Google Nexus 7 Review

The name "Nexus 7 with mobile data" is a clunky mouthful, but it's perfectly appropriate — this tablet is the Nexus 7 with a little bit of connectivity grafted onto it. This tablet is exactly, utterly the same as the tablet we reviewed in June, save for a tiny cut-out rectangle about a third of the way up the left side. Poke a SIM tool or paper clip into the small hole in the cut-out, and out pops a SIM card tray. Pop in an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM card, and you're off and running. The whole thing is so well camoflauged that you might never notice it's there, even feeling along the side with your fingers.

it's a really solid device. (I bought one myself, and love it.) Its soft-touch back is comfortable to hold, and everything from text to movies look good on the 7-inch, 16:10, 1280 x 800 display. The design is great for reading in portrait, and for turning on its side for watching movies — personally, I prefer the form factor to the iPad mini. It's a little thick and heavy, especially compared to the iPad mini, but it's still really usable in one hand. Its Tegra 3 processor is fast, and Android 4.1 (since upgraded to 4.2) is a reliable and mature operating system.
The Nexus 7's problems make the jump to the new model as well. There are limited storage options (only up to 32GB), the Play Store doesn't have the depth or breadth of content some of the App Store, and most of all there are still far too few good apps for Android tablets.

The HSPA+ connection makes the Nexus 7 Mobile feel more like a portable device than any other tablet I've used — including the Nexus 7. Same goes for the iPad with LTE, or Verizon's Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. With no connection, your tablet is only as good as the last time you synced it, but these always-on models are great for streaming music, quick Google Maps lookups.

Final Review:

All of this is to say that if you're thinking about buying a tablet, you're still probably best off with an iPad. But if you're sold on a Nexus 7, I can't think of a good reason not to buy it with mobile data. I recommend buying the cellular version of any tablet, actually, but it's an even easier sell on this device. The deciding factor with other tablets is price: you pay a $130 premium on the iPad for LTE connectivity, and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 is only available for $399.99 from Verizon. At $299, the Nexus 7 costs only $50 more for the HSPA+ model — it's $100 more than the entry-level model, but you also get 32GB of storage instead of 16.