Official dock available in the Play Store

[magohn]

Mine shipped yesterday and should be here today

Does anybody know if using the N7 as an alarm clock will 'burn images' into the screen? Will having the screen on all the time do any damage?

Also, are there any apps out there that are a dock alarm clock with a weather report built in? It would be cool to have the N7 as a kind of alarmclock/weatherstation at the side of the bed

Thanks all.

 

[strollin]

Screen burn-in was an artifact of CRT screens. Modern digital screens don't suffer from that at all.

 

[mary french]

Really wish Google would hurry up and restock the dock in the uk.

 

[Mr. Link]

Just order mine. Super excited! Mostly because the dock didn't cost half the price of the tablet. I can't stand when an accessory (like a good case) costs half or more than the actual device.

 

[magohn]

Just order mine. Super excited! Mostly because the dock didn't cost half the price of the tablet. I can't stand when an accessory (like a good case) costs half or more than the actual device.

I agree - mine was $38 out the door and the shipping will be door to door in 48 hours once it shipped! Not too shabby.

Screen burn-in was an artifact of CRT screens. Modern digital screens don't suffer from that at all.

Good to know - thanks. Any input on if I can run a clock/weather station at the same time for my bedside entertainment?

 

[jhsrennie]

Good to know - thanks. Any input on if I can run a clock/weather station at the same time for my bedside entertainment?

You can choose what runs from Settings, Display, Daydream. By default there's a restricted choice, but I note that Fixed Clock appears in the list on my N7 so I'd guess any lock screen widget will run.

 

[John Bean]

Screen burn-in was an artifact of CRT screens. Modern digital screens don't suffer from that at all.

I'm afraid that's not the case, as a quick Google will show.

From wikipedia for example: "Plasma displays are highly susceptible to burn-in, while LCD-type displays are generally less so. Because of the more rapid luminance degradation of current organic compounds used in OLED-type displays, OLED is even more susceptible to burn-in than plasma."

Lots of other information available, no need to trust Wikipedia

 

[strollin]

I'm afraid that's not the case, as a quick Google will show.

From wikipedia for example: "Plasma displays are highly susceptible to burn-in, while LCD-type displays are generally less so. Because of the more rapid luminance degradation of current organic compounds used in OLED-type displays, OLED is even more susceptible to burn-in than plasma."

Lots of other information available, no need to trust Wikipedia

Interesting article, I stand corrected. I wasn't aware of screen burn-in on modern screens, I guess it can happen but I haven't personally seen a screen with burn-in in quite a few years. It was extremely prevalent on the CRT monitors.

Regardless, I noticed that when my N7 is in the dock and the clock is being displayed, the digits move about slightly each time the clock updates so there shouldn't be any burn-in. If you set it up with an app that displays a static image and turn screen blanking off then I suppose burn-in could happen after many hours.

 

[magohn]

Interesting article, I stand corrected. I wasn't aware of screen burn-in on modern screens, I guess it can happen but I haven't personally seen a screen with burn-in in quite a few years. It was extremely prevalent on the CRT monitors.

Regardless, I noticed that when my N7 is in the dock and the clock is being displayed, the digits move about slightly each time the clock updates so there shouldn't be any burn-in. If you set it up with an app that displays a static image and turn screen blanking off then I suppose burn-in could happen after many hours.

Thanks all - good to know.

I got my dock yesterday and can confirm the pogo pins are built-in at $29 and work great!

As for the daydream app, I have Beautiful Widgets that present an awesome clock/weather/forecast screen. However, even with 'auto dim' selected its very bright so Im still experiemnting.

Even with the prospect of 'burn-in' I will still use the daydream app. The device cost me $199 so Im not expecting it to last forever. Probably in two years there will be a Nexus for half the price and twice the storage anyways

 

[strollin]

... Even with the prospect of 'burn-in' I will still use the daydream app. ...

I believe the prospect of burn-in is so low that it is negligible.

 

[John Bean]

I believe the prospect of burn-in is so low that it is negligible.

That's what I thought until I damaged an expensive LCD monitor by not using a screen saver. I don't know if the Nexus 7 OLED display will burn the way my LCD display did but I don't intend to find out the hard way - been there, done that, still got the burn marks to prove it ;-)

 

[mmoy]

I have the dock and the default app is a clock.

