Google Nexus 10 - Tablet -

Google Nexus 10 

What is the Google Nexus 10

Tired of cheap and nasty tablets undermining the Android platform, Google has decided to take matters into its own hands and created two Android tablets, the Google Nexus 10 we'll be examining here, and the Nexus 7, that provide the same level of user experience and Apple owners have come to expect from the likes of the iPad 4.

The Nexus 10 may have Google's branding but it is actually manufactured by Samsung, a company with a strong pedigree in Android phone and tablet manufacturing. It is the flagship model in Google's Nexus range, and is designed to show off Android in the most stylish way possible. To take on the might of Apple, and to ensure other Androind tablet manufacturers up their game, it’s the biggest and best-equipped Android tablet we’ve yet seen. The Nexus 10 is even priced at around £100 less than its comparable iPad 4 model, that's around 20% cheaper.

Packing a better-than-HD display, a high performance CPU and the latest Android version - 4.2 Jelly Bean, can the Google Nexus 10 end the iPad’s dominance?

Google Nexus 10 - Design

First impressions of the Nexus 10 are quite positive. Overall build quality is very good, although some may find that the rubber finish on the back doesn’t quite lend it the design kudos as its metal bodied rivals. It still feels robust enough to be manhandled, prodded and poked on a daily basis, but overall build quality isn’t quite in the same class as the metal-bodied iPad 4 or Asus Transformer Pad Infinity. It’s not all bad though because the rubber finish is extremely tactile and offers excellent grip. On colder days, it’s also warmer to hold.

Likewise, while the Nexus 10 is rigid enough and doesn’t bend or flex should you exert a bit of pressure on it – not that any sane person would actually try and do this to their tablet. That said, prodding the back of the tablet with a finger does reveal a millimetre or so of give in the rubber, along with the odd audible creak. Again, this isn’t necessarily something you’ll notice unless you purposely go looking for it. Perhaps more of a concern for most users, assuming you haven’t bought a case to go with it, is that the rubberised back is prone to picking up dirty marks from greasy fingers, which can be slightly awkward to clean off. On the plus side the rubberised back of the Nexus 10 is much less likely to pick up scratches – something metal-backed tablets are much more prone to.


The front of the Nexus 10 is covered with a sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass 2, thereby protecting the screen from accidental scratches. You’re free to buy a screen protector of course, but in our experience Corning Glass 2 is pretty tough stuff and renders this somewhat unnecessary. A protective case is still a good investment if you plan to be carrying your tablet inside a bag though. In use, not only does the screen feel especially silky to the touch, it also appears to have had some kind of oleophobic coating applied – even after a long session of typing and swiping the screen on our review unit still manages to look pretty clean. Not by any means spotless, but noticeably cleaner than the screen on our Transformer Prime does after a similar amount of use.

Thanks to its curved sides, rounded corners and front-facing speakers that bookmark both sides of the screen the Nexus 10 does a pretty neat job of distinguishing itself from the myriad of Android tablets already on the market. There’s also quite a bit of symmetry between the Nexus 10 and its 7-inch stable mate, the Nexus 7. Indeed, it appears that Google has a few design principles it’s keen to extend across its Nexus range – or at least it’s Nexus tablet range – the tactile rubber finish and bold ‘Nexus’ branding being two areas where the Nexus 10 follows the lead of the Nexus 7 (the Nexus 4 with its glass-covered back does admittedly tread a different path in this respect).


In terms of shape and size, the Nexus 10 is much more rectangular than the squarer iPad thanks to the 16:10 aspect ratio of its screen – something that’s common to all 10-inch Android tablets. Because of this the Nexus 10 is much more comfortable to hold and use in landscape orientation – held in portrait mode it feels a bit long and thin and isn’t nearly as comfortable to hold for extended periods of time. There's no right or wrong with respect to shape, but ultimately the 4:3 aspect of the iPad is better suited to reading websites and eBooks in portrait mode, while the 16:10 aspect of the Nexus 10 is better suited to watching video content and playing games in landscape mode.

