WorldView: August 2012

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

New iPad-based POS solution aims at small grocery stores

POS technology vendor Revel Systems is at it again: this time it has adapted is iPad-based point-of-sale system for small supermarkets and grocery stores.

The edition builds on the company's recent introduction for food trucks in mid-July. Key features include:

- Integration with Dwolla, a payment processing platform that doesn't charge anything for transactions less than $10 and only 25 cents per transaction above that amount; the system can also be integrated with the LevelUp payment platform.

- Connections to peripherals through the company's Revel Router, including Honewall scanners, Epson printers, cash drawers, food scales and so on

- The ability to import and export products quickly, so that priced can be changed on the fly

- Support for the Grocery Store application programming interface

- A customer-facing interface that allows the system to be used for self-checkout lanes.

- Real-time reporting for inventory control and employee scheduling

"We've seen so many great benefits of the system in the time we've had it live in our store," said Lawrence Capozzolo, head of IT for Marty's Market, a grocery store in Pittsburgh that is using the technology for its five checkout lanes. "With its now intuitive touchscreen interface, the iPad makes it so simple for our employees to learn so that we don't have to spends training them."

The license for the Revel Grocery software is $2,000 per seat, plus any hardware that might be necessary to set up the solution.

Nokia Q2: By the numbers

Nokia's second-quarter results are pretty dire. Having said that, there are some streams of rainbows forming out of the smoldering heap of the former phone giant.

Here are the numbers you need to know. These will be updated throughout the morning following the conference call later.

Nokia saw a Q2 net loss of €1.41 billion ($1.74bn) -- four times greater than a year ago;
Net sales on devices are down by 26 percent on Q2 2011, compared to 5 percent on Q1 2012
Smartphones sales dropped by 34 percent on Q2 2011;
Its current net cash position stands at €4.2 billion ($5.17bn) --- down from €4.8 billion ($5.9bn) in Q1.

In terms of smart devices, Nokia says the picture looks bleak year-on-year, partially due to a falling number in Symbian devices. Nokia says this was partially offset by sales of Lumia devices.

Nokia shipped 4 million Lumia smartphones in Q2, falling in line with estimates.
Overall, Nokia sold 10.2 million 'smart' devices -- including Symbian, MeeGo, and Windows Phone, down from 16.7 million in the last quarter;
Mobile phone volumes have increased quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year to 73 million units;
$49.99 is the current price of the Lumia handset in U.S. AT&T stores following a price reduction;
Its patent portfolio is worth around $6 billion.

Breaking down the figures by region, Nokia only sold 600,000 mobile devices in the United States, while Asia-Pacific took the geographic crown with more than 28.6 million devices sold.

Despite Nokia's decline in the past quarter, its shares rose on the news. Here's what Nokia looks like at the moment:

Nokia's share price is up more than 10 percent on NYSE pre-market trading;
Nokia's market cap stands at $6.48 billion, around 50 times less than its peak in 2000;
Nokia shares have dropped 84 percent since unveiling its Windows phones strategy;
10,000 employees lost in the past quarter, set to leave by the end of this year.

Windows 8 reaches RTM: When will you get it?

Microsoft today announced that Windows 8 had been released to manufacturing. In a post on the Building 8 blog, Microsoft President Windows Steven Sinofsky, thanked millions of beta testers, noting that "The previews of Windows 8 (Developer, Consumer, Release) have been the most widely and deeply used test releases of any product we have ever done." Over 16 million PCs downloaded preview code, with 7 million running the Release Preview.

The final build is 9200, and will introduce changes to the desktop user interface with a flatter Metro look-and-feel to replace Windows 7's glassy Aero. The touch-centric Metro UI also gets improvements, including new touch gestures for supported trackpads.

Along with the RTM announcement, Microsoft released details of when developers and enterprises would get access to the final code.

