MicroSDHC/SDXC and GPS.

Part IV is here.

MicroSDHC/SDXC:

A MicroSDHC card alongside an adapter for use with SDHC.

A friend gave me this nicely designed MicroSDHC/SDXC card adapter as a gift. It integrates the OTG cable – see Part IV – with a MicroSDHC card slot. No cables. Nice. You can read more about this Kickstarter project by clicking the image below:

Click for the web site.

That adapter takes SDHC cards up to 32GB and SDXC of 64GB. 64GB! SanDisk makes 64GB MicroSDXC Class 10 (10 MB/s) cards for $50. Imagine that – 64 1GB full length movies in a card smaller than a fingernail. Amazing. The Cold War spies of the ’60s with their Minoxes and microdots would have killed for this. It’s so small that concealment is not the issue – finding it is. I’ll report back when I have had a chance to use it. I will use the SDHC adapter in my Panasonic G3 to see whether write speeds are materially worse than with a regular SDHC card.

The prospect of a versatile, top quality camera like the Panny G3, on the road with the Nexus 7 with unlimited storage and decent processing capabilities is intriguing. Further, the WordPress app does the trick for blogging from the road.

Boy, is Apple ever in trouble, or what? They are competing with the Gillette model – sell the holders at cost, sell the blades for profit. (Tablets and clicks, in GOOG’s case). Hard to see how AAPL can ever compete as they have no razor blades to sell and Google’s tablet matches or exceeds Apple’s on quality and performance. If GOOG really wants to kill the iPad, it should simply sell the tablets for a couple of quarters at 50% of cost – 20 million at $100 cost each means a loss of $2bn, compared with annual EBITDA of $17bn. Hardly a stretch if you brief Wall Street in advance on the goal – remove a key competitor, clean up, stock rises. Might as well short AAPL while you are at it. Then they can do the same to Samsung …. or simply cease licensing Android to Samsung.

The Android user may, in fact, be best served using Google hardware as he is assured of the latest OS first (and fast fixes of issues – see below) and has to suffer none of the UI adulteration indulged in by the likes of Samsung.

Then rinse and repeat with cell phones.

GPS fix:

The 2013 Nexus 7 has built in GPS but as shipped there is a software glitch which many owners have reported shuts down GPS after a few minutes of use. This is in contrast to reported experiences with the 2012 Nexus 7 where a like GPS chip works properly.

On August 23, 2013, Google released a software update (Settings->Apps->About tablet->System updates) which updates the Nexus 7 to Android 4.3 Build number JSS15Q, though no mention of a GPS fix appears in the related screens. I have installed this and can report that GPS works well. The update apparently also fixes touchscreen glitches, but I have not had any touchscreen issues.

Disclosure: Long GOOG, purveyors of evil.

Connectivity.

Part III is here.

Certain aspects of the connectivity of the Nexus 7 have already been addressed.

• Wi-fi is fast and connects quickly but struggles with re-locating a regular wi-fi signal once it has been tethered to the iPhone, dictating that the tablet be powered off completely then powered on, otherwise you get a network ‘not in range’ message. This looks like an Android glitch.
• Bluetooth headphones pair quickly and work well, at a very minor power consumption penalty.
• The $40 LG inductive charging puck is far preferable to the ghastly micro-USB2 connector, the trade-off being an approximately 20% increase in time to full charge. Both the inductive and cable chargers have the Nexus emit a three note chirp when first connected and a two note one when fully charged. Nice.
• I have yet to test Android’s equivalent of Apple’s AirPlay (wireless streaming of content to a TV/computer on the same wi-fi connection). This is done using an app named AirSync which needs a server program installed on the computer/TV end which resolutely refuses to mount on my Mac Pro which is the TV/movie server here.
• An app named DoubleTwist purports to emulate iTunes for Android systems. I have not tested it.

In what follows I address use with cameras and external storage, as well as with credit card readers.

