A quick note to those who might be thinking about getting a Nexus 7: While I’ve found the device to be quite good overall, I’ve hit one hardware issue that is going to take a replacement to fix.

Specifically, there’s a bit of backlight flicker when the screen brightness is on a low setting, and there is Wifi data activity.

Here’s the obligatory giant internet thread about the problem.

If I were on the fence, I’d probably wait a few weeks to see if the problem works itself out through software updates or confirmed hardware fixes.

Update: Google sent me a replacement device, which had the same problem. If you look on the thread, others are having the same experience. So I sent the replacement and the original back for a refund. I guess we get used to the Apple QA sometimes :/. I still like the device, but this issue was killing one of my core use cases. I’ll have to wait and see if it gets fixed and re-order at a later time.

Also, updated above link to point to the right megathread.