For our up coming cross country trip this year I have been wanting a small tablet. So I just ordered a Nexus 7 32gb model today. We carry a small laptop & 2 Kindles so this will replace 1 Kindle and I will keep it in my handlebar bag. I wanted to have something easily accessible without having to dig out the laptop out of the rear panniers. Plus we both like to access the internet so this will provide some additional "comfort"!
Now I just have to add the Kindle app and learn how to use it!

For touring? You need osmand. It's a mapping and navigation app. You download maps and save them, so you don't need an internet connection to use it. It's free to try out, and the full set of maps don't cost much. I haven't tried the 3-D map shading, but that looks good.

And I've used it for car navigation. It works great.

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And Skeye is just a cool thing to have. It's an astronomy app. Just hold it up to the sky to see the planets and stars in that direction.

Yep, for touring. Have a Garmin 800 but will look at this .
Thanks!

Have you looked at the new Windows 8.1 tablets such as the Dell Venue 8 Pro, Lenovo Miix 2, Asus VivoTab Note 8, etc? They're essentially 8" tablet PCs and could easily replace a laptop depending on what your usage requirements are. Android and iOS devices are pretty much all the same IMO. Tablets don't really add anything new that smartphones couldn't do... other than having larger screens. If don't have a smartphone already, owning an iOS or Android tablet would be good. Otherwise if you do have a smartphone, you may want to consider a Windows 8.1 tablet (with a x86 processor, not the crippled ARM ones running Windows RT).

I got the Dell Venue 8 Pro to perform all my portable needs. It can run desktop programs such as Lightroom so if I ever do an extended tour, I'd be able to process my photos without carrying a laptop.

Use the osmand mapping for deciding on alternate routes or next day route planning. A nexus 7 wouldn't work for on-bike navigation.

I have a Nexus 7 and would recommend the Anker 14 watt solar panel to keep it charged while you ride. I usually bring a rechargeable Li-ion battery pack and then charge devices at night.

Silly me... Yea I thought you meant the Shimano IGH.. people tour riding those ..

I've had a Nexus 7 for about 5 months and have been very pleased with it, though I haven't used it for touring yet. I just returned from a mostly non-cycling trip to Colombia and I used it a lot. I had good wifi connections every night and it was great for accessing the internet and for using Skype. I think it is far superior for accessing the internet than my Android phone. Sometimes, size does matter.

Does it have a built in GPS chip or not?

Yes.

My student pilot son has a nexus 7 with garmin pilot app, the built in gps and mag are surprisingly effective.

ps, isn't Nexus 7 also a IGH ?

Ha! It is! (I googled it)

Copilot works offline but does not have a bike routing feature.

Depends on where I'm touring if I carry a computer or not, but it's certainly nice to have. I sent my first gen nexus 7 back a month into touring once and regretted it the next day. You never know when it'll come in handy. I do think it's a bit redundant if you have a smartphone. I didn't have one at the time. Now if I toured I would either just have the phone... most probably, or I'd carry a prepaid cheap phone and the computer.

I am glad I was not the only one who was fooled!

Time to help the technologically clueless (me). Why won't it work for on-bike navigation?

I have a Nexus 5 and both CoPilot GPS by ALK and GPS Navigation and Maps by skobbler.

I have found CoPilot to be excellent for navigation (I have the in North America map edition). It works very well and integrates with a number of other apps such as Waze (for real-time, user updates for traffic conditions), Yelp (for points of interest ratings such as restaurants and motels--very helpful app), and others. The maps for USA and Canada are require about 2.1 gigs of space, but once downloaded there is no need for wifi or data to navigate.

GPS Navigation also works very well but does not integrate with other apps as well as CoPilot. It too can allow one to download country maps for navigation without a data or wifi link.

I plan to use both for navigation when touring by bicycle.

If you have a route already developed that you wish to follow, then a different type of navigation app may be needed. For example, if you had one of the ACA Trans-America routes, it would be tedious to enter waypoints into either CoPilot or GPS Navigation. Instead, I would prefer to find an app that would read the coordinates from the map (say download waypoints already created) and follow those waypoints. There some apps that may provide this type of navigation (e.g., Backcountry Pro,

Another useful app to consider is one that easily shares your current GPS coordinates in case of trouble or if you simply wish to reveal your location to someone (e.g., travel companions, family, etc.). Some of the navigation and mapping apps allow for sharing gps location via email, text message, Google hangout, and other methods. If your mapping or navigation software does not offer this option, or does a poor job, one I found to be free, small, and easy to use is GPS-Coordinates. Once opened and locked on your position, you have the option of sharing your gps coordinates, your location on Google maps, or both, and both can be shared via email, text message, or most any means available on your phone. The gps app seems to integrate automatically with your communication apps.