One common complaint from tablet and smartphone owners is that few devices have MicroSDHC card slots to permit insertion of additional storage. The Nexus 7 has none. One app and a cheap cable fix that, though the result means having storage attached by cable to your tablet. I keep reading that more elegant solutions are on the horizon but as many of these seem to be funded through the fraud that is crowd funding, don’t hold your breath. (Fraud as in ‘raise money, catch the one way flight to the sun’. High time this nonsense was regulated like any IPO).

Nexus Media Importer:

To import or read files from/on external storage you must first install this $4 app available in the Play Store:

Once installed with a readable storage medium attached, files can be moved to or from the tablet and the external storage. No hacking of the Nexus 7 is required and that’s just as well as you do not want to risk the resulting instabilities which hacking can cause.

Nikon D2x and D3x:

These bodies provide a MiniUSB (not MicroUSB) socket to connect to external devices. Ordinarily, as I do not carry a CF card reader when travelling, I connect the bodies to my MacBook Air on which Nikon Transfer software is installed. RAW files are downloaded to the MBA for processing in Lightroom. Connecting the Nikons to the Nexus 7 using the On-The-Go (OTG) cable (below) does nothing when Nexus Media Importer is running, so direct download from camera to tablet does not work. However, a simple workaround is to use a portable CF USB2 card reader, insert the card in the reader and attach the reader/card combination to the Nexus 7 using the OTG cable.

Panasonic G3:

The Panasonic has a MicroHDMI connector, even smaller and more fragile than the poor MicroUSB2 one in the Nexus 7, and the G3 comes complete with the cable. What a confusion of connectors! The result is the same as for the Nikons – Nexus Media Importer does not see the camera when it is attached using the OTG cable.

Flash storage attached using a card reader:

SDHC card, card reader and OTG cable with the Nexus 7.
That’s as far as the MicroUSB plug goes into the tablet.

This works perfectly. Insert the card from your camera in the reader, connect the reader to the OTG cable and the OTG cable to the Nexus 7. Fire up Nexus Media Importer and the files – whether camera files, music or movie files – are immediately recognized and can be moved to the tablet at will. Even Excel spreadsheets work. As one full length compressed movie averages 0.8GB (using Handbrake and the ‘Android tablet’ output option), that translates into 40 movies fitting on a 32GB SDHC card. More than anyone can reasonably need.

For more storage, either replace content on the SDHC card or get more cards. Movies play perfectly from the attached SDHC card, so there’s really no need to transfer them to the Nexus’s internal storage. You can use your choice of player on the tablet – I use both the stock Gallery or the (free) MX player which has more aspect ratio etc. adjustability and reports time used and time remaining. If you do decide to move movies from the SDHC card to internal storage, I timed the transfer rate at 1gB in 10 minutes. Not stellar, but handy if needed.

Files on external flash storage highlighted for move to internal Nexus 7 storage.

Flash storage using a flash drive:

Same result as for an SDHC card, above. Works perfectly and makes for a tidier rig. You can just move your movies from your desktop/laptop to the flash drive and carry them in your pocket with the OTG cable for use when needed.

Notebook, bus powered, spinning disk drive:

While the power LED in my 160GB 2.5″ spinning disk drive illuminated, the drive is not recognized by Nexus Media Importer with the drive connected using the OTG cable. It looks like the drive must be powered to derive sufficient power to work. The same would go for a big external 3.5″ hard disk drive.

SSD:

I do not have a spare SSD to test this but it’s an interesting option. The SSD’s power consumption would have to be meaningfully lower than that of an HDD but at this time I do not know where the cut-off lies. AnandTech has an article from a while back suggesting that the power consumption advantage of SSDs over notebook HDDs is modest, so this may not work. They do say that write power needs are greater than read, but I have no way of concluding objectively.

Apps: I have not tried running apps from external flash storage as there’s no motivation to do so while internal storage space exists. However, I have read that this cannot be done but have not tried to test it.

