Is your Nexus 7 lagging lately?

The Nexus 7, though one of the best 7-inch tablets around, is experiencing some issues lately. Some users have reported performance issues with their tablet; things like stuttering, lagging, slow playback. The issue may not be the tablet, necessarily, but being the scapegoat for this issue could be the silver lining for Google.

It seems that the Nexus 7 simply hasn’t aged well, or rather Android has lapped it. Reports of similar issues on other tablets are rampant as well, and it points to an issue with Android 4.2, not so much a hardware issue. As Android versions improve, the single gigabyte of RAM housed in the Nexus 7 may just not be adequate to keep up.

The only real fix is better hardware.

The only real fix is better hardware. In considering the Nexus 7 versus the Nexus 4, where both operate on the same iteration of Android, the Nexus 4 has none of these performance issues being mentioned. What it does have is double the RAM, and a better processor.So, what’s the fix? There isn’t one, really. You can root your device and flash a different ROM, but that’s no guaranteed fix. You can do a factory reset, but Android 4.2 will be right back once the device updates again. There are apps that will polish up the available memory, which can improve performance, but that’s tedious to do often.

We still hope the new Nexus 7 hits our hands in the fall, when Google likes to announce their new Nexus devices, and we need to see some much improved specs. It’s oddly satisfying to hear people complain about the Nexus 7 in this respect. It indicates a nice market share for the flagship Android tablet, and a user base hungry for an upgrade.