Gadgetory

maybe you just got one for your birthday or you're looking to give one away as a gift this holiday season either way you just got your Nexus 7 and you are loving it but there might be some things about your new tablet that you don't know about yet that's where we come in I'm Josh Rimer car for Android authority what's going on everybody and this is my top 7 tips and tricks for the Nexus 7 the Nexus 7 is gearing up to be one of the most popular devices this holiday season it comes in 8 16 or 32 gigabyte varieties has very sleek looks and packs loads of functionality underneath but you don't have to stop there here are some ways of enhancing your experience on the Nexus 7 so let's jump in with our first tip make your Nexus 7 stay still the Nexus 7 is a perfect size for just about any type of viewing given its location this should be one of the more obvious features of your new tablet the screen rotate lock found easily in the notification drop-down this little button locks the current orientation of your Nexus 7 until otherwise hid this comes in handy if you want the larger landscape view for viewing images websites or even movies or of course you just want your display to stay put which brings me to my second tip capturing your screen one of the more obscure features of the Nexus 7 is its ability to capture whatever's on screen just hold down the power and volume down buttons and eventually a flash will appear on your screen in the notification drop down you will see a message stating that your screen shot has been saved this is one of my favorite tricks on the Nexus 7 because it is a great way to quickly save information you might not be able to save easily otherwise here's an example viewing the spreadsheet on the browser is nice but I'd like an actual copy it isn't easy or fast to find the way to save it so I'll just take a screenshot instead after that I can view the resulting image and use that instead easy stuff next trick will allow you to get pretty creative when you take back your camera the 1.2 megapixel camera built into the front of the Nexus 7 is a welcome feature for video calls and Google Hangouts but why not be able to use it all the time an app in the Play Store can easily fix that the camera launcher adds a shortcut much like any other one found on an Android device just hit the launcher and you can use your camera to take silly pictures of yourself and your friends somehow I don't think this picture is going to make it into Instagram anytime soon now this one's a really important one pumping up your volume let's face it speakers on devices like these aren't usually very great they might provide enough punch for people in a quiet room but an extra boost is always welcome luckily there are enhancement apps in the Play Store that allow for a ramped up and volume one of them aptly named it's volume plus a built-in speaker booster will give you that oomph you might need in a pinch or you can be like me and circumvent the built-in speaker altogether by buying an external one this one by Logitech the logitech wireless boombox is a great addition to your tablet will hold in order to sync our Bluetooth device is our power switch now here's a great way of enhancing your experience on the Nexus 7 investing in a good keyboard typing on the Nexus 7 can sometimes be a challenge as it is bigger than a phone but smaller than 10-inch tablets like the Galaxy Tab or the iPad putting the device down and doing two finger typing like this might work but it doesn't quite feel as natural as typing on a real keyboard for the most part you might end up typing like this using your thumbs and treating the Nexus 7 like a phone given its size this is actually much more comfortable for an even better typing experience you can just replace the keyboard all together this is one good example and it's called swipe it's one of the most popular and keyboards today you just use your finger to swipe around the letters that you want to get the word that you need swipe can be found at beta swipe calm this one's my favorite it's called key monk basically it takes the ideas of thumb typing and swipe and combines them together you can use both your thumbs to swipe around the letters that you want in order to get the words that you need quickly and easily it actually makes typing not only faster but actually a lot more fun Kamin can be found in the Play Store for free and five dollar versions here's one thing people should know about the Nexus 7 and pretty much any Android device let's expand the Nexus 7 horizons does the lack of space got you down you can't squeeze out that last bit of your Nexus 7 8 or 16 gigabytes for that one movie episode or song that you really want to enjoy there's actually a solution for that there are small adapters that look like this and are called OTG or on-the-go cables and they allow for the connection of USB devices to your tablet just connect the appropriate ends and then connect your USB storage device to your Nexus 7 through the adapter this works best with flash drives you can then get an app like the nexus media importer to stream your media straight from the drive or even save it onto your tablet if you have the space now you have all the expandable memory you can possibly want the nexus media importer is a great tool for non-rooted devices however if your device happens to be rooted you can definitely find apps inside of the Play Store that allow you to not only read what's on your thumb drives but you can even write to them as well and now for the final tip optimizing your Nexus 7's lifespan all these tips and tricks may enhance your experience with the Nexus 7 but they can only work if your tablet is running long enough to use them you can extend the battery life of your Nexus 7 by turning off all of the power-hungry features for example the Wi-Fi you can also turn off the 3G if you happen to have that version and it will greatly improve your battery life GPS is another big battery sucker shut it off until you get lost next time on top of that you can turn off the Bluetooth bring down the brightness of your display or change how long it takes for your tablet to go to sleep doing all of this will allow you to enjoy your Nexus 7 much more for much longer alright so that does it for my top 7 tips and tricks for the Nexus 7 it's hard to deny the fact that the Nexus 7 is not only a sleek looking device but has a lot of functionality under the hood however the beauty of devices such as this is that you can always expand it to add functionality and to make things even more fun to learn more about how to expand your neck seven or any other Android device head on over to Android authority your source for all things Android