The Google Nexus Tablet Meets My RPG PDF Collection

I've had the Google Nexus 7 Tablet for about 5 weeks now. I can tell from an earlier post today (talking  about the Blood & Treasure RPG) that folks are interested in knowing how the Nexus 7 holds up when reading RPG PDFs.

It holds up very well.

The last two PDFs I've looked at on the Nexus 7 (using the EZ PDF Reader App) have been Blood & Treasure and Swords & Wizardry Complete. Why? Because I just bought the first one, and the second one is on my mind with the Reaper Kickstarter and the Swords & Wizardry Complete Kickstarter.

Both are readable with the tablet held in the vertical position, like a book. The print is small, but readable. I've mostly been using it to read for a few minutes in bed before sleep. If I were going to read for a longer period of time, I'd probably hold it in the horizontal position and move the page up and down for the two column format most games seem to favor.

Actually, I've got bunch of stuff on it in PDF format, so I'll rate them from zero to 2 thumbs up for vertical (V) and horizontal (H) reading. In no particular order:

RuneQuest 6 - 1V, 2H
S&W Complete - 1V, 2H
Blood & Treasure - 1V, 2H
Death Love Doom - 1+V, 2H (just a tad better to read than the others so far in vertical position)
ACKS - 1-V, 2H (its readable in vertical, but the walls of text don't make it easy)
Advanced Dungeons & Savages - 2V, 2H
Attack of the Frawgs! - 1V, 2H
The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk - 1V, 2H
Stars W/O Number - Core Edition - 1V-, 2H (readable but not easy on the eyes in vertical)
Other Dust -1V-, 2H (readable but not easy on the eyes in vertical)
DCC RPG - 1V+, 2H (maybe it's the font, but it's a bit easier on the eyes than most of the others when held in the vertical position)

So, most is readable in the vertical (book held) position, but for extended reading, you'll probably want to hold it vertically. I couldn't even really try to read most of my PDFs in the vertical postion with my Kindle Fire. I'm going to chalk that up to the quality of the screen.

Google Nexus 7 Burns the Amazon Kindle Fire!

I thought it would end up with the Kindle Fire being left with nothing but sparks when compared to the Google Nexus 7. Sure enough, that's pretty much the results.

The Kindle Fire is admittedly older and uses an older, rewritten (read "crippled") version of the Android OS. Which is fine if you are giving the Fire to a non-tech savy person, as they will probably not know the difference with their use of the Fire.

The thing is, the Fire is heavier than the Nexus 7 - noticeably heavier and thicker. So for reading in bed, the Nexus 7 wins out.

Reading PDFs on the tablets? The Nexus 7 is smoother while scrolling through the pages and seems to load them quicker, especially on the larger PDFs we gamers know and love.

Gaming on it? Only game I've tried on both is Angry Birds Space. It looks sharper on the Nexus 7.

Movies is where the Fire may actually overtake the Nexus 7, and not because of picture quality, which should be sharper on the Nexus. The Kindle Fire allows you to access your Amazon Prime free videos collection. If that is going to be one of your main uses for your tablet, the Fire does something that the Nexus 7 does not.

Ease of use? The Kindle Fire doesn't have buttons for volume control, it's all on screen. I much prefer physical buttons for such, so point to the Nexus 7 for providing such.

Bluetooth? The fire lacks bluetooth. The Nexus 7 synched promptly with the bluetooth keyboard I got with my HP TouchPad (back when HP killed the TP and released it at rockbottom prices). If you ever want to use your tablet for extensive emailing or blogging, you need a keyboard. The onscreen keyboard is not sufficient.

Price? $199 for the Fire. $199 for the 8GB Nexus 7.

Except for accessing the Amazon Prime Video Library, the Nexus 7 beats the Kindle Fire hands down. The Nexus is much more bang for your buck, and I'm enjoying reading the RuneQuest 6 rulebook on it in bed ;)

My Google Nexus 7... My... Precious...

Well, after a nice long quest, I finally have my Google Nexus Tablet in hand. Woot!

I'd like to thank Google's Shipping Department (my receipt says "Shipped 7/11/12", UPS knew of the shipping label being printed on 7/12/12, but UPS didn't receive the package until 7/15/12 - The UPS Shipping Saga has been told already on G+) and the fine folks at UPS for making this a much more complicated and lengthy process than it needed to be. Well done!

First impressions:

Noticeably lighter than the Kindle Fire, it's closest competitor by price (blows the Fire away by feature)

Video playback is very nice - seems smoother than the Kindle Fire, but I haven't run the same video side by side at this point to confirm.

The built in ebook reader increases font size in really really small increments. This can be good if you are looking to make small adjustments, but a real PITA if you are looking to move from default to really large font type.

Screen is a fingerprint magnet.

The Nexus 7 feels really nice in the hands. Nice, secure grip type feel.

The Google Now feature is interesting. Weather, NYC Bus schedule for the local stop, a local Argentinean Restaurant I had overlooked complete with Zagat ratings. Like I said, interesting

Already has a system update.

More after playing with it ;)