With regards to its Android tablet rivals perhaps the most distinguishing feature of the Nexus 10 is the shape of the bezel that surrounds the screen. Whereas the vast majority of Android tablets come with straight edges and relatively sharp corners, the Nexus 10’s sides are noticeably convex while the corners are much more rounded. It’s all down to individual taste, of course, and while some might contend that the bulging sides and softly rounded corners give the Nexus 10 a bit of a 'toy tablet' appearance, we actually rather like the fact that Google has opted to tread a slightly different path.



In any case, it’s worth noting that the Nexus 10’s curves don’t actually look as pronounced when the tablet is in your hands as they do in photographs of the tablet. Besides which, there are actually some practical benefits to the accentuated curves; when holding the Nexus 10 two-handed in landscape mode – as most users probably will be 95% of the time – the rounded edges sit really nicely in the palm of the hand, making the Nexus 10 more comfortable to hold than say, any of the current Asus Transformer range or indeed the iPad 4. At just 603g, the Nexus 10 is also 50g lighter than the iPad 4. This might not sound like much on paper, but in your hands the difference is noticeable.

Google Nexus 10 - Display

One of the Nexus 10’s biggest selling points is that, at 2560 x 1600 pixels, it offers the highest resolution screen of any tablet currently on the market. Expressed in pixels-per-inch terms the Nexus 10 delivers a razor sharp 300dpi – slightly higher than the 264ppi offered by its nearest rival, the 2048 x 1536-pixel iPad 4. While the Nexus 10 wins out on paper, we should point out that in actual use the difference in sharpness and detail between the rival tablets is all but non-existent with both screens scoring an easy 10/10 in this respect. 


The Nexus 10's display is so sharp even the text under the app tiles pops out of the screen.

While Apple claims that you’ll be unable to discern individual pixels on the iPad 4’s so-called ‘Retina’ screen, exactly the same thing can be said of the Nexus 10. Text is especially crisp, which makes browsing web pages or reading eBooks and eZines much easier on the eyes – make no mistake, as far as tablets go the Nexus 10 delivers a peerless reading experience. Individual characters and words remain distinct even when you’ve zoomed right out and text size has been minimised. As ever, there are a few caveats though, which is to say the Nexus 10’s gorgeous screen can make apps that haven’t been optimised for HD look pretty rough around the edges. Low-res images on the web also look pretty ropey, as does standard definition TV channels when viewed through apps such as TVCatchup. This is hardly the fault of the Nexus 10 though, and no doubt the situation will improve over time as more HD tablets are sold and more website/app developers cater more specifically for them.


Reading websites or eBooks is easy on the eye, thanks to the crisp text displayed by the Nexus 10.

So then, aside from sharpness and detail, how does the Nexus 10’s display fare in other respects? Well with our Nexus 10 review sample placed side-by-side with a Retina iPad we were able to spot a number of subtle differences between the two displays, most notably in terms of saturation, contrast and colour temperature. We’ll list our observations in more detail in a moment, but for now the bottom line is that the Nexus 10’s screen is probably the best we’ve yet seen in a tablet. 


The display offers good levels of colour saturation and contrast, without overdoing things.

After about an hour of comparing web pages, graphics-intensive games and professional-grade photographs from the 500px.com website we found that we preferred the Nexus 10’s display to that of the iPad 4. Not by much, but just enough to declare it the winner. The main difference between the two displays is that the Nexus 10’s screen offers much more accurate white balance; in other words whites are whiter and colour temperature is more accurate, if a tad on the warm side. The iPad’s screen, for all its undisputed excellence, has a slightly pink hue about it and while you won’t necessarily notice this using the iPad on its own, place it next to a Nexus 10 and you’ll spot it immediately. This pink hue is especially noticeable on plain white web or eBook pages, while black and white photographs also take on a slight magenta cast. The Nexus 10 by comparison is much more faithful, and also reproduces skin tones much more accurately.


HD movie content (left) is sharp with excellent skin tones, but standard def (right) can look a bit iffy. 