MSDN and Technet subscribers will get access on 15 August.
IT professionals with Software Assurance will be able to download it from the Volume License Service Center from 16 August.
Consultants and resellers with access to the Microsoft Action Pack will get download access on 20 August.
Businesses without Software Asssurance will be able to purchase licenses from 1 September.
Consumer general availability for upgrade downloads and new PC sales is on 26 October.

Windows Server 2012 also released to manufacturing today, and will be available on a similar timescale to Windows 8, as did the Windows developer tools. Developers will get access to Windows 8 development tools on 15 August, with the release of the Visual Studio 2012 to MSDN.

Metro Windows applications will be able to be sold through the Windows Store, which is now open for paid applications, and developers can register for full accounts, though uploads will need the release build of Windows 8. More details for developers will come when Microsoft holds its BUILD developer conference shortly after general availability.

Microsoft also gave guidance for organisations considering Windows 8 rollouts. Businesses currently deploying Windows 7 are advised to continue with their existing deployment programmes, as Windows 8 will run alongside Windows 7. For companies with XP or Vista, Microsoft is advising that businesses begin to plan Windows 8 deployments, with XP extended support due to end in April 2014 and Vista following in 2017.

Windows 8 reaches RTM: When will you get it?

Along with the RTM announcement, Microsoft released details of when developers and enterprises would get access to the final code.

MSDN and Technet subscribers will get access on 15 August.
IT professionals with Software Assurance will be able to download it from the Volume License Service Center from 16 August.
Consultants and resellers with access to the Microsoft Action Pack will get download access on 20 August.
Businesses without Software Asssurance will be able to purchase licenses from 1 September.
Consumer general availability for upgrade downloads and new PC sales is on 26 October.

Office to finally fully support ODF, Open XML, and PDF formats

Earlier this week, Microsoft Office standards chief Jim Thatcher quietly announced that Microsoft would add ”two additional formats for use: Strict Open XML and Open Document Format (ODF) 1.2. … [and] support for opening PDF documents so they can be edited within Word and saved to any supported format.” It took Microsoft long enough.

As Andrew 'Andy' Updegrove, a founding partner of Gesmer Updegrove, a top technology law firm and standards expert points out, this “brings a degree of closure to a seven year long epic battle between some of the largest technology companies in the world. The same saga pitted open source advocates against proprietary vendors, and for the first time brought the importance of technical standards to the attention of millions of people around the world, and at the center of the action were Microsoft and IBM, the latter supported by Google and Oracle, among other allies.

office-doc-types — Seven years after proposing it, Microsoft is finally ready to fully support its own standard format, Strict Open XML, as well as ODF and PDF.

Updegrove continued, “More specifically, the battle had been joined between the supporters of the Open Document Format – ODF for short – developed by OASIS, and then adopted by ISO/IEC, and a format developed and promoted by Microsoft, called Open XML, which it contributed to ECMA for adoption before also being submitted to ISO/IEC. In due course, Open XML was adopted as well, but only after a global battle that, improbably, even inspired a public protest on the sidewalks outside a standards committee meeting.”

The battle was largely over Microsoft's desire to control “open” document standards. In the end, both ODF and Open XML were recognized as standards. Today, ODF is the default format in the main open-source office suites: LibreOffice and OpenOffice. Ironically, it's taken Microsoft more than six years to fully support its own 4,000 plus pages of the Open XML standard , never mind PDF and ODF.

As Updegrove wrote, “Famously, however, after expending such great effort to secure adoption of Open XML as a global standard, Microsoft itself did not fully implement that standard in its next release of Office, in 2007. Or its next. Or its next, although the ability to open and edit (but not save) documents in the ISO/IEC approved version of Open XML (which Microsoft called 'Strict Open XML') was added to Office 10. Instead, it implemented what it called 'Transitional Open XML,' which it said was more useful for working with legacy documents created using Office.”

