Around week ago courier brought me Nexus 7 tablet (32GB, wifi only) as kind of upgrade to my Archos G9 80 ‘so called’ Turbo one.
First steps
Charged a bit, booted into Android 4.2 and was greeted by “upgrade to 4.2.2 is possible” soon after wifi connection. But decided to go my way instead ;)
Fetched Clockworkmod touch recovery, CyanogenMod 10.1 nightly image and Google Apps 4.2.2 pack and booted into bootloader. Quick ‘OEM unlock’, flash of new recovery and few minutes later I had CM 10.1 running just like I wanted.
Restored apps from Archos with use of TitaniumBackup and after some configuration I had tablet which responds fast and behaves properly.
Multiuser stuff
As my daughter was main user of Archos I waited for Android 4.2 to get multi user capabilities. Played a bit with them on G9 (with Paranoid Android installation) but 512MB ram and OMAP4430 gave my terrible experience with far too many moments when I wanted to crush tablet into pieces…
So when Mira had come from kindergarten I shown her Nexus 7, made a photo with internal ‘want to be a camera’ thing and gave instructions on how to turn device on and switch to her configuration. She had no problems with understanding it ;)
There are some issues with multiuser stuff. Each user is expected to have Google account, applications are not shared etc. I understand why but in my case it was annoying.
But there is Multi-User App Share app which allows to share applications with different users. So Mira has all her children apps and games available and is not able to spend real money on in-app payments due to lack of Google account (and credit card). I was able to remove them from my configuration as well.
Sharing files is more complicated as so far I did not check is there a shared space for them. So each of us has own music/movies.
Do I miss something?
There are few things which Archos G9 80 has and Nexus does not:
- HDMI output
- microSD slot
- USB Host port
I may miss video output sometimes but had not used it for over half a year now. MicroSD would be nice so I would not have to buy 32GB version. But ~20% of tablet (50$) was sponsored by Tizen ;)
And by USB Host port I mean normal EHCI host port. Not an OTG one present in Nexus 7.
But I do not miss crazy upgrade scheme invented by Archos. Also do not miss I Scream for Sandwitch version of Android they offered. We have XXI century and their upgrade path is from previous millenium.
Complains?
So far I did not find something to complain about. OK, screen could be more square (4:3 Archos, 16:10 Nexus) but it is fine for me. Ask me in few months ;)