nexus 7 lcd panel free sample

Our Nexus 5 mockups finally get some friends with these 8 Nexus 7 tablet mockups. These are fully scalable, vectored PSD templates that are perfectly sized for the latest Nexus…

We"re rather big fans of the Nexus 7 here at Engadget HQ -- it"s just hard not to like a $200 tablet with a Tegra 3 SoC and 7-inch glass-bonded IPS display running pure Jelly Bean. Of the few missing features, there"s one we"re bemoaning more than the lack of rear camera, and that"s the absence of any kind of HDMI or MHL video output. So far, watching movies with the Nexus 7"s been relegated to using a Nexus Q and streaming content from Google Play or YouTube.

Enter Wi-Fi Media, an app available for free on Google Play that lets most Android devices like the Nexus 7 play movies, music and stills on any screen via any Cavium PureVu-compatible streamer, such as HTC"s $90 Media Link HD. We tested Wi-Fi Media with our Nexus 7 and Media Link HD and found it to work pretty much as advertised except for some caveats. First the app doesn"t mirror your screen -- you"re limited to playing content stored on the tablet or on the network via DLNA, which means no YouTube, Netflix or games. Second, the app doesn"t handle some common file types -- like AVI, for example.

While it supports watching movies, listening to music and looking at pictures, keep in mind that Wi-Fi Media is not a particularly polished app. In addition to playing local and remote DLNA content, you"re able to login to Facebook and Picasa and stream images directly from these accounts, but that"s pretty much it in terms of functionality. There"s also no way to configure the Media Link HD, so you"ll need a sanctioned HTC handset to setup the multimedia streamer before using it with a Nexus 7. Want to know more? Peek at our screenshot gallery below and hit the break for our hands-on video.%Gallery-160849%

Who knew affordable tablets could be so good? That was our reaction after reviewing the original Nexus 7 when it went on sale last year for $200; at the time, comparably specced products were going for at least $100 more. So, when this year"s follow-up came out at a slightly higher price ($229 and up), we were a little concerned the higher cost would dissuade penny-pinching shoppers from taking the plunge.

After we got a good look at the spec sheet, though, we quickly forgave Google and ASUS for their decision. For the money, you get a gorgeous 1,920 x 1,200 IPS display, 2GB of RAM, a rear camera, a quad-core processor, wireless charging and the latest version of Android, Jelly Bean 4.3. Now that we"ve had the opportunity to take the new and improved Nexus 7 for a spin, we"re ready to tackle all the obvious questions: is this still the best budget tablet on the market? How does it compare to the iPad mini? And does the spec sheet actually reflect real-world performance? Let"s find out. %Gallery-194844%

Behold: the Nexus 7 2.0. The latest iteration of Google"s small tablet takes everything we loved about the original and improves on it, all without adding much to the price. Google and ASUS -- the OEM in charge of designing the new device -- whipped up the first Nexus 7 in just four months, an impressive feat for anycompany tasked with building a quality product. This go-round, the two tech giants had much more time to perfect the device, which bodes well for the quality here, we"d say.

On first glance, the new Nexus certainly bears an obvious resemblance to its predecessor, but closer inspection shows that ASUS actually made a few significant changes. Weighing 10.23 ounces (290g) for the WiFi-only model and 10.55 ounces (299g) for the LTE version, it"s quite a bit lighter than the first edition, which tipped the scales at 11.99 ounces. At 200 x 114 x 8.7 mm (7.87 x 4.49 x 0.34 in), it"s 1.5mm taller, 6mm narrower and 1.8mm thinner as well. As you can imagine, then, while we didn"t have a problem fitting the first tablet into our khaki pants pockets, this second-gen model is even easier to hold and tote around.

In terms of aesthetics, ASUS eschewed the plastic faux-metal edges and the dimpled rubber back of the original, opting instead for an all-black, all-plastic exterior with a matte finish on the rear cover. We"ll admit that the rubber on last year"s device was an unconventional choice, yet it helped make the device feel surprisingly durable. And besides, the textured material just felt pleasant to put your fingers on. That"s all been removed, likely in an effort to make the tablet as compact as possible. All told, the difference is subtle, but still noticeable: the new Nexus is still a very solid device, but it feels just a tad more... vulnerable. Fortunately, its matte back at least offers a good grip while staying (mostly) immune to fingerprints. Always a plus.

On the front, the bezels surrounding the display are noticeably narrower -- ASUS shaved off about 2.75mm on each side -- but on the top and bottom they"re as wide as they ever were. According to the two companies, the idea is to ensure most users will have a place to hold the Nexus while using it in landscape mode (this is especially handy for games, we"ve noticed). Since those bezels have remained the same size even as the tablet has gotten narrower, the front looks a little awkward proportionally speaking, given the screen"s 16:10 aspect ratio. We suspect the top and bottom bezels could have been trimmed a bit too, and it wouldn"t actually have had much of an effect on the user experience.

While we"re lingering on the tablet"s front face, let"s see what else is there. One thing you won"t find on the device is a set of capacitive soft keys, since the Nexus 7 makes use of virtual navigation buttons instead. Above the display sits a front-facing camera, but it"s curiously in a different spot than last time around. The OG version"s camera was centered toward the very top, whereas this model puts the lens closer to the display and off to the right. If we had to guess, we"d wager that this was intended to make it easier to take selfies without worrying about your thumb getting in the way, but that doesn"t explain why it didn"t get pushed even closer to the right side of the device, since our thumbs still covered the lens on occasion.