Of course, “This was something of an embarrassment, because one reason that Microsoft had given for the necessity of ISO/IEC approving a second document standard was to facilitate working with the “billions and billions of documents” that had already been created in Office. Implementers of Open XML as actually approved by ISO/IEC therefore would not be able to achieve this goal.”

The ironic thing is that, while this was as hotly debated am issue in the mid-2000s as are mobile patents and cloud implementation is today, this news was barely noticed. That's a mistake.

Updegrove points out, “document interoperability and vendor neutrality matter more now than ever before as paper archives disappear and literally all of human knowledge is entrusted to electronic storage.” He concluded, “Only if documents can be easily exchanged and reliably accessed on an ongoing basis will competition in the present be preserved, and the availability of knowledge down through the ages be assured. Without robust, universally adopted document formats, both of those goals will be impossible to attain.”

Updegrove's right of course. Don't believe me? Go into your office's archives and try to bring up documents your wrote in the 90s in WordPerfect or papers your staff created in the 80s with WordStar. If you don't want to lose your institutional memory, open document standards support is more important than ever.

Microsoft throws hardware partners a bone, includes Office Home and Student 2013 with all Windows RT devices

You could forgive Microsoft's hardware partners for feeling more than a bit miffed at the software giant's plans to obstensibly compete against them with its new Surface tablets. They should be a little happier (though probably just a little) today knowing that Microsoft has announced that the RT edition of Office Home and Student 2013 (first previewed last month) will be included with all devices running Windows RT.

In theory, Microsoft could have gone for the jugular and made it more difficult for tablets other than Surface to make use of the new office suite, but that would have hurt its efforts to get users to try Windows RT devices, which will use ARM processors and therefore won't be able to run Windows programs based on the x86 platform. After all, built-in Office programs (Word, Excel, Power Point and OneNote) will be a key differentiator of Windows tablets from competitors, which have yet to get Office apps of their own. (Though Windows IT Pro claims that apps for the iPad, iPhone, and Android will eventually be released.)

With its Surface Touch Case accessory (which includes a physical keyboard), Microsoft hopes that Office 2013 will break through the perception that tablets are best for entertainment consumption and not for everyday productivity. Will having Office 2013 RT pre-installed on a Windows RT device make you more likely to buy one? Let us know in the Talkback section below.

Is there any way claims of a $199 Microsoft Surface RT makes sense?

In the past week, we've heard two different claims that Microsoft is planning to price the ARM-based version of its Surface tablet at $199. (Claim one, claim two)

Is there any way these rumors could possibly be true? Especially given the fact the Surface hardware is custom-made-to-order and likely to be available in small quantities out of the gate? (And, based on the limited time the press and analysts had with the devices, of seemingly super-high quality for which one would expect to pay a premium price?)

Microsoft is not commenting on the $199 rumor. I can't get a "no comment." Just no response at all from the Windows team.

Update: A Windows spokesperson said the company had "no comment on rumors or speculation."

Here's what we know: When Microsoft unveiled its Surface PC/tablet devices earlier this summer, it offered very bare-bones pricing guidance: "Suggested retail pricing will be announced closer to availability and is expected to be competitive with a comparable ARM tablet or Intel Ultrabook-class PC. OEMs will have cost and feature parity on Windows 8 and Windows RT," according to Microsoft's press release.

On the Surface RT side of the house, most of us Microsoft watchers have assumed the "comparable ARM tablet" meant the iPad 2, which starts at $399.

What if Microsoft meant a different ARM tablet, like the Kindle Fire or the Nexus 7? The Fire is $199, as is the Nexus 7. I guess that's one way Microsoft could claim pricing comparability. However, the Softies have been playing up the business-readiness of the Surface RT, in spite of its inability to run existing Windows apps other than Office. They have been clear they don't think the Surface RT is a consumer and/or consumption-only device.

