The 2012 Nexus 7, the old Nexus 7, is riding off into the sunset. After a good year of life, Google has announced a new Nexus 7 that has already replaced the older model on the Google Play Store and will be replacing the original on the shelves of retailers across the country. I’ve owned the old Nexus 7 for a little over a year now, and in the wake of the new model, it’s time to take a look at my Nexus 7 experience after one year.
In June of 2012, Google executives took the stage and announced two products that we already knew were coming. In addition to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the company revealed the Nexus 7, a 7-inch tablet that would be sold through the Google Play Store and would be sold for cheap, $ 199 cheap. I was intrigued, along with thousands of others.

The Nexus 7 will soon be replaced by the new Nexus 7.
While my experience with the Verizon Galaxy Nexus left a poor taste in my mouth, this tablet had nothing to do with Verizon. It was a cheap, Wi-Fi only tablet, that I felt would fit perfectly into my arsenal of devices which at the time included an iPhone 3GS, Galaxy Nexus and iPad 3. So, like many others, I bought Google’s new 7-inch tablet.
There was no question about which one I was going to get because I knew that 8GB of storage, without a microSD card slot, would be impossible to manage. I planned to outfit my tablet with games, movies and books that would help occupy my time at night and during travel. Several weeks later, my Nexus 7 arrived on my doorstep and I was thrilled.
Since that day, I’ve been a Nexus 7 owner for better or worse. And with the new Nexus 7 set to arrive on July 30th, it’s time to take a look back at my experience with the Asus-made 2012 Nexus 7 over the past year.
Android 4.1 Era
I had been a strict iPhone owner up until the Samsung Galaxy Nexus’ arrival in December of 2011. However, the allure of the Verizon Galaxy Nexus proved to be too hard to resist and I waltzed into a local Verizon store on launch day and bought one for well over $ 300, something that I regret to this day.
I bring this up because almost immediately, the Verizon Galaxy Nexus crushed my dreams. While I had hoped for the perfect Nexus experience, I was instead was left with a device that was all hype. I found out later that the Verizon Galaxy Nexus wasn’t actually a Nexus, it just so happened to have the Nexus name.
So when the Nexus 7 was announced, I probably wasn’t as thrilled as I would have been if I hadn’t have picked up the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. Still, to me, it appeared to be the best Android tablet to date and so I gambled, thinking that there was no possible way that the experience could be any worse than the Galaxy Nexus’.
And for the first part of my year with the Nexus 7, it was night and day. The Nexus 7 was a constant companion of mine (and my girlfriend’s) during travel and at night. So, exactly how I planned it.
Games, books, the web, all of it looked fantastic on the Nexus 7′s display and the quad-core Tegra 3 processor handled Android 4.1, multitasking and gaming like a dream. In fact, there was fairly big stretch where I found myself using my Nexus 7 way more than my iPad 3. Money well spent, I kept telling myself.
And then along came autumn.
Android 4.2 Era
In September, I decided to replace my iPhone 3GS with the iPhone 5, something that kept me in Apple’s ecosystem. Equipped with an iPad 3, iPhone 5 and MacBook Air, I was and still am able to seamlessly move around my devices, something that makes my workflow and life a lot easier.
That said, I continued to use my Nexus 7 and didn’t even flinch when the iPad mini was announced. Yes, it was tempting but without a Retina Display and given how much I liked my Nexus 7, it was a simple decision, holding onto $ 300 or so dollars.

The horror. The horror.