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Andrew Cunningham - May 13, 2013 5:05 pm UTC

Google I/O officially kicks off on Wednesday, and the current scuttlebutt is that Google will be announcing a follow-up to the Nexus 7 tablet at its day-one keynote. We still like the original Nexus 7, but last week we put together a list of improvements we wanted to see in the new version. We also asked you what you would liked to see in a new Nexus 7, and you came through with some solid suggestions.

Naturally, you have many of the same requests we do: a higher-resolution screen, a faster processor, and a rear-facing camera among them. But you also came up with plenty of things that didn't make our list. With our combined suggestions, Google can create the perfect Nexus 7.

The Nexus 7 has pretty large bezels around the screen in comparison to tablets like the iPad mini, and in our post we suggested that the screen could be made slightly larger (or the device slightly smaller) by shrinking those a bit. Commenter Phil Ta agreed with us in the post's first comment, but most of you disagreed.

Readers ironnmental, joehonkie, and many others agreed that the larger bezels make it easier to hold the device, making it less likely that you'll accidentally tap or swipe something if you rest your thumb on the surface of the screen. "Emphatically no" said charleski in response to the idea of smaller bezels. "The current ones give just enough space for your thumb so it can be held comfortably in one hand."

Quite a few of you are interested in mirroring your Nexus 7's screen on your TV, if your comments are any indication. Some, like finley, prefer the direct approach: an HDMI out port like the one found on the Nexus 10. Others, like Gisboth, would like to see wireless display output via the open Miracast standard. The current Nexus 7's lack of Miracast support is actually a bit of a mystery—Android 4.2 supports it natively, but of Google's devices the feature is only actually available on the Nexus 4 as of this writing. Nvidia has also explicitly stated that the Tegra 3 chip that powers the current Nexus 7 supports Miracast, so hopefully Google will enable it in a future update.

Returning to the next Nexus 7, there are a few other ways to enable display output without including another port. One, as mentioned by charleski, is the Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) standard, which supports HDMI output over USB. Slimport, another similar solution that is based on the DisplayPort spec and should use less power (and fewer cables) than MHL, is included in the Nexus 4.

We already said we wanted better speakers, but you got more specific: you want front-facing speakers akin to those on the HTC One. Part of the problem with the Nexus 7's speaker is that it isn't a great speaker, and part of the problem is that the sound is often being projected into your hand, your desk, or into the air behind the tablet.

"Dont get why most laptops still do it this way either," said BBnet3000. "My desk is getting a great sonic experience, why cant I?"

Corning's Gorilla Glass continues to be the gold standard for scratch-resistant screens, and its absence on the current Nexus 7 is a sticking point for some of you. "The stuff it uses now ain't [Gorilla Glass]," said cptskippy, "and it costs as much to repair as it does to just buy a new one." JPan, likewise, would prefer Gorilla Glass because it "doesn't scratch and shatter when you look at it badly."

My personal Nexus 7 has indeed picked up a few hairline scratches over the ten months or so that I've owned it, and while I don't even notice them when the screen is on (and can only even pick them out if the light is bouncing off the screen from certain angles) I'm all for any change that makes my electronics more durable.

We said we wanted a faster processor and more storage at launch, but you (rightly) brought up the spec we missed: RAM. The Nexus 4, Nexus 10, and most other high-end Android devices from the last year or so all come with 2GB instead of the Nexus 7's 1GB, so we'd be surprised not to see the new one fall in line with its cousins.

"The difference between 1GB RAM on the Nexus 7 and 2GB on the Nexus 4 is noticeable with regards to how often Chrome reloads pages and such," said Syonyk.

Networking is another area in which the Nexus 7 has fallen a bit behind the Nexus 4 and 10, as noted by M. Jones and others. The tablet supports the 802.11n wireless standard but only on the 2.4GHz band, which is quite congested especially in populated areas.

Both the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 support 802.11n on the 5GHz band as well as 2.4GHz, and they use multiple antennas (MIMO) to send and receive multiple streams at once, which speeds up data transfers. With the new 802.11ac slowly making its way into early adopters' homes, we would really like to see dual-band 802.11n to become a minimum requirement for most new phones and tablets.

This one comes up over and over again with Nexus devices, even though Google has gone on the record to say that SD card slots make things "confusing" and hasn't included an SD card slot in any Android reference device since the Motorola Xoom over two years ago. We'll put it on this list because this is about what you all want and many of you seem to consider the lack of microSD support a dealbreaker, but don't get your hopes up. It's not that we think expandable storage is an unreasonable desire; we just hate to see you get hurt like this.

Listing image by Casey Johnston

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