What if Microsoft meant the suggested retail price would include optional add-ons, such as one or both of the keyboards (touch and type) that are tailor-made for the Surface? (Right now we have no idea how much these keyboards will be and how Microsoft will package them up with the Surfaces.) In other words, maybe the "base" Surface RT unit is $199 and a keyboard adds another $100 or so. We also still technically do not know whether the previews of the four Office apps "included with" the Surface RT devices will cost anything. Microsoft officials still have not said on the record that these will be free.

What if Microsoft is planning to charge extra for the services that Surface RT users might want and need, such as Xbox Live, Xbox Music and Video, extra SkyDrive cloud storage and maybe even Skype? This could be a case where the base unit costs $199 and these additional services raise the price by a hundred dollars or more, making it more "comparable" to an iPad. Or, again, maybe the base price of a Surface RT unit is $199 if you agree to a two-year subscription contract for these services -- similar to the way Microsoft is pricing its $99 Xbox 360/Kinect bundle with a two-year Xbox Live subscription included?

Lots of what ifs... few real details.

Microsoft did announce earlier this week that there will be a handful of OEMs making Windows RT-based ARM devices which could be available starting this fall. Among those OEMs: Asus, Dell, Lenovo and Samsung.

It's interesting there was no mention by Microsoft this week of Toshiba, which had announced it was planning to deliver an ARM-based Windows RT device. Bloomberg BusinessWeek saysToshiba axed its plans as a result of a parts shortage. Industry analyst Patrick Moorhead with Moor Insights & Strategy said he thinks it is more likely troublesome drivers may have been behind Toshiba's cancellation.

Enterprise tablets to reach 83M in Asia by 2016

Asia-Pacific and Japan can expect to see more workers utilizing tablet devices in their organizations, given the expanding wireless coverage in key markets and widespread availability of such devices. This will drive enterprise tablet sales in the region to reach 83 million units by 2016, according to Forrester Research.

Released Thursday, the research firm stated the number of tablets used for office work in Asia-Pacific and Japan will reach 19 million by end of 2012. This figure is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44 percent to bring it to more than 83 million sold by 2016, it forecasted.

This spike in sales will be driven by bring-your-own (BYO) tablets, which Forrester defines as those which employees buy on their own but use for both work and personal purposes. The enterprise IT team is only responsible for extending corporate data and applications to the device and supporting them, it added.

These BYO tablets will increase at a CAGR of 34 percent between 2012 and 2016 on the back of strong consumer demand, variety of device options, and affordable price points. For 2012 alone, these devices will account for more than 75 percent of all tablets supported by enterprises.

This percentage will fall as more companies invest on procuring tablets for their employees, but in absolute terms, employee-purchased tablets will grow to reach 47 million in 2016, it added. Business-owned tablets, are those that enterprises purchased, and will be provisioned with software and applications by its IT team. This category includes tablets that employees buy on their own but for which the organization partly or completely reimburses them, the report noted.

Expanding connectivity, device availability
Besides the impact of BYO trend, Katyayan Gupta, a Forrester analyst and co-author of the research paper, said widening cellular and wireless coverage in Asia will ensure more connectivity and spur adoption of tablets.

He noted that in addition to existing 2G and 3G networks, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and India have launched commercial 4G services.

Operators in these countries have also increased their W-Fi coverage, Gupta stated. For instance, India's O-Zone Networks will expand their hotspots to 20,000 location by end-2012, while China Telecom and China Mobile will deploy one million Wi-Fi hotspot locations in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

"Ubiquitous internal and external Wi-Fi will facilitate fast, bandwidth-heavy file transfer. This will further promote the use of tablets for communicating and collaborating with remote workers," the analyst said.

The fact that the region, particularly China and Taiwan, is the global hub of electronics manufacturing helps make tablets easily available to consumers here. International brands such as Apple, Samsung, and Lenovo, as well as local manufacturers such as Eben in China and Olive Telecom in India, has flooded the market with their devices, Gupta pointed out.