When you flip over the Nexus, the first thing you"ll notice -- aside from the lack of dimples, of course -- is that ASUS added a 5-megapixel camera in the top left corner (sorry, no LED flash). There are also three machine-drilled speaker grilles: a long one up top and two shorter ones on the bottom. That means you"ll benefit from stereo sound, a nice step up from the mono setup on the original. Cosmetically, the other major difference is that the Nexus logo is now displayed vertically in the center of the back cover, compared to the original"s horizontal logo, which was located closer to the top. The 3.5mm headphone jack, meanwhile, now sits the top instead of the bottom. Finally, the power button and volume rocker live on the right side just above the mic, while the micro-USB SlimPort connector is sandwiched in between the speakers on the bottom. (As a sidenote, the Nexus 7 also supports USB OTG.)

Under the hood, the 2013 Nexus matches the original"s in total internal storage. While it initially launched with only 8GB and 16GB versions (at $199 and $249 respectively), Google dropped the baseline 8GB, lowered the price of the 16GB and added a 32GB model at the higher pricing tier. The Nexus 7 once again offers 16 and 32 gigs ($269) for now, although we"d certainly love to see a 64GB option come out down the road. Additional storage is important because the device still doesn"t have a microSD slot, and we have a feeling that consumers will want to load the tablet up with HD movies and loads of music to take advantage of that sharper screen and stereo speaker setup. Obviously, then, storage space is of the essence.

The model we reviewed is a 32GB WiFi-only unit, with 26.1 gigs of that storage space actually accessible to the user. An LTE version ($359) is also coming soon, though you can"t buy it just yet. On that particular model, ASUS managed to squeeze six LTE frequencies (bands 1, 2, 4, 5, 13 and 17), pentaband HSPA+ and quadband GSM / EDGE into its North American version, which means it will be compatible with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in the US, as well as a smattering of operators in other parts of the globe. This is actually a pretty huge feat, as we haven"t seen a device that"s compatible with both Verizon and AT&T LTE before. There"s also a European option, which provides seven LTE bands (1/2/3/4/5/7/20), pentaband HSPA+ and quadband GSM / EDGE. Not too shabby.

Finally, anyone who enjoyed the optional dock with the first Nexus 7 will be disappointed to see that it"s MIA here. The new tablet does, however, offer Qi wireless charging out of the box. We tried it on multiple charging pads, including the Nokia Fatboy, Energizer dual pad and Samsung GS4 pad, and it worked perfectly every time. If you"re not equipped, you might at least be pleased to know that iFixit"s teardown of the device revealed a Qualcomm PM8921 Quick Charge Battery Management IC, which allows for faster charging than conventional plugs (as long as you"re using compatible adapters).

When the Nexus 7 debuted last week, there wasn"t any confusion as to which feature Google most wanted to emphasize: the display easily got the most lip service during the event. Last year"s model had a perfectly acceptable 1,280 x 800 pixel IPS LCD panel, which was more than reasonable for a $200 tablet. In this industry, however, a "perfectly acceptable" screen can magically transform into a piece of junk in a matter of months. Not to worry, though, as the new Nexus 7 has an increased resolution of 1,920 x 1,200, which translates to a pixel density of 323 pixels per inch, up from a puny 216 ppi on the OG model.

This is a massive improvement, and that improvement is obvious just as much in side-by-side comparisons. We know this can easily be said of any 1080p (or equivalent) screen, but the Nexus 7"s display is simply beautiful. It offers more natural colors than the last-gen model, with amazingly crisp fonts and a generally much better canvas for playing games or watching movies. At the risk of sounding like we"re making a shameless plug (we sort of are), we loaded up the latest issue of Distro on both tablets. In short, the difference is astounding: the text here is bolder and easier to read, and the high-resolution screen exposes details in images that we simply couldn"t see on the older screen. This isn"t constrained to just Distro, of course; we noticed this with allthe media we viewed. On top of all that, the screen delivers some great viewing angles, and is bright enough that you should have little problem reading it in direct sunlight. Simply put: the display itself is top-notch, but the fact that it"s built into such an inexpensive tablet is even more impressive. In fact, it"s a good enough reason you might want to seriously consider grabbing one of these for yourself.

With new Nexus devices, Google typically introduces the next version of Android along with them. Unsurprisingly, then, the tablet comes with Android 4.3 out of the box. This piece of firmware still has the same Jelly Bean name Google has been using since version 4.1 debuted on the original Nexus 7 last year. Frankly, not a whole lot has changed this time around, but that doesn"t mean everything has just stayed the same since the last upgrade came out almost nine months ago.

The biggest improvement here adds restrictions to the multiple accounts feature that we already enjoy on tablets running Android 4.2. Before Google unveiled that version of the OS, the ability to switch accounts was pretty much nonexistent on mobile operating systems (though Microsoft introduced a similar feature called Kid"s Corner on the same exact day). At any rate, the first iteration of the firmware generally worked fine, but there was a problem: there wasn"t a way to add passwords or lock specific apps, an issue for parents who wanted to ensure their children weren"t getting into something they shouldn"t be. Fortunately, Google"s addressed that issue -- much to your 7-year-old"s dismay. Interestingly, multiple user support is still MIA on Android smartphones, but Google engineer Dan Morrill explained recently on Reddit that his team is still figuring out the best way to handle phone-specific concerns like SMS and phone calls. Morrill said:

If you"re a sucker for beautifully designed games with smooth graphics and copious detail, you may have been waiting for Open GL ES 3.0 to show up on Android. Fortunately, 4.3 officially supports the standard, and is currently available on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, in addition to the tablet we"re reviewing today. Essentially, ES 3.0 brings acceleration of advanced visual effects, texture compression, 32-bit floating point support and more. There"s also improved multi-threading across multiple CPU cores.%Gallery-194848%

Android 4.3 also adds support for Bluetooth Smart, LE and AVRCP 1.3. For the uninitiated, Bluetooth Smartincludes APIs that allow apps to access and receive your stream of notifications, and then display them however they want. Since this includes sending your status bar notifications to Bluetooth devices, this particular announcement is great news for users of wearables (think about what it could do for the Pebble smartwatch or even something like Google Glass).Bluetooth Smart is already available on the new Nexus 7 and the Nexus 4, with more devices to follow. AVRCP 1.3, meanwhile, ensures that users get better remote control functionality and more interactions with streaming media devices.