OTG cable:

I bought this one from Amazon for all of $1.46 and it took 19 calendar days to arrive from the People’s (non-) Republic. At $1.46 shipped there is no basis for complaint. You can pay more for locally sourced versions which will ship faster.

Square credit card reader:

There’s an Android version of the Square app in the Play Store. Be sure to push the Square dongle all the way into the headphone socket, sign-in to the app and it works perfectly, allowing you to take credit card payments:

Square card reader in use with the Nexus 7.

Square app ready for transaction input.

Conclusion:

The Android operating system provides a broad range of connectivity to external devices. Connection of external flash storage and movement of files between flash and internal storage is both possible and very simple. In those cases where the Cloud is inaccessible and storage needs are large, Android provides a workable solution.

While common cameras appear not to be recognized, simply placing their CF or SDHC cards in a connected card reader is an easy solution.

Upodate August 22, 2013:

I mentioned earlier that the only way I could revert to home wi-fi after tethering the N7 to my iPhone 5’s hotspot was to power off the N7 and restart. A royal pain.

I have found that by unchecking ‘Wi-Fi & mobile network location’ in Settings->Personal->Location Access, that the problem goes away. To revert to home wi-fi, go into Settings, cycle Wi-Fi off then on, and home wi-fi is immediately recognized:

Uncheck the last box.

Part V is here.

Games, movies and file transfers, TRIM, security and back-ups.

Part II is here.

Gaming:

I am not qualified to write at any length about the gaming experience on the Nexus 7 as I never play computer games, but I delegated the task to my 11-year old son Winston, who snapped up the following games from the Google Play Store:

• Bounty Arms
• POP SnF
• Fruit Ninja
• Riptide GP2
• Wild blood
• Temple Run

Some, like Riptide GP2, take special advantage of the enhanced graphics in the Nexus 7 and I must admit that the responsiveness and speed – looking over my son’s shoulder – seem perfect. The detail renfering in Riptide is exceptional. Sound effects, thanks to the stereo microphones, are realistic, especially when the tablet is held in landscape mode which places the speakers behind each hand, where they reflect sound from the user’s palms to his ears. The 2013 Nexus 7 uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU, a step up from the 4-core Cortex A9 in the 2012 model and comes with 2GB DDR3 RAM, compared with 1GB in the predecessor. So it’s hardly any wonder that the performance on gaming is stellar.

Predominant reaction from my boy: “Awesome”. Go figure what that means.

Movies:

The experience is excellent. Both Winston and I watched movies on the Nexus 7 using the speakers or headphones. We tested both wired and Bluetooth headphones without any issues. Our Arctic Sound Bluetooth headphones do not go super loud but are loud enough. As a 16:9 widescreen image almost fits the 16:10 display of the Nexus 7 fully, the displayed image size is the much the same as on an iPad Mini which displays broad black bars on the top and bottom, representing a lot of unused pixels. The 1920 x 1200 definition of the Nexus 7 screen is breathtaking, with a widescreen movie using 1920 x 1080 of those pixels. It’s hard to see why you would want any more pixels on this size of display. Depending on brightness and volume settings, I estimate that a full battery charge is fine for two movies and possibly three. Using wired headphones (Sennheiser PX100 – highly recommended) battery life increases by maybe 30 minutes compared with Bluetooth headphones.

File transfers:

Download the free Android File Transfer utility to your Mac or PC, and you will be greeted with this message:

File transfer could not be simpler and is a world better than the simply ghastly iTunes experience which dictates that files to be moved to the iPad must first reside within iTunes on your desktop. iTunes has to be the single worst product Apple makes and successive efforts at simplifying it have only made it worse.

