A New and Improved Nexus 7

OK, we get it, Google — you want to be a hardware company.

Well, guess what? You’re actually doing a pretty good job of it!

One year ago, you offered a seven-inch tablet called the Nexus 7. You priced it at a remarkably low $200. You admitted that you didn’t make any money on it, in hopes of selling more books, movies, music and TV shows.

And now here you are with a new version of the Nexus 7 (manufactured by Asus). And you’ve decided to name it … the Nexus 7. That’s the most confusing naming convention since — well, since Apple started calling every year’s iMac the iMac.

You priced the new Nexus 7 higher: $230 for the 16GB model. The 16GB iPad Mini has a larger screen, but it’s also $100 more. The value of the Nexus 7 looks even better next in the configurations with 32 gigabytes of storage ($270, versus $430 on the Mini) and, coming soon, LTE cellular Internet ($350, versus $560 on the Mini).

Meanwhile, you’ve improved the tablet in dozens of ways. You’ve added a (mediocre) camera on the back, although, bizarrely, you’ve moved the front camera way off-center. You added stereo speakers: they are fine, but not as strong or clear as the Kindle Fire’s. You threw in (very slow) wireless charging, meaning that you can set the thing down onto a compatible charging base without actually plugging in a cable.

You’ve made the thing slightly slimmer, slightly lighter (0.64 pounds) and slightly narrower — only 4.5 inches wide, which means that a large hand can hold the entire thing edge to edge and still have a free thumb to tap the screen.

And that screen — wowsers. It’s glorious, bright and sharp. You maintain, Google, that at 323 dots per inch, it’s the sharpest of any 7-inch tablet. I believe you’re right.

It’s too bad you made those design compromises, though. That nice pleather back is gone — on the new model, it’s just hard plastic with a slightly rubbery coating. The corners are sharper. And you made the margins on the short ends much bigger than on the long sides, making this long, skinny tablet look even longer and skinnier.

I’m so glad you focused on speed, Google. According to CNET’s benchmark testing, the new Nexus 7 was faster in most tests against the Mini and rival tablets from Samsung and Sony. Responses to touches on the screen are smooth and fluid. Battery life is around a day and a half of typical on-and-off use.

The operating system, Android 4.3 (which you still call Jelly Bean), has a few tiny tweaks and a couple of bigger improvements. First, parents can set up a children’s account so that children can access only apps that parents approve. (And it can restrict access to in-app purchases). Weirdly, though, parents can’t make the Settings app off-limits, so the truly rebellious offspring can still wreak some havoc.

Second, you added Bluetooth 4.0, which lets certain accessories — usually activity trackers like the Fitbit Flex — communicate wirelessly without draining the battery much.

The crushing disappointment is, as always, the selection of Android tablet apps. Your catalog is coming along, but a lot of “tablet apps” for Android are still just Android phone apps with wider canvases; they haven’t actually been designed to exploit the larger tablet screen efficiently, as they have on iPads.

Then again, for customers thinking more “Kindle Fire” than “iPad” — that is, they want the basics, like reading and watching videos and checking e-mail and browsing the Web — that won’t matter.

Thank you, Google. You’ve produced another deeply satisfying machine. You kept the price reasonable. And you’re doing a great job of keeping your competitors honest — and pushing the great tablet envelope just enough to keep things interesting.