It works as expected and it's a lot heavier than I expected so I don't have to worry about it falling over.

The only disappointment is that the USB cable apparently only powers the device. When I hook it up to my desktop computer, my computer doesn't see the Nexus 7. I was hoping that I could transfer files back and forth.

 

[Bren S.]

Has anyone made use of the audio jack on the dock?

 

[magohn]

Any more suggestions for 'daydream' widgets? You would think that there would be a market for a 'weather station' type widget.

 

[mmoy]

I just tried the audio port for the dock.

When you put it in, it asks you if you want to use the dock for audio and if you do, then it uses the dock audio whenever you put it in. You can turn it off in sound settings. I found that it works fine.

BTW, someone above mentioned that the N7 lost pin contact when they used the touchscreen. I didn't have that problem. I can use the touchscreen fine when it is in the dock.

 

[Bren S.]

What kind of external speakers would a person use with the dock? Would be kind of a nice function to make use of.

 

[mmoy]

I assume that you'd just use standard powered PC speakers.

You can also just use BlueTooth speakers if you don't want to deal with wires.

 

[mmoy]

I used the dock as a stand for a workout video this morning. Worked great. The only thing was that I had to disconnect the dock from the Micro-USB which means that I have to plug it in again.

I have a short Micro-USB cable and I think that I'm going to order a regular USB extension cable that will go to my desktop. This way I'll just leave the short Micro-USB cable attached to the dock when I take it off my desk and I'll be able to plug the regular USB part to the regular USB extension. It means that I won't have to plug in a Micro-USB all the time (I need my glasses to do this). I don't have any problems with regular USB plugs.

On transferring files to/from my desktop PC - I looked around and it appears that AirDroid may be a good solution for this. Anyone have opinions on doing things that way?

 

[magohn]

On transferring files to/from my desktop PC - I looked around and it appears that AirDroid may be a good solution for this. Anyone have opinions on doing things that way?

Airdriod works well for items such as pictures or docs. For video/music files its much, much slower than the USB connection. It will do the job, but at a much slower rate.

HTH...

 

[mmoy]

I'll have to try it out. Usually I'm not in any hurry when it's at my desk as it's generally charging.

 

[val88]

Thanks all - good to know.

I got my dock yesterday and can confirm the pogo pins are built-in at $29 and work great!

As for the daydream app, I have Beautiful Widgets that present an awesome clock/weather/forecast screen. However, even with 'auto dim' selected its very bright so Im still experiemnting.

Me too, I'm finding all the day dream apps I use are too bright. I suspect the LCD can't go dark enough. I tried turning brightness down to zero and its still too bright. I'm using my N7 as an alarm clock and I'm finding I have to turn it away because its too bright but then that defeats the purpose of having it replace my alarm clock. So there are nights when I am aware of the light, I just turn the screen off. Then again that defeats the purpose of it being an alarm clock. I don't want to have to turn it on every time I open my eyes to look at the time.

 

[magohn]

Me too, I'm finding all the day dream apps I use are too bright. I suspect the LCD can't go dark enough. I tried turning brightness down to zero and its still too bright. I'm using my N7 as an alarm clock and I'm finding I have to turn it away because its too bright but then that defeats the purpose of having it replace my alarm clock. So there are nights when I am aware of the light, I just turn the screen off. Then again that defeats the purpose of it being an alarm clock. I don't want to have to turn it on every time I open my eyes to look at the time.

I downloaded this daydream app. It has weather/clock but also a manual slider to set the brightness for 'auto dim'. I will report back as to how good it is:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/...DEsImNvbS5hcXJlYWRkLmx3LmNsb2NrZG93bi5nbGUiXQ..

 

[littlejohno]

I may have to invest in one of these

 

[magohn]

I downloaded this daydream app. It has weather/clock but also a manual slider to set the brightness for 'auto dim'. I will report back as to how good it is:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/...DEsImNvbS5hcXJlYWRkLmx3LmNsb2NrZG93bi5nbGUiXQ..

IMHO - this is a good deal for 99c. Many configuration options including 'countdowns' to events. However, even with the apps brighness slider set to 2%, the screen is still bright.

 

[strollin]

I'm disappointed in the audio output of the dock, it seems to attenuate the output. If I plug external speakers directly into the N7 the volume is much louder than when plugged into the audio port of the dock.