Introduced in 2012, the original Nexus 7 was a huge success, but the device was not without its flaws.
Google came out with the 2013 edition of the Nexus 7 to address these issues and also provide several new features to the device. It is a full-fledged tablet, unlike the Galaxy Note 3, which borders on the edge of being called a tablet, but has all the conventional features of a mobile phone.
Display
The Galaxy Note 3 looks like a smartphone in every sense, but only larger. The 5.7 inch display means that this phone belongs to the phablet segment, which has been growing at an incredible pace. Despite the substantial increase in screen size, Samsung offers the same full HD resolution, seen in other Galaxy smartphones. As a result, the pixel density slightly lower at 386 PPI, but this is unlikely to be a major issue, since it is still better than that of the iPhone 5S. The Nexus 7 offers a 7 inch display that makes this device sit in the middle of being called phablet or as a tablet itself.
The Nexus 7 feels like a miniature tablet rather than a grown-up phablet, because of its screen size. The phone is able to make do with 1200 x 1920 pixels of resolution and provide a pixel density closer to that of the iPhone 5S. This is one of the best screens to look at in this segment, because of its IPS panel. Samsung offers the Super AMOLED technology, which, some may feel superior, in terms of contrast ratio, on the Galaxy Note 3.
Memory
Memory is the area, where the Nexus 7 loses out quite badly, because of its offering, 16 and 32 GB internal memory variants only. Compared to the lack of options, the Galaxy Note 3 offers 16 GB variant as a base and offers up to 64 GB. This is in addition to the 64 GB that can be added through memory cards. Hence, it is possible to take the memory of this device to around 128 GB. It would be more than sufficient, to take advantage of the large screen on offer.
Performance
Samsung has always been one of the leaders of providing top-notch performance on its high end smartphones. The Galaxy Note 3 comes with the finest possible specifications and that includes a snapdragon 800 processor that is clocked at 2.3 GHz. This is a quad core processor. Even though the Nexus 7 comes with a processor rated at 1.5 GHz, this quad core unit from the Snapdragon S4Pro range is more than good enough to run the Android OS, in a similar fashion. Unlike the Galaxy Note 3, the Nexus 7 comes with the ‘vanilla’ Android experience that not only improves speed, but also requires less processing power. The Galaxy Note 3 uses the TouchWiz user interface found in several other Samsung phones.
The Nexus 7 retails at $240 for the 16 GB variant while the Galaxy Note 3 retails significantly higher at $570.