"Given the greater choice of tablet brands, features, and price points in Asia-Pacific and Japan, tablet uptake will be rapid--boosting the BYO tablet trend in the region," he said.

Amazon: 'Super-excited' about Kindle Fire roadmap

An Amazon executive didn't bite when asked about the Kindle Fire and how it needs a refresh, but did add that he was wound up about the roadmap for the device.

The company said in its second quarter earnings report that the Kindle Fire was still its best-selling item. However, The Kindle Fire is facing more competition from Google's Nexus 7-inch tablet.

Tom Szkutak, CFO of Amazon, was asked about the Kindle Fire, which an analyst noted "has been around for a while." Szkutak said:

We're very excited about both the hardware and the content side of the business. We think if you take a look at our devices, certainly it is very integrated, which is great for customers. We think it is an incredible experience. We've been very excited about the progress we've made so far from both the device and content standpoint and we are super-excited about the road map we have.

The big question revolves around when Amazon will reveal that Kindle Fire roadmap.

Topics: Tablets, Mobility, Tech Earnings

Workday 17: more significant enhancements

As both Oracle and SAP writhe around trying to find a cloud strategy that works for both customers and investors, Workday plows its own furrow, doing the one thing the others are not: ignoring everybody. Others talk about innovation at every opportunity. Workday just gets on with it. Sure, they listen to advice (disclosure: Workday is a recent product strategy client) and take constructive criticism (see below re: spend management) but when push comes to shove, they set their own agenda. It's a refreshing change from the me-too, slow follow through I see elsewhere. Here's how.

Workday 17 is just hitting the streets. There is no upgrade process - new functionality is just 'there' and customers can choose to use it now or wait to switch on. But not too long because past versions are not supported. Why? There is no past, only the present.

Gorgeous mobile UI/UX

What's to like? The mobile UI/UX is beautiful. Workday is the only enterprise vendor that has taken the notion of consumer grade experience and refined it for enterprise use. The work started in Workday 15-16 is only getting better with emphasis now on the iPad but with iPhone tweaks aplenty.

The homepage has been radically simpliified (see image above) with swipe gestures as the main navigation method. There is no artsy attempt at redefining iconography. For instance, if you've used Google then you know what the location icon looks like. Far simpler than static icons littering the palette. The inclusion of social features is specific to the task at hand and so remains wholly relevant to the user.

How does Workday achieve this? Before getting to work on the mobile interface, its mobile developers had never seen an enterprise application. Can you imagine how the job application interview goes? The average developer age? 25.

Beefed up financials

On to more substantial topics. While many sins can be masked with a great UX, that won't wash in enterprise land. Last year for example, Workday started pushing its financial application out into the wider world. Customer conversations suggested that while many liked what they saw, reporting was woefully inadequate. I reckoned it barely scratched the surface and was not taking advantage of the real time capabilities coming out of Workday's in-memory compute grid. The problem arose out of limitations inherent in the database architecture. I spent a good amount of time discussing the topic with Stan Swete, CTO. He quietly assured me that Workday could solve the problems 'within a year.'

During a preview arranged for me at Workday's HQ in Pleasanton earlier in the month, I was blown away. As the screens popped up with LOB results perfectly sequenced I had to look twice to make sure I really was seeing the progress made since last fall. OK, so it's not perfect and Workday needs to think carefully about its next steps in budgeting, forecasting and planning. But for both operational and statutory purposes, I'm guessing they're about 70% there. That will be good enough for many of Workday's customers who would otherwise be faced with integrating to a third party tool like Hyperion, BusinessObjects or Cognos.

As a side note, we discussed whether it is worth developing for IFRS. This is a tricky topic in the US because while the SEC and PCAOB talk regularly about this topic, my view is that it is unlikely that conformity to IFRS will become mandatory any time soon. It is however refreshing to hear a vendor talking about building for compliance (which carries no premium) when others try avoid the topic until it is absolutely necessary.