Google’s device doesn’t quite have it all its own way though. The iPad’s display does offer more colour saturation, and also reproduces greens and blues more accurately – the latter having a fairly big impact on the reproduction of blue skies in photos or movies. The iPad’s screen also offers a shade more contrast than the Nexus 10’s does. That’s not to say that the Nexus 10’s screen is lacking in either colour saturation or contrast – on the contrary, it delivers both in abundance, just not quite to the same degree as the iPad does. 

Graphics intensive 3D games like Dead Trigger look fantastic on the Nexus 10.

Of course, at this point you might well be asking why we didn’t prefer the iPad’s screen overall then, and the simple answer to this is that we found the iPad’s slight pink hue to be ever so slightly more distracting overall than the Nexus 10’s slightly more muted colour palette. Like we said, we’re talking really small margins here – both displays are excellent in their own right.

Google Nexus 10 - Interface and Usability

The Nexus 10 comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.2 preinstalled (which is immediately upgradeable to 4.2.1). There’s lots that’s good about the latest version; multiple user logins, a sleek notifications system and super slick operation. Unfortunately though, Android’s traditional Achilles heel – namely, OS stability – does appear to be something of an issue again. While 99% of the time everything runs super smoothly with no problems at all, we found that our review unit had a tendency to freeze and/or perform random reboots from time to time. The pattern of these reboots appeared to be completely random; sometimes we’d experience several in a single session of use, while at other times the tablet would run absolutely fine for a full day or two. 


Not the most exciting screen grab we grant you, but one that shows the Android version and more.

The freezes/random reboots are frustrating to say the least, because when Jelly Bean 4.2.1 works it works really well. As a more flexible and open operating system Android offers a number of key advantages over iOS – at least for those tech-savvy users who want to make use of them. This includes (but is certainly not limited to) the ability to ascribe live news feeds, weather forecasts and other similarly helpful ‘widgets’ to your five home screens, which means you can see at a glance what iPad users have to open a specific app for - and here on a large screen widgets really do come into their own. When things go wrong though and your tablet freezes you may well find yourself pining for the reliability of Apple’s simpler, but ultimately more reliable iOS.

With regards to our Nexus 10, initially we thought that perhaps we’d just been unlucky and received a malfunctioning device, however a quick trawl of the internet quickly revealed that we’re far from the only ones to have experienced such issues with a Nexus 10 running Jelly Bean 4.2.1. Indeed, freezes/random reboots appear to be a fairly widely reported problem with the latest Android build. We should, of course, point out that the root of the problem appears to be software related, rather than something that’s caused by any substandard or faulty hardware in the Nexus 10 itself. In this case it’s to be hoped that Google is working on a patch that will sort the problem of random reboots out once and for all. 


The Quick Menu can be accessed by swiping down from the top right-hand edge of the screen. 

The good news in this respect is that, being a vanilla Android device (that is to say, one that’s not skinned with any kind of third-party user interface), the Nexus 10 is able to receive system updates as soon as they become available. While this is undoubtedly a good thing for those eager to keep up with latest Android build, it does mean that purchasers of the Nexus 10 won’t find any extra apps preinstalled on their devices beyond the standard Google spread. That said, it’s not a bad collection of apps, and you’ll find everything you need from email clients, to calendars and calculators to get started with. 

As with Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) before it you get three dedicated soft buttons – the Back button, the Home-screen button and the Multitasking button. While these three buttons were found on the bottom left-hand-side of the screen in ICS, Jelly Bean relocates them to the middle of the baseline. It certainly looks a bit neater, although any ICS users who’ve grown used to using their left thumb to do the lion’s share of soft button pressing will find that the new layout requires you to take a hand off the tablet to reach any of them. 


When it's not misbehaving the Nexus 10 scores quite highly on benchmark tests such as AnTuTu.

In addition to relocating the soft buttons there are a number of practical enhancements that Jelly Bean enjoys over its predecessor. Chief among these is the ability to run multiple user accounts on one tablet. Once you’ve set everything up (via the Users option in the Settings menu) you simply choose your identity from the lock screen, enter your passcode – assuming you’ve applied one – and the tablet will automatically take you to your home screen complete with all your own apps and accounts. If you’re looking for a tablet that all the family can share, then the Nexus 10 ticks all the boxes in this respect. 

