Google Nexus 7 32GB Tablet w/4G & Wi-Fi Price: $132.99 Shipping Options:: $5 Standard Shipping Estimates: Ships in 3-5 business days. (Friday, Jan 09 to Wednesday, Jan 14) + transit Condition: New
If it’s like most other Android tablets, then yes. It might not include the phone software and not have the functionality to be a phone, but you can install Android software to turn into a phone just like the other phones have, and use it as a speaker phone or use a headset. It might take a little bit of research on how to do it, but its possible. Or you can just root it and install a ROM that already has all of it pre-loaded.
You’ll be OK if you update this first-gen model to Kit Kat, but the update to Lollipop is so bad that Google offered instructions to roll it back to Kit Kat. Take Google’s hint – you really don’t want to update this to Lollipop.
I think it’s more stable now since 5.0.2 was released. 5.0 was horrible, and though 5.0.1 was pushed to most other devices, the Nexus 7 was skipped till 5.0.2 which has a huge amount of bug fixes for the Nexus 7 (and 9 I believe).
Hmm, that one I would check into more before buying (maybe woot can answer this?). The specs says a GSM sim card which would be AT&T and T-Mobile, but I have seen other 4G tablets (Lenovo) that says the same thing (GSM sim card) and does work with Verizon’s 4G SIM cards. Verizon does sell the Nexus 7, but then again, getting a GSM phone like the Samsung Galaxy line to work with other networks are sketchy, thus why the Samsungs have a different model number for each carrier.
Edit: After searching around, it looks like the first gen (the one being sold here) will not work with Verizon. They added the chip to work with Verizon on the second gen one. (Nexus 7 2013). This one is slower and has lower graphics than the second gen one has.
Got my son a 1st generation Nexus 7 like this 2 years ago and it’s still going strong. My daughter got a newer Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8" tablet a couple of weeks ago and the Nexus 7 in some ways still performs better - overall smoother & more fluid operation with less stuttering and lagging. This 1st gen Nexus 7 may be getting a little long in the tooth these days but for surfing the web, email, light gaming (Angry Birds & the like), netflix, and such it’s still not a bad choice.
No, you can use other companies plans as long as you have a GSM sim card. Simple Mobile and Straight Talk I know offer data plans as well (SM uses the T-Mobile Network while ST uses the AT&T network). If all she is doing is web surfing and facebooking she probably doesn’t need anything more than a 2GB plan. Speaking from experience, Simple Mobile tends to have better valued plans and faster speeds but their coverage is not as good as Straight Talk so there is a tradeoff. Since you said your mom lives in the middle of nowhere ST may be the way to go, though you should check to see if she’d have decent coverage as well.
I have both generations of Nexus 7, albeit neither of my tablets have mobile data, just WiFi. I need to take issue with the assertion that the earlier generation has horrid resolution compared to the 2nd generation. Yes, it’s inferior, and if you do a side-by-side comparison you can tell the difference, but it’s more than good enough for a 7" tablet - no impact on watching normal YouTube videos, for example.
My biggest problems with the 1st gen model have been:
After upgrading the OS to KitKat, I experienced very significant slowdowns to the point of vitual unusability. I was able to improve the situation when I did a factory reset, but that came with the cost of having to reload the data I had put on the device.
The battery life at this point, 2 1/2 years after purchase, is so low that it’s not really feasible to take it out of the house without an external battery pack - it can’t make it through the day.
Strongly recommend staying away from this. I have a wifi 32gb 2012 nexus 7 and it’s a disaster. After being wiped it runs okay for a little bit, but after a few months it starts really slowing down, eventually becoming difficult to use. The way google does its updates means you never know when you’re going to get the next update (there are many 2012 users who still haven’t gotten lollipop, which is good because lollipop severely slows down the 2012 version, supposedly 5.0.2 fixes those problems but you could be waiting months for it.) Yes you can flash the ota updates, but that involves figuring android studio and adb which is all a gigantic pain in the rear.
There are a variety of recommended ways to improve the speed and responsiveness which all involve rooting (changing the disk system to f2fs seems the most popular). If you’re up for that then you can probably make this tablet work, but avoid like the plague otherwise.
![[Preview 1]](http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/83153a95-f21a-404a-988e-87c5366443b9.jpg){kind=link}
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![[Preview 3]](http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/8bd392ae-004e-4ead-ac2a-eb5537dbdc2c.jpg){kind=link}
![[Preview 4]](http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/d4f4af25-1a0c-47b2-8a99-235eb89d8673.jpg){kind=link}