Spend management also gets a refresh that includes P-card integration - the first is Amex. This is really a response to last year's slap delivered by Robert Scoble who, at the time, compared Workday unfavorably to Expensify. The new version is not quite in Expensify's consumer grade experience territory but it is much slicker than it was.

Product enhancements

There are well over 100 updates in this release including 58 items that came directly from customer ideas.

The big product news is that Workday has introduced a "new time and attendance application designed to reduce labor costs, minimize organizational risks associated with work rules and labor laws, and increase worker productivity." Simple to use and fully integrated to all Workday functions it includes real time calculations that benefit pre-payroll management. It is sold as a separate module.

Workday has solidified its education/government vertical offerings. On government for instance, they now have:

Commitment accounting
Budgetary control
Effort certification
Multi-dimensional budget structures
New Worktags
- Fund
- Project
- Business unit
- Grant
- Object class
- Project plan task

More generally, basic dispute resolution within credit control has been inlcuded. By basic I mean that the user can customise cash collection processes to signify how cash is collected. Collaboration gets a boost with tweraks for specific needs. Examples include:

Ability to apply notes on supplier/customer invoice
Comment stream on projects
Idea management - manager focused
Organizational goals
Embedded intelligence - purchase order collaboration
Support for attachments - assets (e.g. - maintenance agreements related to fixed assets but there is no current integration to third party asset management solutions)

I could go on but you get the idea.

As always, Workday continues to push the boundaries of performance, reckoning that its income statement test bed of 20 million rows which took 40 minutes to run in Workday 12 now takes 3 seconds.

This is not simple book-keeping but evidence that Workday is rapidly evolving into a world class enterprise ready financials solution. This is supported by the fact that Workday is now seeing more financials only deals come its way. The numbers are small and it is fair to say that Workday does much better when the customer is already an HR/HCM customer or where there is a desire to replace both HR and accounting systems of record at the same time.

The wrap

Is it winning? The company estimates that it's win rate in qualified deals is running at about 30%. This is on par with what SAP estimates in its HANA related deals. The comparison is not coincidental. SAP is working furiously to get its Business Suite running on HANA. The company claims it will have many of the basics in place by the end of the year. We will see. However, given that HANA is also a stand alone appliance with software as a non-discountable line item, it is hard to see how SAP will be able to competitively price HANA-ised enteprise solutions.

Also, it is worth noting that until recently, HANA has been largely confined to captive SAP customers with the emphasis of running it to enhance Business Warehouse performance. Workday can side step that topic with what it has already achieved and enhancements going forward without requiring its customers to pony up more cash.

In the meantime, Oracle will continue to push Fusion apps and especially HR in the cloud. But this is because implementing Fusion on-premise is believed to be too difficult for even Oracle's best partners. Workday doesn't have these issues. Deloitte continues to ramp its Workday practice while IBM is not hanging about either, having added 250 heads to its Workday practice in less than a year.

Topics: Enterprise Software, Cloud

Acer CEO's 'think twice' Surface warning to Microsoft laughable

Acer CEO JT Wang said that Microsoft needs to think twice about launching its Surface tablet because it'll rattle the ecosystem and partners could become rivals.

In an interview in the Financial Times, Wang said:

We have said [to Microsoft] think it over. Think twice. It will create a huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction. It is not something you are good at so please think twice.

The comments made me chuckle on a few counts. To wit:

First, Microsoft wouldn't have cooked up the Surface if partners were pushing the design envelope. Let's face it, the PC industry's idea of design is to see what Apple cooks up and then copy it.
Second, Acer is largely stuck with Microsoft at least for laptops and PCs. In other words, Acer can whine, but has little leverage for anything else.
And third, Microsoft's Surface tablet isn't likely to be a threat to the PC ecosystem. Yes, Microsoft has acknowledged the risk of competing with OEMs, but it's a move the company has to make.