Another big difference between Jelly Bean and ICS is the application of ‘Project Butter’ – so-called because it aims to make the user experience that much smoother. Putting the aforementioned freezing/rebooting issues to one side for a moment, it’s certainly the case that Jelly Bean 4.2.1 feels just that a little bit slicker and faster than ICS did. For a start, there’s no stuttering or lag when switching between homepages or tasks, or when running multiple applications – with its dual-core 1.7GHz ARM Cortex A15 processor and 2GB of RAM the Nexus 10 makes light work of pretty much anything you care to throw at it. In addition to an overall speed boost, animations and transitions seem a bit smoother too. Like we said already, when Jelly Bean 4.2.1 works it works very well indeed.


Likewise, the Epic Citadel benchmark test also gives the Nexus 10 a big thumbs up.

There’s also a new notifications system, which is found on the top left of the screen and activated by swiping down from that point of the screen. This provides live notifications of everything from new emails to pending app updates, and is really useful as it allows you to jump directly to your inbox or to whatever app needs updating. In addition, if you’ve just downloaded something – say, for example an image or an MP3 file – you can use the notifications bar to quickly find it and open it. Over on the top left-hand-side of the screen, meanwhile, you’ll find the pull-down Quick Menu, which is also activated via a vertical swipe. Here you can easily manage a number of regular settings, from screen brightness to Wi-Fi settings via Bluetooth and the screen rotation-lock. 

The Nexus 10 has built-in GPS, which allows the Navigation app to guide you to your destination.

Last but by no means least is the addition of Google Now. This can be accessed directly by swiping up from the task bar at the bottom of the screen and, once activated, works on a couple of levels. On the one hand, you can set it to provide live updates and notifications of things that are important to you, be it the state of the traffic on your daily commute or the next match of your favourite football team. These are presented as ‘cards’ on the screen, with all the relevant information succinctly presented within. 

Google Now employs some excellent voice recognition technology and has all sorts of handy uses.

In addition to the cards function, Google Now also offers a text and spoken-word search facility, along with a Siri-like voice command function that gives you a degree of control over the tablet itself. Much like it’s Apple rival this latter feature can be used to open core apps, set alarms, make adjustments to your calendar and even operate the calculator – you’ll have to spend some time talking to your Nexus 10 in order to find out exactly what Google Now is and isn’t capable of doing, but overall it’s undoubtedly pretty smart. The voice recognition technology is particularly impressive, and even when asking deliberately quirky questions we found the supplied results to be consistently accurate.

Google Nexus 10 - Browser

Being a vanilla Android tablet, the Nexus 10 only comes with Google’s own Chrome browser preinstalled, although you can of course download any of the two dozen or so alternatives from the Google Play store. Chrome is pretty slick to use and impressively fast to load web pages too. Indeed, comparing the Nexus 10 side by side with the Transformer Prime, web pages load much, much faster – though to be fair that could well be due to the Prime’s widely documented deficiencies with regards to Wi-Fi and web browsing as much as the Nexus 10’s blazing speed!


The Nexus 10's dual-core ARM Cortex A15 processor makes light work of navigating web pages. 

Once you’ve got a web page open, the usual pinch-to-zoom gestures can be applied and work well with pages scrolling quite smoothly, with only the merest hint of stutter when moving around a fully enlarged page. One feature of Chrome that we rather like is that when trying to tap on a specific link within a cluster of options, the browser automatically opens up a magnified window so as to make it easier to select the right one. Likewise, long-pressing on a link gives you the option to open it in another tab, or to copy/save the link address. Should you want to go incognito, then there’s an option for this too, once activated Chrome won’t store cookies or any other data from the pages you visit in your browser cache.


One area where Android has a big advantage over iOS is that it lets you place 'widgets' like these news readers on your home screens, saving you the trouble of having to open the app itself up.