We were able to forgive the absence of a rear-facing camera on the original Nexus 7, because let"s face it: tablets aren"t exactly known for being stellar imaging devices. Of course, we"re not going to complain that ASUS threw a camera in on the second-gen model; our expectations just aren"t as high as they would be for, say, the Nokia Lumia 1020 (or anything else of that ilk).

We half-expect every tablet camera to be a terrible piece of kit, but for what it"s worth, the Nexus 7"s five-megapixel rear shooter is actually a decent performer -- though it"s not without its hiccups. Images are fairly detailed, though the colors become a little washed out in sunlight and pictures are generally very noisy in low light (there"s a night scene mode here, but it doesn"t actually do much more than the default auto mode). The camera also couldn"t reconcile shadows and highlights at the same time, so shady areas came out much darker than we would have liked. That being said, the shutter snapped pics fast enough for us to capture a few family memories without any motion blur. It also offers autofocus, another nice feature not found on a large number of tablets. Also, our images taken in low-light situations captured more light than we expected, even if we couldn"t do anything about the noise.%Gallery-194852%

Our video samples were in roughly the same shape as our stills: not acceptable on a flagship smartphone, but right on par with what you"ll get from a typical tablet. The Nexus 7 records video at a max resolution of 1080p at 30 frames per second, with a bitrate of 12 Mbps. The camera managed to maintain its focus no matter how many times we moved around. Of course, the lack of optical image stabilization means our footage was a little shaky at times (though it wasn"t any worse than on other devices that also lack this feature). Pans were much smoother than we expected, and the mics picked up audio without much background noise to distract us. Unfortunately, despite the tablet"s 1080p video capture spec, the resulting movies were far from actual HD quality.

The Snapdragon S4 Pro inside the new Nexus 7 has already been surpassed by the Snapdragon 600 (and soon the Snapdragon 800), but it still purrs along quite speedily. As you can see by the benchmark scores, the device is a huge improvement over the original. In real-life use, the tablet was amazingly responsive and didn"t show any lag, stutters or other symptoms of an overworked processor. Not bad, considering the new chip has to power that higher-res screen.

Since ASUS has made a considerable effort to slim down the new Nexus, we suppose it shouldn"t come as much of a surprise to find that the battery is also smaller: it"s been shrunk from 4,325mAh to 3,950. This was worrying at first, especially given the extra pixels that need to be lit up. In normal use, we discovered that the device could easily last us at least a day and a half, and we could certainly push it longer by being more conscious about preserving battery life. Gaming and multimedia were unfortunately different stories: we drained the battery nearly 30 percent in just one hour of playing graphically intense games like Riptide. Our video rundown test, which consists of a 1080p movie playing back on an endless loop with the display on 50 percent brightness, yielded a life of seven hours and 15 minutes, which was much poorer than last year"s Nexus 7. That tablet lasted nine hours and 49 minutes in the same test.

(Update: many of our commenters have rightly pointed out that the new Nexus 7 has a much brighter display, which may lead to faster battery drain when it"s set at the same percentage instead of a nit-for-nit comparison.)

The high-def display isn"t the only area where Google and ASUS improved multimedia playback: we also noticed a massive upgrade to the audio quality as well. As we explained earlier, the biggest change is the addition of an extra set of speakers on the top of the device, which means the new device offers stereo quality (rather than the mono setup found on the previous version). The companies also partnered with Fraunhofer Cingo, which saw to it that Google Play movies can be watched in HE-AAC multichannel surround sound. Without question, the new Nexus is definitely loud enough in nearly every scenario. Our only quibble -- and it"s a small one -- is that lower frequencies don"t sound as prominent when you"re listening through the speakers, so to get more complete bass you"ll still want a good set of headphones.

There"s no shortage of smaller-screened tablets in the market, but the most talked-about are arguably the Nexus 7 and the iPad mini. Since we"ve already compared the new Nexus 7 to its older counterpart, let"s see how it holds up against its iOS competitor. The iPad mini starts at $329 for the 16GB WiFi version, a hundred dollars more than the Nexus; the 32GB WiFi is $429, a difference of $160; and the 32GB LTE option costs $559, $210 more than Google"s equivalent. Granted, the iPad mini"s display is an inch larger than the N7, which might affect the cost of the tablet. That said, how else does it compare?

Looking strictly from a budget and spec standpoint, however, the $229 Nexus 7 offers an insane amount of value that bests the iPad mini. The display is the best we"ve seen on a small tablet, the stereo speakers offer amazingly loud audio, the performance stands up to gaming and other intensive tasks, and you get NFC, wireless charging and enough cellular radios to make it compatible with three of the big four US carriers. If ecosystem doesn"t play a large factor in your decision, we heartily recommend the new Nexus 7.

When the first Nexus 7 came out, we applauded Google"s willingness to sell it for less than $199. Even though the new version is an extra $30, we can confidently say it offers the best bang for your buck -- yes, that includes the iPad mini, though Apple"s entry in the small tablet category has a much more diverse catalog of tablet-specific apps. Granted, Android is slowly but surely improving its selection, but it still has a long way to go before it catches up. That frustration aside, the new Nexus has a lot to offer, including an incredible display and strong overall performance. As long as you don"t mind the selection of tablet-optimized apps in the Play Store, you"d have to be an extreme power user to not enjoy the latest Nexus 7, and you"d most definitely be paying through the nose to land anything better.

