My First Non-Kindle Tablet: The Nexus 7!

Despite working in the technology field for the past 15 years or so, I'm admittedly a slow adopter of new technology.  I love my tech toys, don't get me wrong, but you'll never catch me waiting in line at midnight at an Apple store (or any other retail outlet for that matter) forking over big coin to play beta tester just so I can say I had something first.

I've had my eye on Tablets for some time, but I refuse to be Glen, the guy from THE WEDDING SINGER, bringing home his $500.00 CD player simply because it was a shiny new toy he couldn't live without, even though he had no real use for it.  I don't NEED a tablet.  I have been content to sit back with my Kindle, my PC and my smart phone and watch everyone buy their $800 iPads, only to turn around and get pissed off when the new, improved model comes out a year later.

Well, I've waited long enough.  After much deliberation, I finally went out and bought my first Tablet this week...a Nexus 7!

I've been reading about the Nexus 7 for quite a while now and I had high hopes for it.  I love my Android phone and the Samsung Galaxy Tabs were (and are) really nice, but as I said before, I just couldn't justify spending the money on a tablet.  That's why the deciding factor for me with the Nexus 7 was the price...just $249.00 for the 16 GB model.  Awesome!

I had a bit of trouble finding one.  It seems everyone and their brother went out and bought one when it was released.  I went from store to store for weeks trying to find it in stock, but every place was sold out.  It reminded me of the old days, before the Internet and eBay of hunting from store to store for certain comic books or toys from a wave of action figures.  It was both exciting and frustrating!

Finally I happened to go to Microcenter and the manager suggested I check the website on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for inventory and then do a store pickup option.  I checked Monday and there was nothing, but Wednesday I hit the jackpot!  By Wednesday afternoon, the Nexus 7 was mine!

So far, I love it.  The display is beautiful.  It's fast and responsive.  It has great battery life.  It doesn't run too hot.  It's sturdy and not cheaply constructed.  As with all Android devices, it has tons of cool apps and games available for it.  AND, it came with $25.00 in Google Play money to buy new premium content!  What's not to love?


It's great, but don't get me wrong...it's not perfect.  I started writing this post using the Android BLOGGER app, but I was getting frustrated with their picture integration, so I decided to finish the post on my PC.  Now that I'm an early adopter of the Nexus 7, I have no doubt the Nexus 7 2.0 will feature a better Blogger app to go along with more memory, a rear facing camera, more storage and an SD Card slot. 

Unlike the $800.00 iPad, though, if a newer, better Nexus 7 comes out in a year, I'll actually be able to afford an upgrade.

I'm hoping to use it to get organized at work.  There seem to be a ton of productivity apps, so I've been testing them out, looking for the best ones.  If you have any suggestions for great apps, productivity or otherwise, please e-mail me or post them in the comments!

15 Useful Free Android Apps and Resources For Writers

According to Google, 500,000 new Android devices are being activated daily. Android phones are amazing pieces of technology with an even more amazing selection of games, widgets and applications at their disposal.

If you're a writer with an Android device, you can put your Droid to work for you! Here are 15 great, free Android applications and resources to help you increase your productivity and achieve your writing goals.

15. Tweetdeck (Twitter) - Promoting your writing online? Manage all of your social media accounts from one convenient app. Tweetdeck features the ability to post from multiple Twitter accounts as well as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz and Foursquare. Very convenient for the self-promoting writer on the go!

14. WikiRhymer.com - Writing poetry, rapping or songwriting? This isn't an app, per se, but it is a very nicely formatted website you should bookmark on your Android web browser. If you need a rhyming word, you'll find it here in one convenient easy to read, easy to search location.

13. Diaro (Itesta) - Writers should keep a diary or a journal for their memoirs after they become rich and famous, right? Diaro is a free, password protected journal that supports multiple languages and multiple social networks if you feel like sharing your innermost secrets with the world.

12. Fact Book (Urbian) - Fact Book puts the world at your fingertips. Thousands of facts and statistics using data from the CIA World Fact Book and from the United Nations for every country and region in the world. A great, free informational resource.

11. Stopwatch and Timer (SportsTrackLive.com) - Need to block your writing time?Need to bill a client by the hour? This free Stopwatch and Timer is simple, straightforward and elegant for all your time tracking needs.

10. Kindle (Amazon) - No Kindle required! Amazon's free Kindle app for Android devices lets you read ebooks anywhere. Everyone knows that to be a good writer, you need to be an avid reader. Kindle makes it easy!

9. Inspirational Quotes (AppFlute) - Feeling stuck? Feeling down? Don't feel like writing today? Every writer needs a little motivation at some point. Browse hundreds of inspirational, motivational sayings by famous people to help motivate you to get back on that writing horse!

8. Urban Dictionary (Tim Clark) - The best free urban dictionary for android devices (for mature audiences only). Look up urban terminology from a growing, user generated repository of modern slang. Features word of the day, random words, word sharing and the ability to star and bookmark words.

7. Quickpedia (Next Mobile Web) - Voted one of the "Top 9 Google Android Apps" by CNET, Quickpedia searches Wikipedia articles and downloads the content to your devide so you can easily do research on the go. Optimized for easy viewing on small screens. E-mail entries to yourself or others, even with a non-Gmail account.

6. Advanced English & Thesaurus (Mobile System) - Features 140,000 entries covering 1.4 million words. Possibly the most comprehensive free dictionary and thesaurus on the Android platform. Very useful.

5. Cam Scanner -Phone PDF Creator (IntSig Information Co. LTD) - Scan documents, text, images, white board writing, notes -- just about anything, convert it to a .PDF and e-mail it to yourself for later reference. James Bond would be proud!

4. Spell Checker +Voice Free (AndroidSX) - The #1, most popular spell checker for Android with over 1 million downloads. Self exp... Self expla... *looks it up* Self explanatory!

3. Tape-A-Talk Voice Recorder (Markus Drosser) - Record your ideas on the road, in your car or anywhere else that isn't a movie theater, library or monastery. Records even with the phone display off and stores the .wav files on your SD card. Make high or low quality recordings and upload them via FTP!

2. Google Docs (Google) - A must have app for writing on the go. Create, edit, upload and share your documents. Makes collaborating easy! You can even take a photo of printed text and instantly convert it to Google Docs format. Every writer should have this.

1. Evernote (Evernote) - The mother of all free writing apps, Evernote allows you to take notes anywhere, clip text and images from websites and sync the information with your PC, Mac and mobile devices. Never lose or forget anything again! Once you start using Evernote, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it!

There you have it -- 15 useful, free android applications and resources for writers. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and write something great!