Back in February last year I wrote a post titled My Non Kindle – Kindle… about an Android tablet that I bought in preference to a real Kindle.

It worked fine but the battery life was pants and although I was generally happy with it it didn’t blow my socks off.

Perhaps my family could tell as my son bought me a proper Kindle for Christmas last year.

I really really liked the Kindle and bought many books for it both through Amazon and other website, mainly Smashing Magazine and Sitepoint (these are primarily design websites).

I really liked the ease of use and felt that this was a device made to do job and do that job well.

So, why My Non  Kindle – Kindle 2?

Well I really do like y Kindle but as I said in my last article I tend to read books with pictures (stop sniggering!), and the Kindle is monochrome. I could live with this most of the time but on occasions the grey scale images were just unreadable.

Enter the Google Nexus 7, 7″ Android table. I know so was the last one, but this has a significantly higher resolution screen at  1200 x 800 pixels.

Well, as I’ve said before I’m a techno-geek so I needed one!

It thinner, lighter, has a more powerful processor and is the dogs thingymybobs!

I have Kindle reader installed on it and have copied all of my books over to the Nexus. I have a magazine subscription which arrives automatically on my Nexus (nothing new there I know, but I just thought I’d mention it). And, of course it is all in glorious technicolour…

The Nexus comes with £15 Google Play voucher (well it did when I bought mine) and is very well integrated with Google as one might expect.

It has GPS so works a treat with Google Maps. When I’m on the Westray/Kirkwall ferry I use it to check our progress, sad I know but of you travel this route regularly I’m sure you’ll relate.

Of course as a non dedicated machine it does a lot more than just read books/magazines. I installed Asphalt 7, a car racing game that uses the Nexus’ position/motions sensors to steer and it works well with smooth fast graphic.

I’ve watched a couple of films from Google Play on it as well as a few programs from Netflix.

To be honest it’s never far from me. It was definitely a good buy and I recommend anyone considering a tablet to give it a whirl.