with a single LED flash behind the Nexus 10. While that might not be very exciting, the new Camera UI in Android 4.2 certainly is. Just like on the Nexus 4, the interface is now much simpler, minimalistic and generally uncluttered with access to a couple scene modes and options just by tapping and holding on the screen.You also have the fancy new “Photo Sphere” feature which stitches images together in a Google Street View like 360 degree view, but it’s unfortunately only viewable on Android 4.2 devices at the moment.
Coming to Camera Quality, we didnt expect much from a tablet camera, and as such the Nexus 10 delivers some pleasant enough shots. You have pretty average details, and colors seemed a little cold, but atleast they’re clear-ish. Low light shots are okay, though ofcourse there’s a lot of noise that creeps in.
Coming to video recording, results are about the same. The 1080p video quality isnt bad, but isnt too great either. You once again, have average details recorded at 29 frames per second, and audio recorded is clear enough. There is a bit of artifacting that occurs, and the automatic exposure can be moody.
The Battery Life:-
The Nexus 10 actually managed pretty great battery life for a 10 inch tablet. I’m not sure if it’s the dual-core Exynos chips or the optimizations bought in by Android 4.2, but you can very easily get about 2 days worth of moderate usage out of the 9000 mAh battery.That’s not bad at all, considering the screen. Though it’s worth noting that the tablet tends to get a little warm if you’re using it for a while.
The Conclusion:-
Just like the Nexus 4 is real value for money at $300, the Nexus 10 is a steal at $400.While it might not have the best design on a tablet, you have the highest resolution tablet display out there right now, and the performance to boot. Previously, the iPad was the only recommendable tablet, since you had a Retina display, and a simple to use UI. With the Nexus 10, you have an even higher resolution screen, on a much more minimalistic Android 4.2 Jelly Bean UI that’s way, waaaaay improved compared to the horror that was Honeycomb. And it’s much cheaper.
At the end of the day if you’re looking for a 10 inch WiFi tablet, you gotta admit, the Nexus 10 is really worth the price tag. Definitely recommended.
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