In addition, Wang needs Windows 8 to sell ultrabooks and help Acer grow again. Acer's first quarter earnings presentation highlighted how important Windows 8 will be. All Acer has to do is deliver compelling hardware designs---Surface or not.

Topics: Hardware, Laptops, Microsoft, Tablet

Acer CEO's 'think twice' Surface warning to Microsoft laughable

Acer CEO JT Wang said that Microsoft needs to think twice about launching its Surface tablet because it'll rattle the ecosystem and partners could become rivals.

In an interview in the Financial Times, Wang said:

We have said [to Microsoft] think it over. Think twice. It will create a huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction. It is not something you are good at so please think twice.

The comments made me chuckle on a few counts. To wit:

First, Microsoft wouldn't have cooked up the Surface if partners were pushing the design envelope. Let's face it, the PC industry's idea of design is to see what Apple cooks up and then copy it.
Second, Acer is largely stuck with Microsoft at least for laptops and PCs. In other words, Acer can whine, but has little leverage for anything else.
And third, Microsoft's Surface tablet isn't likely to be a threat to the PC ecosystem. Yes, Microsoft has acknowledged the risk of competing with OEMs, but it's a move the company has to make.

Topics: Hardware, Laptops, Microsoft, Tablet

Google Nexus 7 review

Pros

Excellent hardware design
Quad-core processor
Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS
Affordable price

Cons

No storage expansion
No mobile broadband
Front-facing camera only
No HDMI
No DLNA

Google makes the Android operating system, and it sells Android hardware. So why wouldn't Google attempt to produce the best hardware possible, with the most up-to-date features, and then sell it at a price that does both Google and Android a favour?

We can't think of a reason why not. Partnering with Asus in the production of the Nexus 7, Google has given every budget Android tablet maker a jolt — and perhaps also upset Amazon's Kindle Fire ambitions too. Even so, despite the Nexus 7's manifold plus points, Google hasn't got everything right.

Design
The Nexus 7 is a 7-inch tablet, and as such is something of a rarity. Tablets outside the budget sector have standardised on 10.1in. screens (Apple's iPad has a slightly smaller 9.7in. display, but still counts as a larger-format device).

nexus7-angle — The Asus-manufactured Nexus 7 is easier to manipulate than larger-format tablets, and weighs just 340g.

The 7-inch design has its merits. It is smaller, lighter and thus easier to carry and hold than 10.1in. tablets, and while its screen might not be as good for video watching, for example, it's fine for many tasks. And perhaps significantly for Google, it's a good size for e-book reading.

We note this because, with Google's Play e-book reader on-board and clients for Kindle and other reading platforms available, the Nexus 7 could rival similarly sized dedicated e-readers — most particularly those from Amazon. Google's battery life quotes even include a specific one for e-reading time, confirming that the search giant is well aware of this potential market.

As it happens, the Nexus 7's dimensions are similar to those of a standard paperback book, at 198.5mm wide by 120mm by 10.45mm thick. It weighs just 340g, which makes it very easy to pop into a pocket or backpack without thinking twice.

The 7in. LED-backlit IPS screen has a resolution of 1,280 by 800 pixels, or 216 pixels per inch (ppi). That doesn't approach the iPad Retina display's 264ppi, but images are still sharp and clear. Reading e-books is slightly harder on the eye than it is with e-ink displays, though.

More generally the screen suffers a little outdoors, coping poorly with bright direct sunlight, and is also a little too reflective for our tastes. These criticisms can be levelled at plenty of other tablets, though.

The Nexus 7's build quality is astonishing for a sub-£200 (inc. VAT) device, and it outclasses any other budget Android tablet on the market in this respect. The Gorilla Glass front and soft-touch, easy-to-grip, stippled back are joined together by a silver metal frame running around the edges of the chassis. These features, along with rounded corners, subtle Nexus and Asus branding on the back, and the absence of front buttons all combine to deliver a high-quality look and feel.

