Three months later: My Nexus 10 Review

So my usual disclaimer - I'm by no means a professional reviewer, nor am I particularly knowledgeable about tablets. That said, I really love my Nexus 10 and have no complaints about it. The screen size and resolution are marvelous. This is my first tablet and my first "second screen" of any kind, so I'll admit to a lack of ready comparisons, so take my raving with a grain of salt.

I now find myself watching television or playing games while cozy underneath warm blankets in bed, which is an incredible luxury. As a result, I tend to go to bed earlier than I used to, since its easier to shut down and go to sleep when all you have to do is roll over and shut your eyes.

I haven't yet used it for reading anything other than the web. It sucks to try and type long messages on it since I'm a touch typist with a really high wpm on a traditional keyboard; feels like its taking forever. The voice recognition software is surprisingly better than I expected, though it does require a certain cadence of speaking in order to not get confused, and even then certain words are nearly impossible for it to recognize.

My favorite use for the Nexus 10 is tied between using it as a second screen while I'm watching TV (looking up details or having my confusion cleared up mid-way through an episode of Downton Abbey is pretty handy) and using the tablet as a portal gaming device. I love PC games and enjoy them way more than I do the offerings of a DS or PSP, but my gaming laptop is heavy and bulky and has a huge recharger block... so plugging it in and using it on a train (or god forbid, a plane) is pretty much never worth the effort. The tablet on the other hand - perfection. It is a divine portable gaming device!

My favorite game so far? Rebuild. (Technically this is Rebuild 2 but I guess the developer didn't want to be confusing.) After the zombie-apocalypse, you have to defend your bastion, reclaim city blocks while scavenging for food and weapons, and provide a safe haven long enough for the survivors to - what else? Rebuild civilization! This is a really fun way to kill some time, and a marvelous game-play concept. I am very much looking forward to the sequel that's currently in development.

Back to my Nexus 10: I haven't had any crashes or lockups, but I have noticed the internet connectivity will sometimes stop working if I've not turned the tablet off for a few days. I did update to Jellybean 4.2.2 and haven't noticed any issues. Other than that, I haven't rooted it or otherwise tinkered with changing anything substantial.

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OK, with that said, every good tablet should be protected with a good case, right?

I bought this case about 45 days ago, and love it. I read lots of case reviews before deciding on this one, mainly because a lot of the other "good" cases were reported to come with a strong scent that lingered for months and were considerably more expensive.

The Blurex ultra slim case fits my Nexus 10 snugly, but isn't bothersome to remove. It folds very easily into three different angles for a self-supported viewing platform. This was a huge issue for me prior to getting a case, since I had a really hard time with propping my tablet up when I wanted to watch some Netflix from bed. (Parks and Rec is my new favorite show!)

This case protects the tablet fairly substantially without covering up any ports or buttons, nor either camera. It feels nice to the touch and overall I'm impressed with it; this feels like a case that should have cost me a lot more than it did.

The one complaint I have is that the little handhold strap is awkward as its placed so I never use it. If it was rotated 90 degrees then it would be much more useful. That said, this case is some pretty amazing bang for your buck compared to what else is out there!

What tablet should I get for Christmas?

Christmas 2012 is fast approaching, unless the world ends before then. It has been years and years since I've come up with a big ticket item that I wanted, so I got pretty excited when I thought that I would enjoy owning a tablet!

This would be my first new bit of technology since I bought an iPod back in 2007. Well, OK, I recently got an iPod touch for my birthday. But that's no tablet! And this is ignoring, of course, my gaming computers, which I think we're safe to do for purposes of discussing new portable technology. As a result of my lack of early adopting (or any adopting, really.. I've still never had a smart phone other than a company-issued Blackberry that I didn't customize) my friends have been known to call me a Luddite.

But after seeing plenty of friends & my mother enjoy their tablets I decided that it might be time to get one myself. Turns out that there's a lot of options on the market nowadays! At first I crowd-sourced brand names that my friends and family found to be good choices. There was an immediate consensus between three products: Amazon's Kindle, Google's Nexus, and Apple's iPad.

I figured the next step would be deciding on a size. Do I want to go with a larger model or go mini? Since I have an iPod touch, I figure that my tablet should go big... But then I began second guessing myself, debating the convenience of carrying around a smaller tablet. With nothing decided, I began attempting to narrow down my choices by other means.

I looked at the Kindle Fire HD, the Nexus 7 & 10, and the iPads (both the mini and the 4th generation.) After an exhausting amount of research, user reviews, editor's reviews, and a few interrogations, I finally decided on a favorite choice for my requested Xmas loot.

It really was a close race the whole time, and I don't think that what works best for one person will necessarily fit another person's preferences. I came to my conclusion based on a number of factors:

For myself, I plan on doing a lot of reading on my tablet. From what I read, it sounds like Amazon's e-ink gives it a clear lead in this regard, though users say that this is only really game-breaking when you're reading outside on a sunny day. Nonetheless, I feel like that's a clear win for the Kindle.

I am a bit clumsy, so durability always factors into very expensive, very droppable purchases. In this category, the size of the products didn't seem to matter and there was a clear hierarchy of the Nexus being more durable than the Kindle being more durable than the iPad. That said, if you're not particularly prone to accidents, I'm sure just buying a case and a screen protector would make even the iPad seem like a tank, as far as tablets go.

For apps? Hands down, there's no contest: Apple has the market there. Google is making a dent in their market-share, but at this point Apple still dominants handily. Amazon is still playing catch-up, although they did beat Google's selection of movies and TV shows. In almost every other respect, Amazon's content is available on both competitors through an Amazon app... almost seems unfair, eh? But truly, the selection from Apple is just superior in every measurable way. They have more apps and their apps are a lot more stable and/or customized to the iOS, whereas Google's offerings sometimes suffer from being sloppy smartphone ports.

When it comes to customization and overall control of the user interface (and the product in general), the Nexus shines. One would think the Kindle having an Android OS would make it comparable, but unfortunately Amazon has things pretty locked down which negates Android's main strength when being compared to iOS.

In the end, I decided that although all three had merits, what I was looking for in a tablet was best met by the Google Nexus. I appreciated the durability and user control, and didn't mind having less app options since Google's selection is still robust enough to meet my needs and is growing every day.

I will probably eventually still pick up a Kindle specifically for e-reading, but for my first dive into tablet computing I'm going to go with the Nexus 10. The smaller tablets seemed nice but I trust my initial instinct: given the fact that I have an iPod touch (and probably a smart phone in the near future,) I went ahead and chose the big'un.

I hope that my shared research can be helpful for your own difficult holiday choices, but please remember that this is a very amateur job of comparing the products and isn't meant to be a definitive comparison and review.