Once you"ve got it in your palm, you"re going to want to get the best out if it, and that"s what this guide is all about. While popular opinion says this mini tablet was made to compete with the Amazon Kindle Fire (which has yet to be launched in the UK despite selling in the US since autumn 2011), more than the Apple iPad, the Nexus 7 is far more versatile.

As part of the set-up guide built into the Nexus 7, you"ll be asked to enter your Google account details, or create a new one. You can, of course, use your tablet without an account but you"ll have access to more services with one.

The Nexus 7 comes with a few digital freebies. As you open the Play store client, you"ll be notified that you have £15 credit to spend on anything you like, such as apps, books or movie rentals. Speaking of which, while we in the UK can"t purchase films on Google Play, Nexus 7 owners are given Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (to be streamed) in the Play Movies application.

If you go into the Settings application and tap "Display", you"ll find a slider where you can manually set the screen brightness or choose to have the brightness adjusted automatically. Reducing the brightness will save power but will obviously make it harder to see. Bear in mind that the Nexus 7 uses an LCD screen, so using dark colours will not save energy as it would on an OLED display. Read this guide if you"d like to

The Nexus 7 has GPS and comes with Google Maps navigation, but it doesn"t have a mobile data connection. So, while you"re connected to your home Wi-Fi, find the offline maps option and download areas that you"ll likely be travelling in.

The Nexus 7"s user interface is much like that of any Android phone and includes five home screens. Open your app grid, and browse through the widgets by tapping the corresponding tab at the top. Once a widget is placed, a long-press allows you to reposition it, and if the widget has a blue outline while being moved, it can also be resized (see above).

The Nexus 7"s home screens are fixed to portrait orientation, even though other apps will rotate. Install Rotate to give you full rotation control over home screens and apps.

Because the Nexus 7 doesn"t have a main rear-facing camera, the Android camera app has been hidden. If you want to take photographs and video with the front-facing camera, you"ll need the Camera Launcher for Nexus 7 by Modaco.

If you ever have to reset your Nexus 7, it will be a problem to remember all of your apps. If you install AppBrain, you can synchronise a list of all of your apps to the cloud, which you can recall after you reset your device.

The Nexus 7 is an ideal size to use as a reading device -- and not just for ebooks. If you want to read saved articles, get Pocket. To access your news feeds there is Google Reader, and if you like your news to be more curated, then try Flipboard or Google Currents.

Whether you want to keep track of what your friends are doing, or share all the great content you"re discovering with your Nexus 7, you"ll need social networking apps. Google Plus comes pre-installed, but if you want to use the other social networks, then grab Twitter, Facebook, TweetDeck or TweakDeck.

The Play Movies application has relatively poor support for the range of video formats you may already have in your collection. To view content you already own, there are third-party players out there that can turn your Nexus 7 into a great little video player: VPlayer, DicePlayer, MX Player and also the official Plex app.

Unlike earlier Android devices, the Nexus 7 will not appear as a USB mass storage device. Instead, it appears as a "Media Transfer Protocol" (MTP) device. Windows has native support for this and most music applications on Linux support this protocol too. If you use a Mac, you"ll need the Android MTP agent. Windows users can use Windows Media Player to detect their Nexus 7 and transfer music, though many third-party apps support this as well.

One criticism levelled against the Nexus 7 is that it does not have an HDMI port for playing content on a TV set. One way around this, if you have a DLNA-compatible TV, is to install a DLNA server application (such as BubbleUPnP). Then you can use your TV to wirelessly browse and view all of the content you"ve stored on your Nexus 7.

You can use the Nexus 7 as a work tool. If you can find a USB host cable (that is, a micro-USB to female type-A adaptor, also known as USB OTG), the Nexus 7 will allow you to plug in an ordinary keyboard.

Unless you buy a keyboard that will also hold the tablet in an angled position, you"ll need something to prop it up while typing, or even watching videos. There are plenty of inexpensive iPad stands on eBay that will work perfectly with the Nexus 7. I use one of these.

If you intend to carry your Nexus 7 around, you need something to protect it. While it"s still early days for the accessory market, you can already find a range of items, from foam pouches to leather folio cases. If you need to work on the move, you might want to wait for the release of the

Unless you are hugely invested in your library of games or need a specific piece of productivity software that’s only on iOS, the notion that the iPad Mini is noticeably better for the tasks that we really use tablets for is absurd. The Nexus 7 has a gorgeous screen, as good or better than the one on the iPad Mini. And the Nexus 7 is more portable. For a walk down to the coffee shop, I can slip it into my back pocket and leave the

Android versus iOS really is PCs versus Macs all over again, only this time Apple’s foe is vastly more interested in user experience than Microsoft ever was. There are some subtle things I don’t like about the Nexus 7, including, for example, the seemingly imperceptible but actually important difference between Apple’s tablets and phones and Google’s

Coda: Today’s the day I switch off my review Nexus 7 and ship it back to Google. The fact that I’ll be buying one for myself—and that it’s the one non-Apple device in my personal tech ecosystem—tells you what I thought of it as an experience.

The Home Assistant installation guide recommends using a Raspberry Pi to run the automation server. I had a Google Nexus 7 (2013) tablet lying around, so I set out to make use of it instead. An additional benefit is that the tablet can be used as a wall-mounted UI for Home Assistant - this is something you can do regardless of where the Home Assistant server is hosted, but this setup allows the server and UI to be run on one device.

The Nexus 7 tablet stopped receiving software updates as of Android 5 (Lollipop). Such an old version of Android causes lots of incompatibilities. In addition, an old tablet is likely to be bogged down with old files and apps - an operating system refresh removes those and speeds the tablet up.

