Blogging From The Nexus7

Not long ago I read a post by a blogger who had made the effort to give up his laptop for the day. While attending a conference he left his laptop in his hotel room intent upon using only his Nexus 7 tablet throughout that day. I thought it an interesting experiment.

The tale of his day highlighted a few worthy accessories for the Nexus 7 tablet. He pointed to a premium stylus and a Bluetooth wireless keyboard as key to his productivity. I was impressed by his logic and the tale of his experience that day. So much so that I ordered those same items so that I might try them for myself.

At this very moment I’m typing on the Logitech Keyboard for Android , wirelessly connected to my Nexus 7. Just as he described the case for the keyboard doubles as a stand for the tablet. It’s handy. To use it properly really requires a table, but it’s working on my lap at the moment.

I’m writing in WordPress For Android, an app that I’ve used for a while. Prior to this that app was only really useful for keeping tabs on the site. It was never much of a tool for writing. Writing in it is a little odd as the cursor disappears when it goes beyond the end of the last row. But that’s a small quirk really.

As keyboards go this one is more comfortable than any netbook I’ve used. Yes, it’s better than the keyboard on my HP 5102, the $700 netbook that I’ve been carrying these past two+ years. That’s most likely due to the fact that it’s a full-sized keyboard, whereas the keyboard on the HP510x series, the best ever offered on a netbook, is only 94% of full size.

I still find that I prefer to write on a laptop or desktop. Even my aging netbook is a better option for content creation. So much so that I’m considering upgrading it’s 120 GB SSD to something larger. Ideally I’d move to a new Ultrabook, but that’s an out-of-pocket expenditure that I may not be prepared to make at the moment.

Of course, that could change. I’m really rather intrigued by the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. So pretty. Not shiny. Matte. Oooooh.

In the course of my working day I still find the netbook more convenient while traveling. I tend to use Evernote on my netbook to track my activities as I go about my working day. I’ve tried to use the tablet in this role, but the lack of a keyboard is simply too cumbersome.

For its part, the Nexus 7 is a better device for media consumption. Over the course of several recent trips I have used it to watch TED videos and Netflix movies. The Netflix experience with the tablet was very good, although I found that earphones were a requirement. The volume available from the tablet speaker was simply too low.

For listening to music or podcasts I still tend to rely upon my cell phone. The smaller form factor of the Galaxy Nexus makes it a better fit in the pocket. Although, one of the nice things about the Nexus 7 is that it actually does fit in the pocket…at least of some pants and jackets.

To date the one activity that the Nexus 7 has truly taken over is reading news. I use Reader HD to access my Google Reader feed, which is where I get most of my news these days.

I’ll close with an admission, I started writing this post on the Nexus 7 and using the BT keyboard. However, I set it aside for a few weeks to gather more experience with the pair. In that time I’ve found that I really do prefer the old netbook over the tablet and wireless keyboard. As I finish this up I’m using my old, company issued laptop. The Nexus 7 has become part of my daily routine, but the role it plays displaces things that I once did with my cell phone more than anything involving the laptop or netbook.