The Verge:
There are countless tablets available for purchase today, and we’ve surveyed all of the models you might come across in your local electronics store or on Amazon’s virtual shelves. It’s almost a tie for first place, but not quite.
Obviously, this doesn’t surprise anyone at The Loop but take a look at The Verge’s third choice. Their description of the Asus Nexus 7 doesn’t seem to warrant its score.
My guess is that the Asus was installed in 3rd place for one main reason:
$229.
Because it’s Googles’ brand. They need it to satisfy their base otherwise they’d have a riot on their hands.
I wouldn’t disagree but giving it a score of 9 seems “generous”.
Hey, the dart lands where the dart lands.
I’ve got friends who still regularly use their Nexus 7 tablets more than a year after purchase. I can’t say the same for any other non-apple tablet. If Apple products aren’t an option, I’d say that’s still probably the best choice.
I assume they got an extra +2 or so for the “not Apple” feature that their readers love so much.
Right, but the problem is the score. That score says that the iPad is only 3 parts per 100 better. And with that explanation?
Keep in mind that while the blurbs are new to each “This is My Next” article, the scores themselves come from their original reviews on the site. In the case of the 2013 Nexus 7, here:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/26/4558626/google-nexus-7-review-2013
And that was, of course, written in July of 2013, when that model first came out. They’re likely conceding that it’s starting to get a little long in the tooth in August of 2014– purely in terms of annual upgrade cycles, of course.
The reviews are not all dated at the same time; this article is merely a curated and aggregated collection of what they think you should buy. Their score for the Nexus 7 is from four months before the iPad Air was even announced.
Pretty sad for the competition that two tablets that will probably be phased out in October are still better than anything else out there.
They probably had to give something else a decently competitive score in order to not be written off as “Apple sheep” propaganda, even though in reality nothing else is close to a 9 if the iPad Air and Mini are each 9.3.
That makes sense, though they are showing the scores way too prominently on the aggregation.
I agree, it’s confusing and they usually don’t take dates into account with these lists. But people are fascinated by and crave graded reviews, for some reason.
I bet the comments section of that article are all really well-thought-out and highly-informed.
Do people actually trust The Verge for quality reviews? I do not understand the appeal of that site.
They must be. A pig just flew out of my fat ass.
Ow
And you commenters try to deny your Apple fanboys. Your just as bad as the android fanboys. Theverge commenters always say that theverge is biased for Apple because they get the highest score. Meanwhile, you’re here saying that the android score WASN’T LOW ENOUGH FOR YOUR SATISFACTION. If we substract 2 to the score per your suggestion, it becomes WORSE THAN THE KINDLE FIRE.
Yes, there are indeed foolish people everywhere.
Hey, here’s reality: The text is extremely negative. The score is 9/10. You don’t have a problem with, basically, every review ever posted to The Verge because of that?
+2 is is a joke. I have no idea what the score should be. Generally, when a review is extremely negative I expect it to be less than 5/10.
What exactly is The Verge’s average rating for reviews over its history?
I’m not calling them out for rating this tablet so highly in isolation. I’m calling them out for having no review standards or common sense anywhere. I don’t believe their reviews on anything, and that definitely includes Apple products. Just because a crappy publication might say something I agree with once doesn’t mean they’re not a crappy publication.
As I write this, the numeric scores on The Verge’s current first page of reviews are: 8.4, 6.2, 5.7, 5.9, 8.0. Surely not all five things are really above average?
The Verge: “Google’s Nexus 7 is a solid option for a smaller tablet, offering a good, high-resolution display, fast performance, and good build quality. It can also be found for quite cheap (about half the price of the iPad mini) if you shop around. But it’s been on the market for over a year and has more software issues than the iPad mini, while having fewer actual tablet apps available for it.”
or to summarize
“Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Old. Less Apps. More bugs.”
That’s not an “extremely negative” review unless you didn’t actually read it. Also, they most likely use the school grading system of 70% is average. Not everyone has to conform to your 50% is average grading system.
That was quite a bit more rational and was actually polite, thank you. Though I still disagree.
It’s a great tablet. 3rd place is fair.