Nexus 10 32GB, 10in - Black

Since the release of the iPad in 2010, tablets have continued to rise in popularity. Despite the sheer number of android, iOS and other tablets available today, many still regard the iPad (now on it's fourth iteration) as the King of the Hill. That being said, the Google Nexus 10, manufactured by Samsung, is definitely one of the top contendors for the title of "best," tablet in today's market. Though it's getting old, (it was released in November 2012) and a new Nexus 10 is expected to be on the horizon, the Nexus 10 is a solid tablet and a great choice for anyone looking to break into the Android ecosystem.


BUILD QUALITY


As mentioned earlier, the iPad has become sort of a standard for tablet makers with their unibody metallic design. The Nexus 10 is nothing like that however. The nexus 10 is 10.4 x 6.9 inches, making it a very long device. While this is great for watching HD movies (there's little to no letterboxing) it makes portrait mode seem a little silly. In fact, having owned the tablet for almost a year, I can say that the only time I've ever really used portrait mode is when browsing the web. Other than that, the landscape mode feels more natural and really plays to the strengths of the Nexus 10. The Nexus 10 only weighs 1.33 pounds, which isn't the lightest 10 inch tablet on the market, but it is lighter than the most recent iPad and it definitely doesn't feel burdensome to hold for long periods of time.


The device features three ports on it's edges, a micro-USB port for charging, a headphone jack and a micro-HDMI port. Along the top edge of the Nexus 10 is the on/off or sleep/awake button as well as the volume rocker. Neither feel bulky but both are easy enough to depress. My only complaint is that they don't really feel too distinguishable from each other and I have accidentally hit the volume button instead of the power button or vice versa (which can be a nuiscance). Along the two sides of the device are also two front-facing speakers (probably one of the best parts of the tablet).


The sides and back of the device feature a soft rubber trim that feels good to hold and doesn't feel cheap, despite being plastic and rubber. Along the top is a very soft, textured rubber that surrounds the camera. It's only a small portion of the back cover, but it gives it a nice grip while it's sitting on a table or something else. In other words, it doesn't slide around, which is nice. It's saved me a couple times from accidentally knocking my tablet off the table! That being said, plastic is awful for showing nasty fingerprints on it. Sure you can wipe it away, but it's annoying and hard to ignore.


This nice design comes with a few drawbacks however, and one of them is the lack of expandable storage, or easy access to replace the battery.


PERFORMANCE


The Nexus 10 is a very fast machine. It features 2 GB of RAM, a CPU with a dual-core A15 and a GPU quad-core Mali T604. Translation: It's lightning fast and can play about any game. I've personally played N.O.V.A 3, Final Fantasy 3 and Angry Birds extensively, and have experienced few slowdowns even during graphically intense scenes. I also use GBA, N64, PSONE and MSDOS emulators on my Nexus 10 and have never had any problems with graphical performance.


As far as the battery is concerned, the Nexus 10 easily lasts longer than a day. Even after a day of heavy use (several hours) I'm still left with over 50% juice left. Which is good, because the Nexus 10 charges incredibly slowly. In fact, it charges so slowly that if you try to charge it while playing games on it, the battery will actually drain faster than it charges! Even so, a full charge can last me anywhere from two days of heavy use to a 4-5 days of light use. When I'm travelling a lot, I make sure to charge it every night and I never have problems with the battery.


The sound reproduction on the Nexus 10 is also fantastic; one of my favorite features, in fact.  Most of my devices have speakers on the back or at the bottom of the device so I always tried to sort of put my hand in a cup shape and point the sound at me, but with the Nexus 10, the sound is already pointing at me and that really help a lot I've found. The sound is lound, does not sound "tinny," (like many other tablets I've seen), and the speakers are big enough that you could never accidentally cover them up with your hands. I feel like having front-facing speakers on a tablet is a no-brainer to be honest! All tablets should promptly adopt this design feature!


CAMERA


The Nexus 10 has two cameras: A front facing 1.9MP camera for video chatting, and a 5MP back camera. While I personally think that taking picture from your tablet looks somewhat silly, I have to admit I enjoyed testing out taking pictures with my Nexus 10. The pictures were better than I thought they'd be, coming from a 5MP camera. Color reproduction was good, even if they weren't the clearest photos ever.


The coolest thing about the Nexus 10 camera however isn't it's hardware, but it's software! The Nexus 10 camera comes with a feature called "Photoshpere." Essentially, it's panoramic on steroids! You can take full 360 degree photographs of your surroundings easily and simply by lining up two circles repeatedly. While the images don't always turn out perfect (especially when people move in and out of the camera), it works really great for outdoor settings and can be really fun to take. Practical? Maybe not so much, but lots of fun none-the-less.


THE SCREEN


Easily one of the Nexus 10's greatest strength is it's screen. You always hear about the iPad 4's "Retina display." Well, guess what? The Nexus 10 has it beat! The Nexus 10 has a whopping 2560 x 1600 resolution (300ppi) which is fantastic. I'm not claiming the Nexus 10 screen is the best screen out there, but the resolution is the highest and the color reproduction was excellent. Movies, pictures, web browsing, reading text... you name it and it looks great on the Nexus 10. The only place where I might say the Nexus 10 is lacking (in regards to the screen), is that I feel like it's blacks could be a little more black. They feel a little shallow at times.


THE OPERATING SYSTEM


Finally we get to my favorite aspect of the Nexus 10: Stock Android. The Nexus 10 is a google machine, so Google's pure edition of Android runs on the Nexus 10. This has so many advantages to it. First, it means you don't get any bloatware from hardware manufacturers. That alone almost makes it worth it! Second, you get the clean Android experience the way it was meant to be had. Third, you get updates to your device as soon as they are released.


There are more advantages to be sure, but the software really is a great feature to the Nexus 10. The Nexus 10 allows for multiple user-support, has GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi functionality (LTE capability if you pay a little extra as well).


FINAL DECISION

While the Nexus 10 isn't the newest tablet around, it's still a top performer and a beautiful tablet. There may be a Nexus 10-2 on the horizon for Google, but even with that in mind, anyone looking for a relatively inexpensive high-end tablet should seriously consider the Nexus 10. In my mind, the Nexus 10 is worthy of being deemed an iPad killer... Or at least an iPad Contender!

Recommend this product? Yes