Nexus 7

Nexus 7 Dock: Can You Pogo Or What?

I’m really into docks. If I get a device, and they make a decent dock for it, I buy! Glancing across my desk right now I see an iPad dock, an S III dock, one for my 3DS XL…my PSPgo…my Fujitsu U810…and several others for devices I don’t even use any more! Until recently, however, there was a glaring exception – the continual absence of the Nexus 7 Dock forced me to improvise – combining a generic portable stand with the standard USB charger. I wanted to keep my N7 docked in order to use the Currents Daydream to supplement my Chumby/Dash and G19 information feeds – but the pathetic truth is that while I had found myself favoring the N7 over the iPad for casual web browsing etc. since its arrival, the meager chore of having to continually unplug it and plug it back in had me favoring the slightly less tedious action of lining up the iPad’s connector with its dock lately.

I would regularly search to see if there were any developments on the release of the Nexus 7 Dock, leaked so long ago, yet with no news or release date mentioned. Then they started to show up on Amazon, but well above list price – but one day, when I’d all but given up, I finally stumbled upon an article announcing their availability, dated only one day prior – with a link to the Google Play product listing! But, it had sold out – in less than one day (in fact, almost immediately!). I kept Read More…

Google Play’s Customer Support Is Pathetically Low Tech

I’ve found Google Play’s Customer Support and general experience frustrating and sub-par since the moment I ordered my Nexus 7 – my initial order had my billing address (a PO Box) as the shipping address – a physical impossibility – yet refused to let me cancel the order, claiming that seconds later was already too late to cancel.  I got it sorted eventually, but was left with a bad taste in my mouth before I’d even received my device.  Now I’ve discovered that the device is faulty – I was already concerned that it was starting to suffer from the infamous screen lifting issue, but recently tried to use the 3.5mm stereo jack only to discover that the resultant audio was mono – and that swapping to a different cable, or even headphones, made no difference.  I had a great experience returning a faulty mSD card to Amazon recently and hoped Google might offer something similar – but instead was presented with no option but to give them a call – something I would find shocking from even a small online retailer, let alone a global technology leader like Google. (゚Д ゚ )

 

 

Google Nexus 7 with Google Now: Return of the PDA

There are plenty of reviews enumerating the Google Nexus 7‘s impressive specs, its obvious deficiencies and compromises, and flippant comparisons to the bigger and vastly more expensive iPad. Instead of rehashing these topics, this blog post concentrates on the experience of using the device.

I have carried a computing device of some manner or other about my person for close to two decades. In high school, it was the HP 95LX and 200LX DOS-based palmtops. In college, it was a succession of clamshell and “Palm-size PC” Windows CE devices, which eventually merged what was then called “PDA” functionality with that of a mobile phone. By this time, mobile computing and cell phones were becoming less of a niche, and this gave way to today’s widespread adoption of smartphones, tablets, and other specialty devices.

While a fair amount of software was available for these legacy devices, their utility was not really comparable to modern devices – without a wireless data connection, most would sync to a PC via a wired serial cable for calendar and contact updates – if that.  As such, one of their primary functions was to provide mobile access to so-called “personal data” as a replacement for Read More…

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