So far, so good. However Chrome isn’t by any means perfect, and while it is possible to import your Chrome bookmarks from your desktop PC to your Nexus 10, the process can be a bit tricky the first time you try and do it. Go here for a full tutorial on how it’s done. There’s no Flash support in Chrome either, and the latest (indeed final) version of Flash isn’t preinstalled on the Nexus 10 either. It’s not a huge problem though as it’s possible to side-load the final 10.1 build directly from Adobe’s website (remember to check the Unknown Sources box in the Security settings first) and then install a Flash-compatible browser from the Google Play Store – Firefox and Opera being two that support it.

Google Nexus 10 - Apps

Whereas early Android tablets used to come in for a fair bit of stick for both the quantity and quality of apps available to them, the situation has changed quite markedly for the better in the past twelve months or so. Yes, it’s certainly true that the iPad has many more tablet-optimised apps, and for those that primarily intend to use their tablet as a gaming console then the iPad offers many more games than Android does. However with the launch of the revamped Google Play store in the spring of 2012, Android tablet users now not only have an increasingly large and varied selection of apps to choose from, they also have a much more user-friendly place to go and find them. 


The Google Play store had a much needed facelift last year, and is much better stocked now too.

Whether you’re looking for a sophisticated newsreader app or a high definition calendar widget to decorate your home screen with, chances are you’ll find what you want in the Google Play store. In addition to apps, Google Play also offers a very well stocked selection of movies, music, books and magazines. Should you want to, you’re also free to install apps that allow you to browse rival digital stores – for example the Amazon MP3 store, or 7Digital – but as a one-stop shop Google Play is actually pretty good, offering plenty of things to fill your Nexus 10 up with. Speaking of filling things up, it’s worth noting that the Nexus 10 is non-expandable in terms of memory, and with all the operating system files to account for you can expect to have around 27GB left over for your own use on the 32GB model.


Google Currents takes web content and presents it in a magazine-like format that's ideal for tablets.

One further thing to bear in mind that we already alluded to on Page 2 of this review is that the Nexus 10’s high resolution display can make apps that haven’t been optimised for a high-definition tablet screen look pretty ropey. This is especially true of those apps that have been designed specifically for smaller-screen Android smartphones; while the Nexus 10 is perfectly able to re-size them to fit the extra screen space, the end results are akin to something from the PlayStation One in terms of graphical quality.


Taptu enables you to browse all the latest headlines from your favourite news sources in one place.

In terms of performance, the Nexus 10’s dual-core 1.7GHz Cortex A15 processor, Mali T-604 GPU and 2GB of RAM make light work of running apps – even graphics intensive 3D games such as Dead Trigger. One issue we did experience though, is that the back of the tablet can get quite hot along the top, just to the right of the camera/flash where the CPU/GPU is located. This only happens when running CPU/GPU intensive applications – for example the aforementioned Dead Trigger. If you’re just reading your emails or browsing web pages it’s unlikely to be an issue. Searching online we see that this does appear to be something of a known issue. Switching the tablet off or putting it to sleep cools it down pretty quickly, but really we’d prefer it not to get quite so hot in the first place.


Snapseed is a great little app that allows you to spruce up your otherwise drab tablet images with.

Google Nexus 10 - Camera

The Nexus 10 comes fitted with a 5MP camera and LED flash on the back, while a 1.9MP front-facing camera takes care of video calls and suchlike. By way of comparison, the Nexus 10’s rear camera offers exactly the same resolution as the iPad 4, but doesn’t quite match the 8MP camera found on the back of the Transformer Prime Infinity. The Nexus 10’s front-facing camera, meanwhile, is slightly more resolute than the 1.2MP iPad 4’s, but a fraction less so than the 2MP front-facing camera of the Infinity. 

Used at wideangle, the Nexus 10's 5MP camera is capable of grabbing acceptable snapshots. 
Of course, numbers can only tell you so much and the bottom line with regards to the Nexus 10’s cameras is that they’re fine for taking the odd non-critical snapshot or eBay listing image with, but can’t really match a dedicated digital camera for overall image quality. Likewise, it’s also entirely possible that the smartphone in your pocket will take just as good – if not better – a picture than the Nexus 10 will. Image quality isn’t that bad when you’re shooting at wideangle in good light, however the moment you activate the digital zoom, or when used in poor light, image quality takes a big knock in quality. Activating the Nexus 10’s digital zoom to its 4x maximum results in truly terrible image quality, so avoid this altogether if possible.


