[Nexus 7 General] tbong777:
I have been going around and around with these devices. I got the TAB 2 7 P3100 3G from the wife for Christmas after researching both. I could not make up my mind and Christmas was coming quickly so I asked her for the more expensive P3100 (LOL) and I already have a samsung device in the Note 2.

But was still very interested in the Nexus since I have been reading nothing but great things about it. Now this may not be a fair comparison because the TAB is a 3G device that is invisible to my carrier ATT. However I will put that aside and share my impressions after playing with the Nexus solely for the last day and a half.

When I initially put the TAB 2 next to my Note, my jaw dropped at the "washed out" colors on the TAB compared to the Note 2. This lit the Nexus fire and I had to get one now especially since I read and heard nothing but great things about the Nexus screen, When I saw a One day only sale at the Adorama Store on Ebay on New Years day for $229 shipped I jumped at it and ordered an accessories package on Ebay (which has yet to arrive). I immediately put the TAB on Ebay for a high "Buy It Now only price (in the "unlikely" event i would not like the Nexus 7) I am glad now no one bought it after playing with the Nexus over the past couple days.

Initially I loved the all black look of the Nexus with the screen off vs the framed TAB. (small meaningless detail) I also appreciated the slightly narrower form factor and feel of the back cover. The glass was perfect. No build issues here. Looked great although I am not the type who "wears" my phones and devices. I use them.

I immediately unlocked it, flashed a custom recovery and flashed ParanoidAndroid on it. Very nice. I played with it for a day or so. This afternoon I finally I put the TAB side by side with the Nexus and found the Nexus was faster but not all that much. Not enough to say "wow" Certainly not as much as I thought it would be.

What stopped me in my tracks and gave me major pause was when I put the same picture up on the Nexus I initially compared with my Note 2 and had all three side by side. The Note was still much better. No suprise there. But this time the TAB and Nexus were very much the same. The Nexus was not as I had expected. The colors were not nearly as saturated as the Note and in fact almost identical to the TAB on all screen brightness settings In fact I could not tell them apart from a color saturation standpoint. I could however appreciate the denser pixel count on the Nexus when zooming in especially. But Needless to say i expected a much much better screen color quality and much much closer to the Note 2 in color quality. The Note 2 screen is amazing I guess.

USB OTG worked great on both but I don't need it on the TAB with 70GB of usable storage. vs <30GB. I initially had issue with the 64GB card in the TAB which pushed me into the nexus as well early on. But that has been solved. That along with the 3G and phone abilities of the TAB leading me to decide the TAB was the better of the two to keep for my needs.

Initially I thought the choices of ROMs the Nexus development community offered would be a plus but I usually find one ROM and stick with it. I can always get the CM 10 and AKOP ROMS for the TAB along with the TW ROMs.

The front camera on the Nexus is not as good as the rear camera on the TAB although the difference was about as much as the front cameras between the TAB and Nexus. All of them are nothing special. (although I am old enough to remember when 3MB camera was a great addition to a phone!!)

The thing I did like about the Nexus is the USB port but I have loaded up with Samsung "proprietary" USB Cables

and OTG accessories.

All that said the TAN IS A 3g devices and a phone. IF The TAB were the US non 3G model the decision would be much harder. But I would likely lean in its direction because I am used to Samsungs recovery and download modes (although Fastboot took all of 30 seconds to figure out) I expected a whole lot more from the color density and the screen on the Nexus, At the end of the day the additional storage along with the camera possibilities won me over. I am not a gamer so the quad core would likely not be a factor although I did run Need for Speed on the TAb to test it initially and it ran fine.

This is not a knock on the Nexus. It is a great device and for the money the best on paper. but for me anyway the difference were not enough to give up the advantages of the extra storage and free phone and 3G capability, which I could have done anyway using the Note as a hot spot with the Nexus,