Looking for a tablet? You’re in the right place, because we’ll recommend you two of the most popular devices from the market: the second generation Nexus 7 and Sony’s Tablet Z, which has a larger display.
Displays, designs and sizes
The second generation Nexus 7 manufactured by Asus and Google is more polished, having a soft-touch back panel with a narrower bezel. So, it’s thinner than its predecessor: 8.7mm vs 10.5mm, lighter: 290grams vs 340grams, narrower: 114mm vs 120mm, but taller: 200mm vs 198.5mm, and it features the same 7inches LED-backlit LCD display. The resolution was increased from 800x1280pixels to 1200x1920pixels, and the pixel density is now 323ppi, compared to 216ppi on the previous model. The display is also covered with Corning Gorilla Glass. The image quality is stunning. You’ll notice immediately the rich colors, great brightness, sharpness, clarity and good contrast. Nexus 7 2 brought stereo speakers which sound very loud and clear.
Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z keeps in step with the company’s recent upsurge in high-end design. Like the latest batch of Xperia smartphones, also carrying the ‘Z’ moniker, the Xperia Tablet Z is stunning to look at and handle. It’s one of the thinnest slates on the market at only 6.9mm thick and Sony has opted for a premium-feeling polycarbonate build with a matte finish.
Regarding Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z, this large device weighting 495grams is in fact quite thin at 6.5inches – it’s one of the slimmest tablets from the market. It’s easy to operate on this device with an angular shape, a thin bezel around the display, plus you’ll like the silver back panel. This tablet is water and dust resistant, surviving under 1 meter of water for approximately 30 minutes, but in case you drop it by accident and you’ll want to operate on it immediately, we must warn you that when it’s wet, the capacitive screen doesn’t respond very well under this condition. The physical dimensions of this tablet are 266x172x6.9mm, the display is LED-backlit LCD, sized at 10.1inches and it supports a resolution of 1200x1920pixels with 224ppi. We forgot to mention the shatter proof glass covering the rear panel against fine scratches.
Hardware and OS
The Nexus 7 2 is powered by a quad core 1.5GHz Krait processor based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 chipset, and the Adreno 320 GPU offers great visuals. This combination is more efficient, considering that the previous model came with an Nvidia Tegra quad-core processor with a lower clock speed. The tablet is available in two variant of internal memories of 16 and 32GB, which can’t be expanded, and the performance is backed by the 2GB of RAM. The initial operating system installed on the Nexus 7 2 is Android v4.3 (Jelly Bean) and it was upgraded to v4.4.3 (KitKat), so you’ll be able to play most of the latest games.
The Xperia Tablet Z has the combination of processor + chipset + GPU, and you’ll get the same performance thanks to the 2GB of RAM. The good news is that the built in memory of 16/32GB supports expansion up to 64GB with a microSD card. The tablet comes loaded with Android OS 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) and in the meantime it received the 4.4.2 (KitKat) update.
Cameras
As a future tablet owner, you’ll be interested in taking photos, so you’ll want to buy the one with the highest resolution. In this case, the Xperia Tablet Z will suit your needs because it has an 8MP back camera with tons of useful features, but unfortunately, it lacks LED flash. Also, there’s another 2.2MP front camera for video calling.
Nexus 7 2’s back camera is weaker, of 5MP and has only autofocus, geo tagging, face detection and touch focus, while the front camera is 1.2MP.
Batteries
Both tablets have non removable batteries and their capacities are: 3950 mAh (Nexus 7 2) and 6000mAh (Xperia Tablet Z).
Connectivity
Both tablets support NFC, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, Bluetooth v4.0, microUSB v2.0 and GPS. The Nexus 7 2 has wireless charging capability, 4G LTE and HSPA+ 3G, while the Xperia Tablet Z has an infrared blaster.
Prices
Nexus 7 2 16GB: 200 dollars, 32GB: 248 dollars.
Xperia Tablet Z 16GB: 400 dollars, 32GB: 500 dollars.
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