I’ve been using a Nook Color for the past few years as a useful place to store manuals, books, and other random PDF style information. It’s also been handy as a web browser and simple gaming device, but I’ve been wanting to replace it with something that could handle the DSLR controller app. Sure I could have hacked my Nook with CyanogenMod 7 but the original Nook Color’s hardware has a hard time keeping up with the an app like that.

I was thinking about pulling the trigger on the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but Quad-core Tegra processors had already started to show up in mid range tablets, which would likely destroy the dual core processor in the galaxy tab. I also knew that Google I/O was coming up and there were a lot of rumors that they would be releasing a new tablet.

Sure enough Google announced the Nexus 7 tablet. With a 1280×800 display, 7 inch form factor, and a 9 hour battery life, it could be a beautiful monitor and controller for $199. There is a down side though, right now the DSLR controller app only offers around 15 fps (frames per second) refresh rate, which isn’t quit fast enough to enjoy smooth video. The reason for this has been do to the processing requirements needed for higher frame rates.  Hopefully with the extra cores and graphics capabilities of the Nexus 7 tablet, it will give the developers enough power to bring the frame rate up to something a little closer to 30 fps.

Right now the functionality of the app alone gives you most of the features available to a usb controller (like the okii unit), get the frame rates up to speed and you have pretty much everything you would need to run the camera remotely. I’m not counting on the Nexus 7 as a monitor replacement (at least in the near term) but I think it could be a good prospect in the future. If nothing else, it’ll be good for storing equipment manuals and playing plants v.s. zombies. I’m on the pre-order list, so I’ll let you know how it turns out.


Tags: , ,