Gadgetory

hey this is Joshua regard from Android Authority what's going on everybody and you've seen me on the gorgeous 2560 by 1600 display of this the Google Nexus 10 designed by Samsung the next generation of the Nexus line has arrived and this is the big gun in the arsenal the Nexus 10 serving as the Big Brother to the Nexus 7 this 10 inch tablet hopes to reach those looking for the Android experience only bigger badder and for an affordable price starting at 399 what do you get with this new tablet for starters you realize that this is a serious piece of hardware if you've ever complained that smartphones keep getting bigger you should be prepared for the sheer size of this thing from side to side this tablet spans almost ten and a half inches while top to bottom is about seven luckily handling the tablet feels natural after a while it's obvious from the button layout that you are supposed to be holding the Nexus 10 in landscape mode pretty much all the time the power and volume buttons are found in the top left corner and while the volume buttons felt sturdy I feared that the slightly recessed power button might someday sink in and become unusable around the corner on the left side is the microUSB port and headphone jack while the opposite side holds the mini HDMI port the bottom of the device has some pogo pins and magnetic strips that hopefully will become useful when a dock is actually released for this device on the front is the front facing camera and a notification light which I thought was a nice touch coming to the back the camera is found at the top and is surrounded by a tacky material that almost felt sticky to the touch it helps to give a gripping feel but I actually found myself unhappy with the backs design it looks like the back of a laptop monitor from the early 2000s it just looks bland and quite frankly a little boring but all this blandness is supposed to make the screen pop and it certainly does that the 10.1 inch screen is a 300 dpi capable beast and displays an incredible resolution of 2560 by 1600 I can't stress enough how gorgeous things look on this screen I found myself watching Netflix and YouTube on this device more often than on my laptop just a few feet away the high resolution makes text and graphics render very well no matter what size text reviewing it will look crisp and sharp web browsing on a screen like this is an enjoyable breeze and unlike with smaller devices you don't have to even zoom in that far to read what's on a webpage that's the beauty of a larger screen games fared well - as the Mali graphics processor made 3d gaming a treat it's hard not to enjoy the experience of seeing everything in action on the screen like when you use the force to send those Angry Birds flying or you're zooming past all of the bright lights and asphalt some criticize the Android app ecosystem for not having many tablet optimized choices but even when scaled up apps look great behind the high resolution and Corning Gorilla Glass layer you may wish for a bit of polish in some of your abdic spear Ian PSA's but then again you might be having too much fun to care all this power comes from a dual-core 1.7 gigahertz a 15 processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM for all the multitasking you could want even if there is a lack of course compared to some of the competition you really don't notice it very much when in practice the high performance shows through the smooth and snappy load times on paper the Nexus 10 seems to perform just above average as this benchmark app rates it among the best mid tier devices still feel the performance for yourself and you'll feel the way I did that number is just a number the Nexus 10 comes in 16 or 32 gigabite varieties but has no expandable memory it seems a bit of a shame that there are no SD card slots as with a screen this good I felt like viewing high-res pictures from a DSLR would have been nice but this is just another example of how expandable memory is sacrificed to keep costs down the hardware I'm delighted to report on are the speakers bucking the trend of having the one speaker on the back samsung has put the Nexus 10's 2 speakers on the sides quite easily missed by the naked eye and seemingly pointed right at the user this makes for a sound experience unlike any other found on a tablet whereas the Nexus 7 has weak and thin sound Samsung should be applauded for thinking outside the box with the sound experience on the Nexus 10 dual speakers a killer screen and some processing power definitely make the Nexus 10 a power-hungry device so one would hope that the battery is able to keep up sadly this isn't truly the case as after a test involving Netflix and Bluetooth streamed audio the tablet clocked out at around the five hour mark I'm sure that was some frugal usage the tablet should easily hit the eight hours or more mark but it is likely that you'll be bringing the included charging cable with you for when the juice runs out the last piece of hardware is the camera samsung has a pedigree of cameras and camcorders so you'd hope that this tablet will bug another trend and come bundled with the capable optics unfortunately the Nexus 10 joins the long lineage of lackluster camera offerings on tablets which has 5 megapixels I've just felt like an opportunity was missed here when the galaxy s3 also a Samsung product comes with 8 megapixels and is a more than capable performer as far as software goes the updated camera provided in jelly bean 4.2 brings some nice new features the viewfinder has done away with traditional menus and is not controlled by a touch and swipe interface which fits very well photosphere is also included which allows for 360 degrees shots to capture Google Streetview like pictures hanging around to take these shots is a bit of a chore though and without a great camera it's hard to take advantage of all these features and besides imagine the remarks people will make much like when people try to take pictures with an iPad yeah just don't do it and finally with the Nexus device you can rest assured that you will be getting the latest and greatest that Android has to offer the Nexus 10 and for both come with the newest OS jelly bean 4.2 which bring with it some new features the keyboard now comes with gesture typing much like that found in alternative keyboards like swipe while it is nice to have it probably won't keep you from installing your favorite replacement anyway new notification drop-down menu is bring a new and easy way to toggle your settings your usual notices are found on the left while your most used settings will be populated on the right this is a welcome and handy new feature that translates well to tablet interfaces and of course there is Google now with all of its cards and automatically populated information it works just about the same as it did in the previous update but those who haven't used jellybean before will find Google now easy on the eyes and useful most notable is its integrated search which includes Google's much-loved voice search directions to in and out and so there you have it Google's newest official devices are out now and they bring a couple new choices to an already crowded smartphone and tablet market the only question now is which one you would pick personally I prefer the Nexus 7 size and portability but the Nexus 10 just makes viewing movies browsing web pages and even gaming even more fun the spectacular screen and good sound help in this regard even if the chroma camera and average battery life go against this otherwise great entry into the tablet market if you're looking to get your first big tablet this holiday season this is definitely a great place to start from my full written review go to Android authority calm your source for all things Android