As space on the Nexus 7 (I have the 16GB model, there’s also a 32GB one) is limited, it makes sense to first compress movies using Handbrake before transferring them to the Nexus 7. Handbrake (free) has an Android Tablet output preset, which is what I used, with a typical 4GB movie file shrinking to 0.7GB, whereupon it can simply be dragged and dropped from your desktop to the Movies directory on your Nexus 7:

The Android File Transfer window on the Mac Pro.
Barebones and a delight to use.

Here’s a big (almost 3 hours long) movie being transferred – you can figure the transfer speed based on this illustration – it’s fast:

Movie file transfer to the Nexus 7.

I view movies using the Gallery app which comes with the Nexus 7 and the Android operating system even automatically generates cover art for any transferred movie. Here’s how the Gallery display looks on the Nexus 7:

Movies in the Gallery app on the Nexus 7.

Music is transferred just as easily and if it’s coming from your iTunes library and includes cover art, the art is also transferred. For those interested in syncing their entire iTunes library, apps like DoubleTwist are available, though I have not tested this. But it’s yet another demonstration that the Android user need not fear isolation from his iCloud ecosystem, which is readily accessible through Android apps.

Expanding storage capacity:

I have ordered an OTG USB 2.0 to Micro USB cable for all of $1.46, shipped. It’s on the slow boat from China, but once here it should permit access of data files (but not execution of apps) stored on any connected device. No jailbreaking of the Nexus 7 will be necessary. That’s significant as jailbreaking can introduce instabilities which are the last thing you want.

The connected device can be an SDHC or micro SDHC card in a suitable holder, a camera, a self-powered portable hard drive – or better still an SSD which uses far less power – and so on. Even a powered external drive should work fine, albeit presenting the inconvenience of a power cord. This sidesteps the common criticism that the Nexus 7, like many current tablets, has no micro SDHC card slot.

For users who want to carry around large movie and/or music collections without dependence on Cloud storage, this inexpensive connecting cable should do the trick. I would guess that a wired keyboard would also be recognized though Bluetooth is probably the way to go here. I’ll update this review once I have tested the cable with a variety of storage devices.

TRIM:

TRIM is the software technology which manages and removes garbage which can pile up on an SSD. The 2012 Nexus 7, with an earlier version of Android, did not include TRIM with the unfortunate result that the tablet slowed down after months of use, as the garbage piled up on the SSD. Android 4.3 JellyBean adds TRIM support and users of the 2012 Nexus 7 who have upgraded to 4.3 report that the slowness problem goes away, so I would expect no slowdown issues with the 2013 Nexus 7.

Security:

Some aver that Android is less secure than iOS, and the most common remedy for the Nexus 7 is to install avast! Free Mobile Security. Quite why this does not come installed stock I have no idea, as the app permits location of a lost or stolen device in much the same way that ‘Find my iPhone’ does with iOS devices, and also permits a remote wipe of a lost tablet. You can access a missing tablet over the Web so there is no need to own another Android device. Be sure to download both avast! Mobile security and the avast! Update Agent. The latter adds the ability to remotely control your tablet in the event of loss or theft. avast! really should consolidate these two apps.

Here I am accessing my Nexus 7 from a MacBook Air using this link in my browser:

Web access to the Nexus 7 from a laptop.

Here’s the range of commands available from my laptop as they are applicable to the Nexus 7:

What you can do to your Nexus 7 from a laptop.

This is what executing the ‘Lost’ command does:

Remote comntrol options from any browser – Mac/PC/Linux/Ubuntu, you name it.

After issuing a ‘Lost’ command, I received the GPS coordinates of my ‘lost’ tablet in seconds:

GPS coordinates of lost tablet are reported in seconds.

Now I have only to convince Officer Plod at the local doughnut store to arrest the thief.

avast! also includes web site scanning for viruses and scans your tablet for any viruses present.

All in all, the avast! user does not lack for control.

If you have multiple Android devices, be sure to register them under the same email at avast! Doing so permits all devices to be seen on one login screen, thus:

avast! with multiple Android devices. Yes, I liked the Nexus 7
so much that I bought one for myself and one for my son.