You may be able to install a more recent version of Android, if you"re able to find a ROM for it online, but an easier approach is to install LineageOS, which is a free and open-source Android distribution. The latest version at the time of writing is LineageOS 17.1 (which equates to Android 10). Let"s dive into the steps required to install LineageOS on the tablet.

If you have anything you care about on your Nexus 7 (files, configuration, etc), back it up to another location now. The tablet will be factory reset during the operating system re-install.

Without rebooting, select ADB Sideload again, and flash addonsu-17.1-arm.zip in the same way. If you want to install Google Play, select ADB Sideload again, and flash the GApps zip. If the GApps flash fails due to a lack of space in the partition, try again using the pico size when creating the download from the GApps website.

When you want to make a Google search, you don"t navigate to 172.217.1.4 - you navigate to google.com. This mapping of human-friendly names to IP addresses is called a "Domain Name System" (DNS).

Split-Brain DNS: setting up a DNS server which handles the routing of traffic on your home network. This could be a good option, but personally I"m wary of relying on the Nexus 7 tablet for DNS resolution of all my home traffic.

On the tablet, place the contents of ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, change the permissions of ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to 600, and ensure the permissions of ~/.ssh are 700.

The setup of Home Assistant on the Nexus 7 tablet is now complete! Everything beyond the steps above is "normal" Home Assistant configuration. Refer to the Home Assistant documentation and community forum as resources.

The remainder of this guide will cover the installation of extensions to Home Assistant, because there are some particularities about the Nexus 7 tablet.

The Mosquitto MQTT broker is compatible with Home Assistant, and lightweight enough to install on the same Nexus 7 tablet that is running Home Assistant. Install it with pkg install mosquitto, then you can start the broker with the mosquitto command. To hook it up with Home Assistant, add the following to configuration.yaml:

That"s it, that"s all! This guide has focused on the configuration process, because it"s unique to the Nexus 7 tablet. From here on out, it"s in your hands: the process of creating automations on the tablet is identical to creating automations on any other Home Assistant installation.

It can be done. For the phones,there are procedures using a thin card. But its very very difficult,or rather it requires a great deal of skill. In fact,its more of an art. To do it requires you to have destroyed dozens of screens. You have to do it perfectly. The glass on the front of the LCD is very very thin,like a 64th of an inch or so. Virtually ANY pressure will shatter it. Even if your good at it,figure 50/50. If your not,your almost certain to destroy the screen.

The answer of course is,locate the screen you want to buy. Then before you buy it,if you really feel you can do it,give it a shot. However,you almost certainly WILL destroy the screen. And its NOT that you have nothing to lose. The reason is,there"s some guy out there that thought the same thing. He bought the digitizer first,then tried to separate the screen and broke it. Throwing good money after bad,he will go up to ebay and buy a screen with a broken digitizer and try again. He might do it twice before he gives up in disgust and either buys a assembled module,finds a LCD without a digitizer to buy or throws the tablet away. There is also a way to do it that commercial shops use which I will explain in a moment. What that means is,your broken screen still has some value in it to someone. I dont know about the tablets,but but a lcd module from a Nexus 4 (phone) goes for 20-40 dollars on ebay. A digitizer goes for 40. The entire module goes for 100. Bare LCDs don"t seem to be available. Rather than trying to save 20 dollars,your better off putting your broken one up on ebay and buying a good one and letting someone else take the risk.

The technique people try is to heat the screen with a hair drier,then use a business card to separate the screen. A packet from a nicotine patch is better as its thinner and stiffer. However,there are two problems,those are both quite thick compared to the adhesive,so they put a lot of stress on the LCD. The second problem is,your digitizer is broken,probably in shards. When you get near the end of the shard,you have a big lever,with a tiny sharp point. If you lift the end of that in the slightest,that sharp point shatters the screen. It might help if you used a piece of adhesive transfer tape to bond the screen to a piece of glass. (it would have to be very ridged) Then again,it might force the LCD to flex instead of the digitizer and break it that way.

I thought I might find a solvent the panel can tolerate that the adhesive cannot. So I took an old cracked LCD,and bonded a broken digitizer to it with a similar adhesive. I then soaked. It worked perfectly. The screen came right off and the cracked LCD displayed just like it did before (broken of course,but no worse). So I tried it with a nexus 4 screen. The digitizer came right off. But so did all the layers of the LCD panel and the ribbon cable that was stuck on with an anisotropic adhesive. And there is no way to know until you try,unless you knew which adhesives the panel was made with. So thats not a viable way either.

The digitizers themselves are actually a plastic sheet that"s stuck to the front glass with adhesive. I thought I might be able to get that off and proceed from there. The idea was to use a very very careful application of solvent such as hexane or lighter fluid to separate the plastic digitizer from the glass. The residual adhesive could then be removed and then if the digitizer itself was still good,a 12 dollar glass front instead of the 40 dollar digitizer or 100 dollar lcd digitizer assembly could be installed. The hope was the plastic digitizer would help protect the lcd from the harshest step of forcing the packet between the front glass and the LCD. If the digitizer was not working,my thought was that I could then use a 5uL syringe to apply a tiny amount of solvent at the edge of the LCD. At that point it would be very carefully peeling the plastic digitizer off the LCD panel. The idea was that I would apply very gentle pressure and as the plastic digitizer peels away where I have dissolved the solvent I would keep adding solvent along that edge with the syringe.