On my smartphone with a 4.7 inch screen running Android 4.1, I like MapsWithMe app (free) and the ability to download (on wifi) an entire state road map, state by state for offline use. If you know which states you will be in, you could load all of the state maps before you leave home. This is esentially a road map, not a cycling map however, bike trails not shown. I have used this app on a 7 inch android tablet but my tablet did not have a GPS chip so this was not as useful as I had hoped.

There are several other mapping apps that have good data for cycling, I use the cycling layer on Russian Military Maps ($11) and can load maps into memory (on wifi) for offline use later. This layer uses the open street cycling maps. But these maps are memory intensive and for that reason may be less than ideal for your use.

I am not suggesting these apps for continual use while riding, but they could come in handy when trying to figure out the next couple days of routing or looking for alternative routes if you have a detour. And if you get list, if you have already loaded the state map on MapsWithMe for the state you are in, it will show you where you are.

If you want to make phone calls when you have wifi, you can get a Google Voice account, set up the tablet with Google Voice and the app Groove Lite Ip Lite (free). But since this only works when you have wifi, it is not a reliable way to receive phone calls. It can also be less than convenient to use a tablet of this size held to the side of your head as a phone.

Ditto, I also just bought the nexus 7, 32GB for this summers tour. Thanks for the post and the resulting remarks!

The main reasons are:
It's big, about 4.25 inches by 8 inches. It would be difficult to mount on a bike.
The display is very hard to read in bright sunlight.
It's not waterproof.

It does have a 10 hour run time, and a long standby time in sleep mode. It has a GPS and a compass, so the osmand maps can either line up to north or to the direction of travel.

Wow! As the OP I did not know about the downloadable maps! I was thinking" when we get to a WIFI location I can use Google Map". Can't wait for my unit to arrive tomorrow!
Quick question, 2 different mapping apps are mentioned, Osmand & MapWithMe. Differences? One better than the other? Also a nebie question, when you pay for the app is it a 1x thing?
Thanks!

Osmand is one of the best in my opinion, but you can also download regional maps for Google Maps and use them off-line. My big beef with the Nexus 7 on a bike is that it's impossible to read the screen in bright daylight, with these old eyes anyway. Plus it's too big for convenience, but with your bar bag maybe that's not a factor. Stopping in the shade to orient yourself sure, that should work fine.

There's a device out now that might be useful with your Nexus 7, and I wonder what the reaction of experienced tourers is. It's a credit card sized mobile hotspot (search for Internet on the Go Mobile Hotspot (3G)) that simply connects up to a pay as you go mobile internet service and beams out wifi. Data is cheap, 500 MB for $10, so it's kind of intriguing to be able to have on-demand internet connection for the tablet, filling in the gap between the tablet's capabilities and a smartphone without needing a mobile or data plan. I haven't tried it so I can't say if it even works, but it's tempting and I wonder if I even need mobile or data for my smartphone if I used this and voip calling.

I have not used Osmand, so I can't compare with MapsWithMe. If you try both, let us know which you prefer and why. Since MapsWithMe lite is free, you can certainly try it without a significant investment. But realistically most apps cost less than a good meal at a restaurant so you can try several.

There are so many offline mapping apps out there that everybody will have different preferences for different reasons.

Having a couple apps that use different map sources might come in handy if you are in an area where road construction has changed the road locations. For a couple years my Garmin kept thinking that I was driving thru a corn field because of road construction moved the highway.

I'd test out the 10-hour run time before I needed to rely on it. I'm not convinced the Nexus 7 I use for software development would run for 10 hours; feels like I'm always having to recharge the darn thing...

Might be cheaper to spend a few extra bucks and buy the LTE-enabled version of the Nexus 7, though in my experience there are plenty of places where you can't get any sort of cellular signal at all. Even in populated areas, there may be places where you get a connection but don't have enough bandwidth to support today's data-intensive applications and websites (ex: Google Maps).

It appears to be Sprint coverage for the hotspot vs AT&T for the Nexus, so for sure you'd want to match the coverage up with where you wanted to go. Mostly interstates and metro centers are OK, everywhere else would be dead.

Cheaper to use the LTE Nexus with AT&T though, I think you'd be wrong about that. It would be really tough for AT&T (or anyone else including Tracfone) to beat the $10/500MB that the Go Mobile Hotspot offers, unless you do use a lot of bandwidth. Streaming for instance. But GPS mapping apps, even Google Maps, doesn't have to be data intensive. Good points though. I'm just throwing it out there because it's tempting and might be just the ticket for OP. Heck, with voip the nexus would double as a cell phone.

I wouldn't bank on 10 hours run time either BTW, not with GPS and graphics intensive apps running. It's simple and inexpensive to use a lipstick power bank though.