Do you have a Nexus 7? If you’re reading this website, there’s a good chance that you’re doing so on a Nexus 7, the “cheap” tablet from Google that broke out last year and upset the likes of Amazon and Apple. In fact, since the Nexus 7 was released, the 7-inch tablet market has grown and there are more players than before, yet none of them have managed to match that incredible sweet-spot of pricing and performance. Or at least, not like the Nexus 7 has anyway. I love my Nexus 7, and I use it on a daily basis to do a lot of the things I would have done with my Chromebook or on the PC. I check my e-mail, check the news, read books, read magazines and more on my Nexus 7. We’re sure that you guys out there have found some pretty cool uses for your Nexus 7s.
The price of this Google tablet was perhaps the biggest draw for most of us but, it’s looking like this low price tag might not be doing us any favors in the long run. For some time now, there has been reports of the Nexus 7 getting slower and slower over time, our staff can attest to this and I myself, have noticed my Nexus 7 showing some signs of age. One thing that has always bugged me about the Nexus 7, is the incredibly long time the tablet takes to rotate – is this just me?
Well, there’s word that the cheaper memory used in the Nexus 7 could well be the root cause of these issues, and it’s this memory that’s causing our Nexus 7s to show some signs of premature aging. There are varying reports of just what the issue could be – some of you reading this might have come across them yourselves – some say it’s a definite bug in the memory controller from Samsung, that happens when the internal memory reaches below 3GB. Others report that this is a localized ASUS issue and that the same thing happens on the Transformer line of Android tablets as well. Then there is, of course, the possibility that this is just another long-standing bug in Android itself.
The fact of the matter is that solid-state memory is not built to last, or at least not all of it. Not all solid-state memory is built to last for great lengths of time and the memory used in the Nexus 7 could well be only designed to meet a certain price point and not to last for a decent amount of time.
We know that there are smarter people than us out there when it comes to app development, hardware, specs etc etc. So, what I’d like to do is ask the audience, I want users Nexus 7 users, ASUS Transformer users (I’d like specifically those of the Prime, Infinity and TF300 variety, please) to shout out in the comments. Tell us whether you think it’s the memory controller from Samsung, if it’s an ASUS issue, an Nvidia problem or just an Android bug. That way, we can see what the most common cause of this problem could be. Also, shout out in the comments if you have a fix – even if it’s a placebo – we’d love to hear from you.