Many solvents can damage the panel though,so I tried to be careful. On the lower edge,I used by finger nail to pry up a half millimeter of the plastic digitizer,which is about a centimeter from the from the lcd.I then soaked a q tip in hexane and ran it along the edge. Capillary action sucked in the solvent. I left it for 5 minutes then ran packet from a nicotine patch through it,removing about another millimeter of adhesive. I repeated that process again and again. It seemed to work well and I was into the panel about an inch with no problems. But then one of those shards of glass levered up a but and shattered the panel. Once again,its a technique that looks workable,but requires such precision and skill that it is not practical. As before,bonding it to a piece of glass might help. But maybe not.

Some repair shops have a device called an LCD panel separator. Its a devices that uses a very very think molybdenum wire. You mount the panel on the machine,then it draws that wire between the two cutting the adhesive. Molybdenum wire is extremely strong (tungsten wire is available as well and is half again as strong,but more expensive and overkill for the application) In fact,its astoundingly strong. If you tried you wrap it around your finger and pull it till it breaks like you can a copper wire of that size,you would cause serious injury to your hand from the wire cutting down to the bone. (It wouldn"t surprise me if you could take off a finger with enough force.)

What Im trying now is to make a panel separator. Ive got 100" of 0.08mm molybdenum wire and Im going to fabricate something and see if I can make it work. My concept is that I will mount the panel to the device with adhesive tape,adjust everything so its the right height and have some sort of motor to draw the wire between the frame. This one Im very optimistic about. If it works,then Ill be able to fix these things. If not,I give up.

The name "Nexus 7 with mobile data" is a clunky mouthful, but it"s perfectly appropriate — this tablet is the Nexus 7 with a little bit of connectivity grafted onto it. This tablet is exactly, utterly the same as the tablet we reviewed in June, save for a tiny cut-out rectangle about a third of the way up the left side. Poke a SIM tool or paper clip into the small hole in the cut-out, and out pops a SIM card tray. Pop in an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM card, and you"re off and running. The whole thing is so well camoflauged that you might never notice it"s there, even feeling along the side with your fingers.

Like the Nexus 4, there"s no LTE support on the Nexus 7 Mobile. That"s unfortunately unsurprising, but it"s also just unfortunate — the Nexus 7 Mobile"s data speeds don"t come anywhere close to what I"ve gotten with the iPad"s LTE model. On AT&T"s HSPA+ network, I consistently got download speeds between 3-5Mbps and uploads between 1-2Mbps. That"s sufficient for web browsing or triaging your email, but YouTube and Hulu had to pause to buffer much more often than on an LTE connection. The device holds its connection well, though, never once losing service unless I was underground or in otherwise impossible-to-reach places — it"s at least as capable as a good smartphone in that regard.

For everything you need to know about the Nexus 7 otherwise, be sure and check out our full review of Google"s tablet. In short, it"s a really solid device. (I bought one myself, and love it.) Its soft-touch back is comfortable to hold, and everything from text to movies look good on the 7-inch, 16:10, 1280 x 800 display. The design is great for reading in portrait, and for turning on its side for watching movies — personally, I prefer the form factor to the iPad mini. It"s a little thick and heavy, especially compared to the iPad mini, but it"s still really usable in one hand. Its Tegra 3 processor is fast, and Android 4.1 (since upgraded to 4.2) is a reliable and mature operating system.

Every test I ran on the two Nexus 7 models provided similar results. That"s mostly not surprising — have I mentioned they"re almost entirely identical? — but the one result that impressed me was battery life. On a stable AT&T HSPA+ connection, I got 5 hours, 50 minutes of battery life on the Verge Battery Test, which cycles through a series of websites and high-res images with the screen set to 65 percent brightness. The Wi-Fi model lasted all of ten minutes longer. In practice, it means you"ll need to charge the Nexus 7 Mobile only every few days.

The Nexus 7"s problems make the jump to the new model as well. There are limited storage options (only up to 32GB), the Play Store doesn"t have the depth or breadth of content some of the App Store, and most of all there are still far too few good apps for Android tablets.

Every pro, every con, every feature on the Nexus 7 is here as well. But the Nexus 7 Mobile has that one extra wireless radio, and it kind of changes everything.

Though Steve Jobs is famously known to have disliked the idea of 7-inch tablets, you can’t deny that there is a market for them. A 7-incher, such as the Google Nexus 7 (made by ASUS), is a whole lot more portable than larger 10-inch tablets and provides the same ebook reading and multimedia consumption experience as larger tablets do. It can easily fit in your hand, in your jacket pocket, and in your bag without your looking awkward in public.

How does this Apple newcomer stand up against one of the leading Android 7-inch slates, the Google Nexus 7? Now that we’ve already let gravity and a concrete pavement tell us about how these gadgets fare when dropped repeatedly, it’s time for us to take a closer look at these gadgets in terms of build, specs, and software. (Jump to our comparison video, if you like.)

The slight bit of thickness also makes the Nexus 7 heavier than the iPad mini at 340 grams, which may not be a bad thing as it has a more solid presence in your hand. In terms of length and width, however, the Nexus 7 is smaller. The device’s measurements may be ideal for people with small hands but want to keep their second hand free to do other things.

On the other hand, the Nexus 7’s back is protected by a black, rubbery, pockmark-textured, non-removable cover. It makes the tablet one of the most comfortable to hold. The back edges curve slightly, adding more holdability and gripability. Unlike the back of the iPad mini, the back of the Nexus 7 didn’t get all too greasy, sweaty, or smudgy after we casually examined the tablet. The very same back cover, though, may not survive deep falls. Again, this back cover is non-removable.

Compared to the Nexus 7, the iPad mini has a longer screen diagonal of 7.9 inches. The screen displays at a resolution of 1024×768 pixels and a modest pixel density of 163 ppi. It doesn’t have the Retina Display that a lot of people have fallen in love with, but it shouldn’t hamper your reading experience. The iPad mini’s high-definition display is unmistakably pleasurable to the eyes.

