Lack of Features Could Hamper Nexus 7’s Market Entry, Analysts and Users Say - martinthessalky

At $199, Google's Nexus 7 whitethorn seem like a tempting tablet, but some prospective buyers and analysts enjoin that it lacks computer hardware features and is a feeble attempt to energize the Mechanical man Bone in a market henpecked by Apple.

Google on Wednesday announced the Nexus 7, which is now available at the Google Play online store for $199 for a model with 8GB of storage and $249 for a 16GB model. The tablet, successful in collaboration with Asus, has a 7-inch screen and Google's latest Humanoid 4.1 operating system encode-named Jelly Bean.

Nexus 7 joins a crowded tablet market that includes the dominant iPad and a appeal of devices based on the Mechanical man OS from Samsung, Lenovo, Asus, Acer and Toshiba. Analysts have said that Google is following Orchard apple tree's result and introducing the Link 7 thus Android OS can grow in tablets by delivery hardware, software and services finisher. Google offers apps, music, books, and movies through the Google Play shop, but analysts say that Nexus 7 is more a competitive threat to Amazon.com's $199 Inflame Fire tablet, which is supported along Mechanical man and tight bundles services, entertainment and befog offerings.

Calling Google's announcement "out of case," Richard Shim, senior analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, aforesaid Link 7 makes the search giant a competitor in the hardware space, which will carry on as products roster out from Motorola Mobility, which Google acquired for $12.5 1000000000 [B].

Google's user base is non nearly as strong as Apple or Amazon, so it leave take time to build a strong customer inferior, said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research, in a research note conveyed via email.

"Google's real lozenge problem is the lack of compelling tablet-optimized apps and Google has yet to address how to prompt developers to fill the gap. Nor has Google addressed the continuing and growing fragmentation trouble where hardly a devices are updated to the flow OS, because carriers and twist makers don't push out the new versions or users don't take them," Gillett wrote.

The Link 7 displays images at a 1280-pixel by 800-picture element resolution, and the device is 10.16 millimeters thick and weighs 317 grams. Other features let in a front-facing photographic camera and connectivity options such equally WI-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC (stingy-field communication). The gimmick offers battery life of capable nine hours on video playback and 300 hours of secondary time.

The Link 7 design lacks storage and 3G/4G mobile broadband support, which makes it to a lesser extent useful, said Geoff Kratz, who runs applied science consulting company FarWest Software in Calgary, Canada.

But he has placed an order for a Nexus 7 and plans to expend it as a test platform. He already owns a 7-inch Samsung Extragalactic nebula Tab.

"The [Nexus 7] features, other than CPU and graphics processing, aren't radically different from what you can have from Samsung, Sony or Apple. There's nothing here that forces the main players to play 'catch up'," Kratz said away email.

Kratz thinks this could beryllium a one-off device from Google, which doesn't hold a homogeneous history of maintaining hardware devices. Atomic number 2 also wondered wherefore Google had to partner with Asus to make the tablet, instead of making a product direct Motorola Mobility unit, which sells tablets so much every bit the Xoom.

"Google has this habit of releasing a device, and once it sells extinct, never selling another unmatched," Kratz aforesaid. "This indefinite looks a minute like a one-disconnected for them."

Looks Good

Google Link is an intriguing move aside Google into the tablet world, and it could bring down a level of credibility to the Android tablet ecosystem later initial failures, said Vishal Sood, a technology enthusiast in Washington state. And while the Price is good, he's not sooner or later been persuaded to buy the tablet.

"Arsenic an proprietor of iPad, I am not totally convinced to move to or buy an additional tablet," Sood said.

Sood uses the iPad to watch telecasting, read blogs on Flipboard and likewise while moving. He has everything happening the iPad, and feels the 7-inch form factor is too gnomish for an lotion ilk Flipboard to be effective.

"Not sure how Android makes this whatsoever better," Sood same.

Beyond the miss of Aries, the device as wel lacks an little South Dakota card slot, which limits storage, said Mark Damon Charles Evans Hughes, a developer in Seattle. He own iPads and iPhones and too a Hewlett-Packard TouchPad.

The Nexus 7 besides does little to speak the many concerns facing Humanoid developers, including a lack of applications, content and ability to earn money from apps.

"On that point's nary money in the Google market, and ads bring in pennies per dollar invested. So there's zero incentive for me to puzzle it and waste invaluable time developing for it," Hughes said.

Spell users who were interviewed agreed that Nexus 7 will not unseat Apple's iPad, they also noted that its hardware is better than Amazon.com's $199 Kindle Fire tablet. But Virago.com's main stage business is content and that is where IT has an advantage o'er Google.

"Amazon doesn't stimulate any particular need to catch up to the Nexus, because whol of their high-respect content testament work at the Nexus, and Amazon's business isn't ironware, IT's content. Amazon fundament betray the Fire at a loss and a Link sale helps Amazon as much as a Kindle Fire purchase," FarWest's Kratz said.

But considering the cost is just $199, the Nexus 7 is bewitching to some.

Ned Perkins, a bookman in Australia, is considering buying Link 7 in a couple of weeks, but the twist won't replace his iPad 2, which has iOS 6 beta.

The micro SD slot being nonexistent is disappointing, simply he's happy with the features in the tablet at the price, and likes the portability of a 7-column inch pad.

"I'm considering buying the 16GB simulate off the Play store in few weeks as Jelly Bean appears quite smooth and I opt to keep abreast with newer technology," Perkins said by email.

Agam Shah of Iran covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Help. Follow Agam on Chirrup at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com