The buttons are all hidden on the edges, which curve slightly backwards in the same way as those on the iPad. This makes finding the power button and volume rocker on the right-hand side a little bit challenging at first, although they are quite tactile as they sit a little proud of their surroundings. There are two connectors on the bottom edge — Micro-USB and a headphone jack.

Features
There are two versions of the Nexus 7 available: one with 8GB of internal storage for £159.99 (inc. VAT; £132.50 ex. VAT) and one with 16GB for £199 (inc. VAT; £165.83 ex. VAT). Our 16GB review sample had just 13GB available, so we'd imagine there's rather less than 8GB free on the entry-level model. With that in mind it's frustrating that there's no microSD slot for storage expansion (and although USB On The Go is supported on the Nexus 7, you can't mount USB storage devices via the Micro-USB port unless you root the OS).

What you do get is an extremely smooth and fast user experience, thanks to the Nexus 7's quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM.

The Nexus 7 has hit the headlines in part thanks to being the first device we've seen to runAndroid 4.1 (Jelly Bean). This is an evolutionary development from Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) rather than a major step up, and Jelly Bean's many tweaks are aimed at making the Android experience smoother and sleeker rather than at adding any standout new features.

Still, there are some novel features — notably Google Now, which attempts to second-guess what you might be searching for. Results are displayed on-screen as cards. Early on you'll probably just get local weather reports, but as you use the Nexus 7 more and more it will deliver additional information relevant to your location and, maybe, even relevant to what you actually want to know at the time.

The Nexus 7 has Bluetooth and GPS capability, along with NFC. There's a front-facing 1.2-megapixel camera, but no rear camera. We can live with the lack of a rear camera, but it's a pity there's no HDMI port. Another notable absence is integrated mobile broadband: this is a Wi-Fi-only (802.11b/g/n) device. On the subject of Wi-Fi, there's no DLNA client, which seems odd — unless it's part of a Google strategy to get people to store more of their data in the cloud and stream it over Wi-Fi from remote rather than local locations.

For those who like to use Flash-enabled websites that are not yet compliant with Adobe Air and HTML5, the lack of support for Flash in Android 4.1 will irritate. On the plus side, Chrome — now the browser of choice for Android — delivered a smooth browsing experience.

Google doesn't add third-party applications to the Nexus 7 as other hardware manufacturers do, but that's hardly a problem as you can browse Google Play yourself and select the most useful apps.

Performance & battery life
We've already noted that the Nexus 7's combination of a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU, 1GB of RAM and Android 4.1 delivers a fast, smooth user experience. To quantify that somewhat, we ran theSunspider (0.9.1) JavaScript benchmark on the Nexus 7 and on Fujitsu's 10.1in. Stylistic M532, which also has a Tegra 3 and 1GB of RAM but runs the previous-generation Android 4.0. The Nexus 7 delivered a score of 1,714ms compared to the Stylistic M532's 2,169ms (smaller numbers are better), a 26.5 percent difference.

Battery life is good too. The Nexus 7 has a 4,325mAh battery that Google claims is good for 9 hours of video playback, 10 hours of web browsing, 10 hours of e-book reading and 300 hours on standby.

We managed a day of general use easily during testing, and suspect that many people will be able to use the device for a weekend without requiring a recharge. Thankfully the Nexus 7 charges via a Micro-USB connection rather than the proprietary port favoured by some tablet manufacturers — many users will routinely carry a Micro-USB cable for charging their smartphone.

Conclusion
Although it has some notable omissions, the Nexus 7's 7-inch form factor, quad-core processor and Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS are considerable draws. The hardware design and build quality are excellent thanks to the involvement of Asus. On top of all that is the game-changing price: any hardware manufacturer aiming at the sub-£200 end of the tablet market has got a big problem on its hands.

Topics: Tablets, Android, Mobility, Reviews

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