The screens on both tablets have oil-resistant protection to make sure that your fingers’ sebaceous secretions won’t stick to the screen as fingerprints or smudges. The screens are also protected by tough, scratch-resistant glass. The Nexus 7, in particular, uses Corning Gorilla Fit Glass.

While the iPad mini displays better contrast (i.e., blacker blacks and whiter whites) than the Nexus 7, the latter tablet has acceptable contrast, has better display brightness, and shows colors more vibrant than those on the iPad mini. The Nexus 7’s display also appears sharper, thanks to its higher pixel density.

The Nexus 7, on the other hand, features the NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset which contains a 1.3 GHz quad-core Cortex-A9 processor and a ULP GeForce GPU. You also get 1 GB of RAM to sustain your multitasking needs. The tablet has 16- and 32-GB storage models. With these powerful specs, navigating through the tablet’s interface is very smooth. You also get to enjoy Tegra-optimized games on your tablet.

Overall, the Nexus 7 fared better than the iPad mini in CPU performance, as the Geekbench 2 test results suggest. The Apple tablet, though, left the Nexus 7 in the dust in the GPU tests; Safari also performed better than Chrome in the SunSpider and Browsermark tests, but Chrome overpowered it in the Google V8 Benchmark test.

To power up its powerful hardware, the Nexus 7 comes with a 4,325-mAh Li-ion battery. ASUS claims that the battery can last up to 9.5 hours of playing a 720p video at 100 nits brightness, with external headset plugged in, Wi-Fi connected, and Gmail logged in.

We subjected these two 7-inchers to our home-brewed, not-exactly-scientific battery test. It involved switching Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on and maxing out the screen brightness. We didn’t turn on the Nexus 7’s NFC because the iPad mini does not have it. We started by looping a YouTube video for one hour. The whole time the battery test went on, we did not allow either device’s screen to take a rest.

After an hour of playing an HD video on loop, the iPad mini’s backplate got rather hot. It was uncomfortably hot. The Nexus 7, in comparison, was only slightly warm. The heating may be because of the iPad mini’s fused body and metal backplate, but I cannot say for sure. Another hour was spent for purely Web browsing on both devices. After a total of 2 hours, the Nexus 7 wins the battery test with a 66% power left. The iPad mini had only 64% left, plus it got really hot.

In contrast, the 16-gigabyte model of the Nexus 7 can connect to the Internet through Wi-Fi only. But, a newer model with 32-gigabytes of storage has a variant with 3G capability. It is capable of Near Field Communication (NFC), which allows you to share data to another NFC-enabled device just by tapping the two devices. The iPad mini doesn’t have such functionality. Bluetooth connectivity is also available on the Nexus 7. And, this is one leverage of the ASUS tablet over the Apple’s: the Nexus 7 uses a standards-compliant Micro USB port for data connection and charging.

Since the Nexus 7 doesn’t contain a stock camera app, I installed the Camera Launcher for Nexus 7 app to test the 1.2-megapixel front camera. Picture quality is quite good and takes pictures very quickly but images tend to be very noisy especially in dark areas. Videos were noisy, too.

The Nexus 7’s Play Music app, however, does have built-in equalizers that you can adjust according to your tastes. You can expect the same sound quality as the video player from the music app.

Meanwhile, the Nexus 7 is the first Android tablet to run Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, said to be the fastest and smoothest Android thus far — thanks to Project Butter. The tablet features pure Google Android with no manufacturer skin on top.

The Nexus 7, on the other hand, has 5 default homescreen pages. You can neither add to nor remove these homescreen pages. At the bottom is the dock bar — though not in 3D — where you can place up to 6 app shortcuts. This dock, too, persists across homescreens.

On the Nexus 7, you can access the notification menu by swiping down the status bar at the top of the screen. The notification menu shows both the time and date, aside from the notifications. The notifications are expandable or collapsible with tap-dragging gestures (single finger) or with pinching gestures (two fingers). Each one can also be dismissed individually by flicking either to the left or right, or collectively by tapping the “Clear all” button. The notification menu also has a toggle button for locking the display orientation and a shortcut to the Settings menu.

Android, in general, provides better experience for accessing and organizing apps through the App Drawer, which the Nexus 7 has. For your most frequently accessed apps, you can place app shortcuts on the dock and on the homescreens. There’s also a separate drawer for widgets. Such handy screen elements can be placed on any of the homescreens, too. Apps in the App Drawer are arranged alphabetically. You cannot group the icons into folders inside the App Drawer, but you can do so on the homescreen and dock bar.

Widgets are one of the chief features of Android. They’re like mini apps on your homescreen, giving you a preview of the app or allowing you to use its functions without needing to launch the app from the App Drawer. The Nexus 7, of course, allows widgets.

Android shines in personalization and customization. Widgets, for example, let you decide what info from apps you want to view on your homescreens. You can replace the clock, calendar, and many more. You can use a custom audio file as notification sound or ringtone. Move icons and widgets around on the homescreen, if you want. Animate your homescreen with live wallpapers. Use bigger or smaller fonts on the interface. Protect your tablet from intruders with face recognition, pattern, PIN, or password. You can choose different date/time formats — and I’m not just talking about shifting between 12-hour and 24-hour time formats. Use any keyboard of your choice if you don’t like the default Android keyboard. And many more other little niceties that let you claim the Nexus 7 as really yours.

The Nexus 7’s keyboard, on the other hand, is a simple keyboard that features black and gray theme. But, unlike the iPad mini’s keyboard, you won’t be able to split this keyboard. The keyboard will remain unified in both landscape and portrait orientation. The keyboard will also carry its default English dictionary for word predictions. If you want to add your own words or jargon, you can do so by adding them to your Personal Dictionary so the keyboard can suggest those words while you type. Unlike on the iPad mini, the Nexus 7 won’t need any Internet connection to use the voice-to-text feature. You can even download additional languages to support offline voice recognition. The iPad mini, on the other hand, will require an Internet connection to use the voice-to-text feature.

