Nexus 7 on-screen buttons problem.

Posted by roman129 on July 19, 2012 10:50 pm 5

My Nexus 7 arrived by air this morning, as I watched the UPS man toss it 15 feet to my doorstep.

Overall I'm really happy with it. But there is one really big UX issue that's driving me nuts.

Why are the onscreen buttons jumping to the bottom of the screen on landscape orientation?

Why is it different from the behavior on the Galaxy Nexus?

But more importantly, can I set them to not move?

I like to browse in landspace orientation, and the Nexus 7's screen is a nice size for browsing desktop class websites in landscape orientation, but there's a chunky onscreen control panel taking up valuable space on the bottom. It would be much better suited on the right side. (like on the phone)

The Nexus 7's screen is 80 pixel rows taller then on the Galaxy Nexus, but I see less of the webpage. This is just poor use of screen real estate.

Web Browsing

Nexus 7:

Galaxy Nexus

Gallery App:

Nexus 7:

Galaxy Nexus:

In the gallery app, I want to see my photo taking up the hight of the screen, but bloody onscreen buttons insist on taking up the bottom of the display.

It's a nice, big display and it being poorly utilized. Why does it take 81920 pixels to display three buttons?