Proceeds of sale of the iPad Mini paid for the second Nexus 7!

Should the anticipated Q4/2013 iPhone 5 upgrade disappoint, as I suspect it will, it will be a simple matter to add the latest, more capable Samsung or Google cell phone to the list of devices protected by avast!, while retaining full access to the iCloud ecosystem.

Mobile backup:

While you are at it, install avast! Mobile backup:

This app is installed to your Android tablet and controlled from a PC, Mac or Android device. The app uses storage provided by Google on Google Drive in the Cloud; the first 15GB is free, with up to 16TB (!) available on a subscription basis.

Here’s the backup status on my Nexus 7 – you can automate back-ups and restrict them to wi-fi only to save on usage costs. I paid avast! $15 for a one year subscription which adds the ability to backup apps. Here’s what your $15 buys you – it seems like a no brainer to pay for this. The ability to do a restore onto a replacement or additional device (tablet, cell phone) is invaluable and greatly speeds transition to new devices:

avast! Free and Premium backups compared.

Here you can see that all the apps have been backed-up using the Premium service:

Part IV is here.

Photos and GPS.

Part I is here.

The still camera:

The camera in the Nexus 7 Google tablet is mediocre at best. As good – or as bad, if you prefer – as the one in the iPad Mini. If you care little for your work and are happy to confine its publication to small web images, fine. But if you want decent web art or paper prints, then forget it. Ther is no built in flash, which his probably just as well.

Still images are around 1.9MB and when emailing I cannot find any option to change size, unlike with iOS. The size is 2000 x 1500 pixels. If your subject has a broad dynamic range, you can forget the highlights, which will be burned out mostly past saving. What is needed is the HDR function provided by Apple for the excellent camera in the iPhone5.

The N7 has the same focus function as the iPhone5 – touch the area you want to focus on and the guide box moves.

Highlights burned out, excessive contrast.

If your subject has lower dynamic range, then you could squeeze out a decent 8″ x 10″ print:

Pastrami and sauerkraut on rye with a wheat beer at Alice’s Restaurant.

There’s also a well engineered panoramic mode (2000 x 394 pixels) where you hose the N7 around as shown by the arrow display on the screen, but the same excessive contrast and blown highlights, along with a healthy dose of lens flare, will prevail:

N7 panorama.

The results were so unimpressive, and cannot be saved by the N7’s neat processing controls (garbage in, garbage out) that I have not bothered to test the movie mode.

GPS:

Things look up considerably with GPS. I procured an Arkon windshield mount for $20 from Amazon and can recommend it. It holds the windshield well, and you are provided with four sets of gripping ‘feet’, two deep, two shallow. I found the tightest grip on the NZ was obtained by using the four shallow feet. These attach to the sprung plate which is opened to insert the tablet. The device is robust, well executed and cheap.

Click the image to go to Amazon.
Shown with two deep and two shallow feet fitted.

Here you can see the four shallow gripper feet with the tablet installed:

N7 installed in the Arkon car mount.

After tethering the N7 to the hotspot celluar signal from your iPhone (the N7 has GPS built in), you fire up Google Maps, tell it your start and destination, hit Start and you get excellent vocal turn-by-turn directions. I mentioned in Part I that the N7 goes to quite ridiculous levels of brightness. In a car on a sunny day with the sunroof open and sun falling on the display, you will appreciate that feature, even though you may glow at night after using it.

In the car.

I’ll debrief my son, for those of you with 11 year olds, and report on gaming performance in Part III.

Suffice it to say that the many strengths of this tablet outweigh its weaknesses, and the iPad Mini is going on sale right now. It simply cannot hold a candle to the Nexus 7 and its performance and screen quality leave a lot to be desired, especially at the ridiculous price asked. As I show in Part I, the Apple ecosystem is easily replicated in Android 4.3 on the Nexus 7.

Part III is here.