The Nexus 7 is also equipped with a search app, by the name of Google Now. The app is very snappy and shows result in flashcards. Google Now automatically displays flashcards for a country’s exchange rate or traffic in your area. Unfortunately, Google Now doesn’t talk back like Siri. It can read search results out loud, such as the meaning of a word, but you can’t converse with it.

You can keep your iPad mini’s delicate information from prying eyes by securing it with a 4-digit PIN. It won’t show up from the lockscreen but once someone unlocks your iPad mini, the person will be greeted with the code input panel.

There’s also an option to erase all your data on your iPad mini after 10 failed passcode attempts, handy when you’re afraid that your information will fall into the wrong hands. Unlike the Nexus 7 which allows you to show your password so that you can check for spelling errors, you won’t be able to do that on the iPad mini. That means better security for anyone looking over your shoulder, but it also means you’ll need to be careful when typing.

In contrast, the Nexus 7 has a lot of lockscreen types to choose from. The Slide lockscreen is the default, the most commonly used, yet the least secure lockscreen. If you want some fun in unlocking your tablet, as well as moderate security, use your face to unlock the tablet with Face Unlock. This lockscreen will use your front facing camera to analyze your face and unlock the Nexus 7. You can also add more pictures in different light settings to improve the face-matching feature. You can even add your friend’s face so she or he can also unlock your tablet. Face Unlock also has a feature that requires you to blink, making sure your face is real and preventing nosey people from just using a picture of your face. For more security, you can try pattern lock, PIN, or using a password to unlock your tablet.

If you don’t want hackers to access your personal data on your Nexus 7, you can encrypt your tablet. Hackers or any suspicious individuals can’t read encrypted data. You will need to specify a PIN to decrypt the data before you use it.

The Nexus 7 with 16 GB storage is available for sale at US$200. Google is slated to release two new variants of the Nexus 7. The one with 32 GB storage will cost US$250 and the 3G variant with the same storage capacity will cost US$300. The new variants of the Nexus 7 will be available for sale from the Google Play Store and various retailers this November 13.

The iPad mini and Nexus 7 are great devices. Both tablets look good, have powerful specs, and run powerful operating systems. Each tablet is intended for different crowds and addresses different needs.

Great news for all the Apple enthusiasts, the newly launched Apple iPad Air will finally hit the shelves soon. It is said to be one of the best tablets in the world: thinner, lighter, styled with space gray. The tablet will come with some pre-loaded free apps. The highlight of the tablet is the 64 bit processor which claims to be ‘8 times faster’ than the previous generation chip. On other hand we have the latest tablet from Google -- the Nexus 7. The tablet claims to be the world’s sharpest 7-inch tablet-screen putting over 2.3 million pixels in your palm and having a resolution of 323 ppi.

Nexus 7: The Nexus 7 sports 7.02-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels and 323 ppi. The tablet claims to have images sharper than ever. Users will enjoy reading the tablet as words will be as good and as sharp as a printed page.

iPad Air: This latest tablet from Apple comes with 9.7-inch display with 2048 x 1536 screen resolution that offers 264 ppi. Users will definitely enjoy their favourite games, watch movies and enjoy reading on the wide screen. The response of the touch screen is smooth as butter

Our take: Nexus takes the cake in terms of display, however if users want to really experience gaming and larger resolution, the iPad air is the way to go.

Nexus 7: A beast when it comes to memory and ultimate gaming experience, the tablet comes with a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with 2GB of RAM. This will enable it function at a faster pace than its predecessors.

iPad Air: A 64-bit A7 processor with the new iOS 7enables the tablet to perform twice as fast and can boast of a battery life equivalent to its predecessor.

Our take: The high-performance rendering in the Nexus 7 ensures that 3D graphics, games, applications, etc. give the user a smooth and dynamic experience. The only drawback of the iPad Air is that it comes with 1 GB of RAM. This means if you are opening too many apps at the same time you may experience a bit of slowdown in your device.

Nexus 7: Dimensions: 200 mm x 114 mm x 8.65 mm, it weighs: 340 g. Comfort and size are the key factors in the Nexus 7. Also, users have a firm grip over their tablet due to the compact size.

iPad Air: Dimensions: 240 mm x 165.5 mm x 7.5mm, it weighs: 469 g. The device is thinner and lighter compared to its predecessor but you won’t be able to handle device single handedly.

Nexus 7:7-inch display weighing only about 300 grams (LTE variant) is very comfortable while using it for long hours. Users will be in awe with never before experienced multimedia options. Another positive aspect is that users can carry the phone in their top or back pockets with ease.

iPad Air: Larger display than the Nexus 7 measuring in at 9.7-inch weighing around 1 pound (469 grams).You cannot hold this tablet with one hand and neither will it fit in any of your pockets.

Our take: Unlike the Nexus 7, the iPad Air will not fit into your breast pocket of jacket. However it is very comfortable when you are using it on the move. Also the iPad Air takes an edge over here due to its large display as it gives more space and wide screen to work with.

Nexus 7: Android OS, v 4.2 (jelly bean). You would have to wait till you receive updates from the manufacturer for the latest Android Kit Kat (Read: 10 reasons why Android 4.4 KitKat ROCKS!).

When comparing both the devices each of them has their own pros and cons, at the end of that it’s upon you to evaluate what is your purpose for using the tablet. If you are one of those who prefer using various apps, want to play games, watch movies and travel with ease carrying the tablet in your pocket Nexus 7 is for you.