[Nexus 10 General] filker0:
Liking the N10, not liking the multi-user implementation in JB

I got my N10 (32GB) shortly before Christmas directly from Google. I have not noticed light bleed, but have experienced the Chrome related lock-ups and reboot. Contrary to what some others have posted, this device has a USB port: I've used it to watch movies off of microSD cards through an external reader with the appropriate cables (available cheaply through Amazon, for example). Because of changes between 4.1 and 4.2, however, apps that are not aware of the USB software changes in Jellybean will not be able to access external USB storage. My Samsung Galaxy S3 works much better with external USB devices (so far). We've not unlocked or rooted the N10.

Overall, for the primary user, the experience has been excellent. My biggest complaint about my unit is the battery; not how long it lasts, but how long it takes to charge via the USB charger that comes with it. It takes about 10 hours to go from 25% to 100%, and if we're using it while it's connected to the charger (that is, if the screen is on), it tends to either lose ground (some games) or charge even more slowly (web browsing).

So I would recommend this tablet to people looking for a good Android tablet experience.

I do have a major gripe, however, which will affect a subset of people who buy this tablet, and it has nothing to do with the hardware.

My wife was at home when the N10 arrived, and set it up under her account, loading it with the software she uses on her phone and purchasing the apps from Play that she's using on her Nook Tablet: since it's a multi-user tablet, this shouldn't be a problem, or so we both thought.

Turns out that it is a problem.

The "multi user" aspect is quite disappointing; the non-primary user account is a glorified guest account, not a full-fledged user with limited device administration privileges.

Other than the preloaded apps, there is no sharing of apps between different users.

There is no built-in way to even share files between users.

If two users install the same app from the Play store, it appears to use a single installed copy, but each user has to have purchased the app so that the Google Play Services software knows the license is valid. I'm not 100% sure this is what's happening, but that's how it behaves.

If the primary user installs an app from Play and the secondary user attempts to install the same app from Amazon, the second installation fails with no explanation given.

There are a lot of things the secondary user is not able to access, such as USB attached storage, Google Talk, and so on. I've never had NFC work to transfer anything using my profile. These appear to be only available to the primary user..

Thecloud "Backup" for installed apps and app data is only done for the primary user. Nothing is saved for secondary users. My wife reset the tablet a few days ago, and I lost everything I had on the tablet, but all her stuff (at least the stuff from Google Play) was restored.

The first of the above makes the "set up user profiles for your kids so that they don't get into your files" story, which is a good one, unworkable. We're not signing a 7 year old up for a separate Google Play account. Just not going to happen.

So, with my wife the primary user, I'm locked out of many of the things that made me choose this tablet in the first place. I bought this tablet to use in place of a laptop; my wife has one, I don't, and the 7" tablets don't have enough screen space to fit readable text on (I have a cataract that causes double-images at high contrast edges), so a 10" seemed to be my best bet. I don't think I can maintain marital harmony if I reset the tablet and make myself the primary user without her proposing it first. As it is, I use it about 10% of the time, she uses it about 50% of the time, and it spends the remaining 40% of the time on the charger.

Though I'm impressed with the hardware on the N10, I'm not a happy owner. The multi-user aspect of JB is poorly implemented. I make my living doing embedded system development. I've written OS kernels, BSPs, CSP, ASPs, boot software, and user interfaces over the 32 years since I graduated from college. I understand how difficult it is to get it 100% right the first time. I'm hoping that the OS will be improved going forward.

If future updates don't fix this, I'll probably end up ceding the N10 to my wife (who also has a laptop and a Nook) and wait a year until I can sequester a chunk of next years performance bonus to get myself something that I can use without bumping into the limitations of a secondary user on the N10 under JB.