Use the digital zoom and image quality soon goes downhill. This is 2x – the max is 4x.

In terms of available features, the Nexus 10’s camera is a fairly basic affair; with the standard automatic mode supplemented by an assisted panorama stitch mode (that helps you to stitch a collage of individual images together) along with a one-touch panorama mode where you hold the shutter button while sweeping the tablet in a certain direction. There are no built-in digital effects, although of course there’s no shortage of apps available on Google Play for precisely that sort of thing. Should you want to record HD video footage then you can do this too. Keeping the tablet still produces acceptable results, however should you try and pan across a scene then the end result tends to be quite juddery – even if you move the tablet quite slowly.


The assisted stitch mode is a fun way to create 'high-res' panoramas, but it's not all that accurate.


The one-touch panorama mode is easy to use and gets pretty good results.

Google Nexus 10 - Multimedia

Of course, with such a gorgeous display at its disposal, the burning question for many potential Nexus 10 owners will be how well the tablet handles HD movie playback. The straightforward answer to this is that it’s about as good as it currently gets. Not only does the Nexus 10’s 16:10 screen lend itself particularly well to HD content, it also fizzes with detail, clarity and pop. Colours are bright and lifelike but without being overly saturated, while accurate white balance produces accurate skin tones and neutral whites. Tonality is good too, with the display delivering deep blacks and contrast. 


In addition to being super-sharp, the Nexus 10 produces excellent skin tones. 

In terms of what file types it can handle, there’s definitely some room for improvement on the Nexus 10’s built-in video player, although this is hardly an issue given the number of free players available through Google Play. While the stock video player had no problems with any of the standard definition file types we threw at it (MP4, AVI, WMV, H.264) it struggled with high-definition .MKV files, stuttering horribly though footage encoded at 720p. 

With this in mind, you’ll almost certainly want to experiment with some of the third-party media players available through the Google Play store. Testing playback of our 720p .MKV files we found that the free version of BSPlayer handled it absolutely fine (even at 720p, it looked stunning), while the free MXPlayer yielded yet more stuttering and chop.


This 4K TimeScapes movie looks absolutely stunning when viewed in HD on YouTube.

Should you want to use the Nexus 10 to edit your own movies with then you’ll find the tablet offers a Movie Studio app that’s designed specifically for this. It’s fairly basic mind, so if you want to get more creative beyond sticking bits of footage together and adding transition effects you’ll need to dip your toe into Google Play for something a bit more advanced.

Audio playback is handled well, with the stock Play Music app able to deal with a wide range of audio file formats including MP3, Flac, WAV and WMV among others. Presentation isn’t bad either, with Play Music proving easy enough to use and navigate although options to shape your sound to your own preferences are a bit limited. With this in mind, if you plan on loading your Nexus 10 up with lots of music and using it to stream music around your home hi-fi via Bluetooth (as I personally do with my Transformer Prime) then the Poweramp app ($3.99) is by far the best tool for the job, with advanced tone controls, an eleven-band graphic equaliser and gorgeous presentation.


The stock Play Music music player is ok, but the paid-for Poweramp app is still the one to beat.

Plugging a set of decent headphones into the 3.5mm jack that’s located on the left-hand side of the tablet) yields good results too, with very good clarity and no audible hiss in quieter passages of music. One further area where the Nexus 10 excels – at least in comparison to other tablets on the market – is with its built-in, front-facing speakers. While the sound generated by these is hardly likely to excite serious audio enthusiasts, it’s far better (i.e louder and clearer) than any other tablet, generating a good quality stereo sound that’s surprisingly effective when you’re holding the tablet at arm’s length. 

