The Sword and Laser discussion
Nexus 7 preorder rant ...
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I'm looking forward to the arrival of mine. It'll be my first tablet. In addition to using it for reading, I'm gonna write some simple personal utilities for it like a shopping list, a widget to tell me how many hours old I am, etc.
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On a brighter note, I heard that if you buy it from google, they do the support for it. If you buy it from a retailer, you have to go though Asus. Not sure if that's correct or just a rumor though.
I didn't call their customer service department but I did nerd rage on their "contact us" section for orders and then their customer service survey. I'm just hoping I get it before I go out of town this weekend. I should have gone and bought it at Best Buy and kept the money I spent on shipping. They can keep the free book and lousy transformers movie.
Well I'm in Germany and can't order the thing at all, so shutup. :)@Rob: I would rather have Asus support...
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Though honestly with how bad the support seems to be for Google wallet, I'm not sure Google will be better for people in the states either.
I don't follow your logic. Google has a lot going on in the German-speaking world (big offices in Munich and Zurich) and Asus is a Taiwanese company, so no clear advantage for Germany. :)Google just has notoriously bad customer service, this is usually blamed on their engineer-centered culture. OTOH Asus has years of selling consumer electronics.
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Probably because I'm thinking of them as an American company despite the fact that they are global.
I can see why they have a reputation for bad support though.
I have been buying Asus motherboards for years, and have always been happy with them. I've heard some recent horror stories about customer support though.
Since none of my Asus stuff has ever given me real problems, I can't really speak to that though.
UPS says mine is arriving by 5 pm (1700) Tuesday. Yay!
When did you order yours? I ordered on June 27.
July 5th. And I got the 16gb version. I've heard they prioritized the shipments so the 8gb went out first.
I ordered the 16GB too. Has the transaction in your Google Wallet been updated with any status? Or does it just have the original two entries ("Google Inc. received your order" and "You placed an order with Google Inc....")?If there's no new info I guess you may have missed the first batch of 16GB.
Same two entries. At this point I'd be happy with some sort of communication from google. Even if the communication is bad news. I'd like to have some sort of status.
Still no signs they are shipping me anything. No response to customer service messages. Sooo angry! Horrible customer service. Think I'd rather deal with Asus!
Sorry you don't have yours and can't get any help from Google. My hunch is everything is outsourced (support, shipping, etc.) so no one knows what's going on nor has any control over what anyone else is doing (hence the difficulty people have had with changing or canceling their orders).Fortunately, my Nexus 7 arrived today and is working fine. I look forward to doing some reading tonight.
Good luck...I hope your problems are resolved soon.
http://support.google.com/googleplay/...Seems they finally decided to give some info on what is going on. Hopefully I'll have mine in hand by the end of the week.
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In retrospect, I should have just gone looking for one at a retail store last weekend, but it's been so long since I've done that, I've forgotten how.
The first batch had a high defect rate (loose screen). Be glad you guys are in the second batch. I lucked out and got a good one. I hope it stays good.
I got my nexus this afternoon. So far I'm really liking it. The dictation is excellent. I haven't typed a word for this whole post.
The nexus theoretically arrived in the UK yesterday, but nobody I know that pre-ordered one has it yet. And none of the retail outlets near me supposedly carrying it appear even to know what it is, yet alone when they'll have it.
I preordered the Kindle Fire when that came. ivemadeahugemistake.jpg
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Tassie Dave wrote: "How is it as a reading device? Is it better, worse than other eReaders you have tried?"I love it but my wife prefers her old 1st-gen Nook (e-ink). So it's a matter of personal preference. Split decision in our house.
I have the built-in Google Play book reader configured with white text on a black background and I have the brightness on the lowest setting. Very easy on my eyes; I can read for hours.
The built-in app only displays books from the Google Play store (which includes tons of free out-of-copyright books as well as commercial releases). I bought Geekomancy from Google Play and read it entirely on the Nexus 7.
The Google Play reader app has no dictionary or note-taking support. You'll have to switch over to a web browser if you want to manually look something up or make a note. Hopefully Google is working on enhancing their reader app. You can also read anything you buy from the Google Play store in a regular web browser. The browser-based reader has dictionary support and note-taking support. Both readers support search.
To read epub files, you'll have to download some other app from the Google Play app store. I'm using FBReader.
Hmmm. Geekomancy has, for the moment, disappeared from the Google Play store. It has also disappeared from my list of purchases. Investigating. Google's store support is "lacking": there currently doesn't appear to be any functioning way to contact them. I'll keep you posted. Unless this situation is corrected, I obviously can't recommend buying anything from the Google Play store. :)
There is still no apparent way to contact the Google Play store for support but Geekomancy appears to be crawling back into existence on their site. The description page is back but it still isn't possible to read the book (404 error if I click the "read" link). Google is probably working on the problem (I hope).Google is really not ready to be a retailer. They look kinda inept compared to their competitors (Amazon, Apple, etc.).
I preordered from a camera shop ( they were not charging sales tax) but then found they got them in Sam's Club so I cancelled the order and bought it there its ok as a reader I still prefer my nook with e-ink but other then that I LIKE it its fast and very cool
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Anyone got recommendations on a good eReader app?
Update: all my purchased book availability problems on the Google Play store have been fixed since yesterday. I can read everything I've bought.
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I've also found: Aldiko Book Reader which supports EPUB, PDF formats as well as Adobe DRM encrypted eBooks. It mentions working for borrowing eBooks from the library.
Has anyone tried this?
I've just ordered one from tesco.com in the UK - seems they are the only retailer with stock. 16GB (the only kind available - I don't think they even bothered with the 8GB version in the UK). Delivered to my local store for pick up tomorrow. :-D
I've figured out the problem with getting customer support for books purchased on Google Play. Do not choose "Report an issue with a book". That route will lead you around in an infinite loop with no opportunity to contact customer support. Instead, choose either "Google Play Books app on Android" or "Reading books on Google Play with a web browser". Those avenues will lead to a form where you can actually contact customer support.Google needs to fix the "Report an issue with a book" path. They probably don't even realize it's going in a loop.
Google Play Store screwed up. They didn't communicate with the retail stores. The retail stores made the tablet available before all the preorders had shipped.
Nice job google. Way to screw up your launch and tick off a lot of preorder customers. I've seen google+ posts that say they've talked to customer service reps and they are planning something to make this up to the preorder customers. I hope so but I'm not holding my breath.