Gadgetory

last week Google announced a new Nexus 7 but how does it compare to the original one of the most popular Android tablets ever I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is the old Nexus 7 versus the new Nexus 7 last year Google and Asus wild the world with the tablet that not only came with decent specifications but also featured a nice design fit in one hand easily and was affordable while most other tablets in the same category were pushing $400 the Nexus 7 was only $1.99 an impact just as much of a punch if not a larger wallet but make no mistake the Nexus 7 wasn't perfect its display left much to be desired it originally only came in 8 or 16 gigabyte models and over time it suffered from an increasing amount of lag and performance issues the second generation Nexus 7 has easily been one of the most highly anticipated tablets of the year but how does it stack up is it worth the upgrade and does it live up to the hype that's what we're here to find out we had very few complaints about the hardware for the original Nexus 7 Asuna only makes high quality hardware and the Nexus 7 despite its price tag was no exception yes it was a little heavy on the bezel and it was a bit chunky but when you consider the fact that Google is selling the tablet around cost those minut details begin to slip into the background and you enjoy the tablet for what it is a high-caliber tablet that won't empty your wallet externally a lot has changed yet at the same time none of the changes are very drastic all of the differences between last year's Nexus 7 and this year's are fine tunings and improvements on the few shortcomings of the original tablets hardware from the front the two tablets are quite similar but a soos definitely paid attention to existing nexus of an owner's complaints it reduced the bezel on the sides of the display by nearly 6 millimetres total however the top and bottom bezels are marginally thicker than before the new Nexus 7 is also 1.8 millimeters thinner and 50 grams lighter than the old model both of which are quite noticeable the newer Nexus 7 is easier to hold one-handed and actually fits in our jean pockets with a little wiggle room whereas the old Nexus 7 didn't really fit at all they feature the same button and port placement with the exception of the headphone jack which has jumped from the bottom edge to the the biggest difference though is the backside the overall shape is the same they have wide radius curved backs to give the illusion of being thinner and the trim around the front is chamfered but the material is different the dimpled soft touch plastic on the original felt like a perforated leather glove there are no real issues with the retail black model but the Google IO Edition tablets which came in a pearl white were subject to absorbing diet from various cases as you can see our model turned pink from being used in a red case for a matter of days without reducing the quality of the backside as soos moved away from the dimpled pattern it's not a terrible move but we certainly miss how unique the material was and the feeling it put off no less we're still impressed with the back side of the new model as it doesn't seem to be a fingerprint magnet unlike most other soft touch plastics you may also notice one other major difference on these tablets back sides the new model has a camera sensor in the upper left corner but the old model has none internally these two tablets are quite different the old model came with only one gigabyte of RAM a 1.2 gigahertz quad-core Tegra 3 chip 8 16 or 32 gigabytes of fixed storage a 4325 milliamp hour battery and a 1.2 megapixel front camera the new model offers two gigabytes of RAM a 1.5 gigahertz quad-core Snapdragon s4 pro chip 16 or 32 gigabytes of fixed storage a 3950 milliamp hour battery a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 1.2 megapixel front camera both offer NFC Wi-Fi b/g/n and cellular connectivity both of our units are Wi-Fi only models but the old Nexus 7 came in an HSPA+ and 3g model while the new one comes in an LTE variant compatible with AT&T t-mobile and Verizon LTE networks under a single SKU as you can imagine the biggest contrast between these two slabs is the displays at 1280 by 800 pixels on an IPS LCD panel the 216 PPI display on the original Nexus 7 left much to be desired in terms of quality and density the new Nexus 7 offers over double the resolution on the same sized LCD panel for a total density of 323 pixels per inch the new display isn't as colorful as we were hoping but it's definitely more vibrant than last year's model the new panel is brighter noticeably more crisp offers wider viewing angles improved contrast to black levels and simply looks better from top to bottom the new Nexus 7's hardware is much better the display was definitely the biggest disadvantage before and we probably would have been happy at the soos and Google only swapped out the old display and chipset with newer components but they updated and improved the hardware all around where there is virtually no discrepancy between these two tablets is software the original may have shipped with Android 4.1 but both tablets are now officially running the latest strain of jellybean version 4.3 they both feature the same hybrid homescreen interface it looks like the normal home screen on an Android phone and portrait when you rotate to landscape the app door and shortcut dock cling to the right edge they both have lock screen widgets daydream mode multi-user support with restricted profiles Bluetooth smart ready and all the other jellybean improvements the only differences between the software on these two sibling tablets are the number of wallpapers included out of the box no big deal and performance and that brings us right into our test notes day to day performance is quite noticeably different the new Nexus 7 although powered by Qualcomm's Oder Snapdragon s4 pro chipset is extra snappy and everything it does it's a split second faster than the original Nexus 7 while you may be thinking that split second difference isn't all that noticeable or important and for what it's worth it may not be to you the original Nexus 7 no longer feels snappy nor does it provide smooth polished performance it stutters all over the place and is played by sudden hesitations and hiccups the new model has yet to give us any real trouble since freezing and rebooting during the initial setup process even in synthetic benchmarks the two tablets are scored appropriately in the antutu test the new Nexus 7 consistently scored just shy of 20,000 while the old model struggled to surpass 12,000 it's the same story with other benchmarks and in the SunSpider JavaScript test the original Nexus 7 didn't have a terrible speaker in fact at the time meaning before the HTC One and boomsound it was decent it wasn't easy to cover up and it had a little bass to it the new Nexus 7 features dual speakers grills on both the bottom and top it offers very little bass so the sound is extra tinny but it's noticeably louder and just as difficult to completely cover up it's quite simple to compare the cameras on two tablets the original doesn't have a rear camera and the new one does that said the new Nexus 7's camera isn't going to blow anyone away it's a lowly 5 megapixel camera that will work well for document scanning and other odds and ends other than that the images will light proper color reproduction contrast and detail on paper the original Nexus 7 offers the larger battery a 4325 million power battery to the 3950 million power battery with the new Nexus no less stamina seems to be comparable with what we remember from our time using the Nexus 7 extensively the new Nexus 7 stamina especially in standby is impressive at the time of this recording our Nexus 7 has 46 percent battery left after two days and six and a half hours with nearly 2 hours of screen on time that includes downloading nearly 2 dozen applications emailing watching videos connecting and streaming through chromecast browsing the web and posting to Twitter and Google+ for a more extensive look at the battery life at the new Nexus 7 keep your eyes peeled for our full review towards the end of the week with all the upgrades of suzhen Google made to this year's Nexus 7 they managed to keep the price very close to the original only $30 more for $199 the original Nexus 7 was a steal and for 229 dollars the new Nexus 7 is an even better bargain if you currently own a Nexus 7 and have no complaints stick with it if you're having some issues try selling your old Nexus and upgrading and if you're in the market for a budget tablet the new Nexus 7 is definitely the best deal around even if you see remaining stock of the old models for slash prices we recommend shelling out the additional cash to get the latest model if possible both are great tablets but plain and simple the newer model is a better tablet in almost every way that's going to do it for this video if you enjoyed it be sure to click the thumbs up button below and subscribe to see more videos like this one in the future and to stay up to date on the new Nexus 7 videos that will happen over the next week I'm Taylor Martin you can find me on twitter at casper tech and i'll see you next time