Nexus 10 - Connectivity

Connectivity options on the Nexus 10 are limited to a micro USB on the left-hand side of the tablet just above the headphone jack, and a micro HDMI jack on the right hand-side. On the bottom of the tablet there’s a six-pin magnetic connector that’s expected to eventually offer docking and charging capabilities, although as yet nothing concrete has been released to fit it. 

Unlike tablets in the Asus Transformer range, there’s no full-size USB, Micro SD or SD card connectivity, which is a bit of a disappointment. That said, with the Nexus 10 being an Android device, getting files on and off the tablet is actually a fairly straightforward process. Better still, you’re not forced to use iTunes either. Simply plug the Nexus 10 into your desktop computer using the supplied USB cable and once your desktop has recognised it you’ll be able to access it as you would a portable hard-drive to drag and drop whatever files you want to transfer. (Note: Mac users will need to install the free Android File Transfer app from Android.com on their desktop before they can do this.) Desktop transfer speeds via USB are actually quite nippy; we timed the transfer of a 400MB movie file at less than 30 seconds, while 1GB of music took less than a minute. 


Using a cheap micro USB to USB connector (inset) and the Nexus Media Importer app allows you connect to external USB devices and transfer files. You can even preview the contents.

Should you have files stored on a USB memory stick or SD card that you want to transfer directly to your Nexus 10 without the intervention of a desktop PC, the good news is that this is possible too. You’ll need two additional items to do it though, at a total cost of around £5. The first of these items is a ‘male micro USB to female USB’ connector – Amazon sells them for around a couple of quid. In addition, you’ll also need the Nexus Media Importer app ($2.99) from Google Play. Once you have both simply plug your USB memory stick/SD card reader into the female end of the connector and the male end into your Nexus 10. Then open up the NMI app and transfer away. 

If you’d prefer to transfer files wirelessly then the Nexus 10 comes with built-in Bluetooth – you’ll find Bluetooth controls in the Quick Menu that can be pulled down from the top-right of the Nexus 10’s screen. In addition, Google has also seen fit to integrate Near Field Communication technology into the Nexus 10. In theory this allows you to share files between two NFC-enabled devices simply by tapping them together. In addition, the technology can also be used to make micro payments with. While NFC is certainly gathering pace, it’s still very much in its infancy in terms of take-up and we have to admit that we were unable to test its effectiveness during the course of this review.


Battery life is really impressive. We managed to get over two days out of our review unit and still had a tiny bit of power to spare.

Nexus 10 - Battery Life

The Nexus 10 is powered by a non-removable 9000mAh Lithium polymer battery. During our time testing the tablet we found that it offers excellent performance. Indeed, in between testing various apps, capturing screen grabs, watching HD movie content, loading and re-loading dozens (if not hundreds) of websites, playing games, using the camera and all other manner of applications we were easily able to get a full day’s use of the tablet on a single charge. Given the power that’s required to light up all those pixels on the Nexus 10’s high-resolution screen this is really quite an achievement on Samsung/Google’s behalf. There are, of course, various ways and means to prolong battery life, such as switching the GPS off, however we’re confident that the majority of users will find that the Nexus 10 offers excellent battery life as is. 



The Google Nexus 10: every bit as good – if not better – than the Apple iPad 4.

Google Nexus 10 - Verdict

There’s no doubting that the Nexus 10 is currently one of the very best tablets on the market. Its gorgeous screen, super-smooth operation and wealth of features combine to produce a tablet that, at last, fully showcases what the Android platform is capable of when applied to tablets. With the improvements to Google Play and the growing number of high quality Android-specific apps finding great applications to run on the Nexus 10 is no longer the issue that it once was either. 

And so to the burning question: is the Nexus 10 as good as the iPad 4? In our opinion it most certainly is. Indeed, in many ways, it’s even better. While the freezing/random reboot issue currently affecting some Jelly Bean 4.2.1 users does admittedly take a little bit of the gloss off what is otherwise a super-slick and richly featured operating system, we fully expect Google to sort the issue out with a forthcoming software update. In the meantime, the Nexus 10 remains a fantastic tablet to interact with and to consume digital media on. Indeed, it could even be argued that Apple has quite a bit of catching up to do.


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