Nexus 7

I bought one for my daughter so I really haven't messed much with it. I thought the screen looked great and I liked the feel of the device. I have an iPad 2, so other than size, I didn't really notice anything. Google Play had a lot of stuff but not as much as the AppStore.

 

It's about the same, a little worse in the GPU department (I would have to doublecheck the benchmarks though) but shines when it comes to physics thanks to the CPU. Doesn't even come into the ballpark of the A6.

I would honestly make your decision on platforms not based upn hardware specs but based in the app ecosystem, and apple devices just shine 10x brighter than all android competitors.

 

It's pretty nice. The screen is a lot better than the iPad 2/mini's. It has a fairly high pixel density, in addition to having a wide screen ratio and a resolution of 720p. The Google Play Store doesn't have everything the AppStore has, though it gets a lot of the bigger releases and has apps the AppStore doesn't have (and won't ever get). The software is pretty nice too- they've cleaned Android up quite a bit. Game performance is fine, and some games like Shadowgun and Dead Trigger look and run much better than they do on the iPad 2. There are several games which are tegra enhanced, and include special graphical features (cloth physics, dynamic water, ragdoll physics, etc.)- the two games I mentioned are some of them. It lacks an official game achievement /online service like iOS does- so I'd say iOS is better for games due to it having more, and being more game oriented (unless you like the classics- emulators galore). The build quality is nice too, despite the body being made of plastic *gasps*. Overall, I'd say it's a much better tablet than the iPad mini or 2. IMO, it's the best tablet I've ever used- compared to the iPad 2 and especially the Kindle Fire HD. It's definitely worth it for the price you pay- iPad mini is way overpriced for what it is and the hardware it has. From reviews I've read, a lot of places have said that the iPad mini is slower than it's competitors (Nexus 7, Kindle HD) when booting and running software.

You get good hardware for too little with the Nexus 7- it's a great tablet overall. iOS is still a better platform for gaming, as it gets a lot more games and has more gems, like Infinity Blade, and games by companies like Crescent Moon Games. The Nexus 7 makes a good tablet for productivity though- that's why I have one (gift for college).

 

It's a great little tablet. Tegra 3 isn't as good as a6 (to be fair, I'm not sure it's as straightforward as that, I think it has as much to do with the unity between hardware and software on Apple devices as anything else), but the end result is that it doesn't perform as well. That said, much like the a6, there's not really much out there to tax it so generally you wont notice the lesser performance as for most things it's still totally capable.

The screen is good, not quite retina display but as has been said it's better than the iPad Mini's. The build quality and look of it are great too, it's certainly one of the best looking Android devices.

You can download movies and shows straight from Google Play, i'm not certain on this but I don't think the selection is as good as on iTunes, but it's still decent. On the flip side it supports way more file types than iOS devices do, and it's a lot easier to get stuff on there (drag and drop from a PC or even just plug a USB stick in).

Android has recently matched the app store for number of apps, but the quality isn't necessarily as good since developers don't need to go through the same approval process they do with Apple. It's far, far worse for games, but there are some things it's better for, for example Android is incredibly customisable- you can change keyboards, launchers, add lock screen and notifications screen controls, you've got widgets....pretty much anything on the software side can be tweaked to your liking.

Similarly if there's any music or video file types that aren't supported out of the box, there'll be different players you can download that do support them.

So those are the main potential advantages that it has over an iPod touch. Ultimately it depends what you want it for as to which is better. I would argue that it's better value for money than an iPod Touch though. But they're not even really in the same market as they're very different sizes- it's more comparable to an iPad Mini.

For what it's worth I have both an iPad 4 and a Nexus 7 and I use them both a lot, but for different things. The iPad 4 gets used a lot for gaming, while the Nexus 7 gets more use for video and music (because of the greater file type support, ease of getting media on there and Google's free cloud music service). That said I do watch Netflix on my iPad and I do play the odd game on my Nexus 7, but for the most part that's the split. Then I use them both for web browsing- the iPad has the bigger screen, but the Nexus 7 is lighter and more comfortable to hold for long periods, so depends on my mood as to which I use.