As of right now, you should be able to head over to Google Play and order the brand-new Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet, both of which are shipping with Android 4.2, the latest version of Jelly Bean. These brand-new devices aren't the only ones getting in on the fun, though; the smaller Nexus 7 tablet has also gotten a few hardware and software bumps to increase its appeal in the face of the iPad mini, Nook HD, and a veritable pile of Kindle Fires.

At launch, the Nexus 7 was available in 8GB and 16GB capacities for $199 and $249, respectively. As of today, the storage has been doubled to 16GB ($199) and 32GB ($249), and for the first time Google is also selling a $299 version of the tablet with 32GB of storage and HSPA+ 3G connectivity courtesy of AT&T. All of these new Nexus devices should ship with Android 4.2, an update which is also reportedly rolling out to existing Nexus 7 tablets beginning today.

Google sent us the new 3G version of the Nexus 7 to experiment with, and it turns out that some of its improvements aren't being advertised. Let's take a look.

The hardware

The 3G Nexus 7 is identical in nearly every way to the non-3G versions. It feels just the slightest bit heavier than the 0.75 pounds of my 8GB Nexus 7, but this may be my imagination—in any case, any difference in weight isn't enough to affect the utility of the tablet. We didn't have time to do in-depth battery life testing, but leaving 3G enabled as we used the tablet did have a small impact on the device's battery life—you may want to disable it if you're just using the tablet on Wi-Fi at home.

The sole physical difference is the presence of a small SIM card slot on the tablet's left edge. It matches the pitted pseudo-leather texture that we like so much, though the fit isn't perfect. As with most SIM card slots, an unfolded paperclip or other long, slender object can be poked into the hole to provide access to the card.

We ran a few of our standard benchmarks—the Geekbench CPU test and GLBenchmark GPU test—to see whether Android 4.2 featured any performance improvements over Android 4.1. We also wanted to see whether the newer Nexus 7's hardware had been optimized or tweaked in any way for the high-capacity refresh. The CPU and GPU scores were identical to our older 8GB Nexus 7, but we noticed that applications seemed to be loading more quickly on the 32GB version of the tablet, so we decided to dig a little further.

After I obtained the final Android 4.2 update for my 8GB Nexus 7, running the Androbench storage benchmark on both tablets confirmed my suspicions: the tablet's memory speeds are improved quite a bit over the entry-level 8GB version, due perhaps to the use of faster NAND or because higher-density devices can increase speeds by performing more read and write operations simultaneously (a process also known as interleaving). Read speeds are up by around 33 percent, while write speeds are about twice as fast as they are on the 8GB version.

This has a tangible performance benefit when using the tablet, mostly during boot and when loading and installing larger applications—smaller apps like Chrome and the Gmail app still load just about equally quickly on each tablet.

Test 8GB Nexus 7 32GB Nexus 7 Boot time 39.7 seconds 28.5 seconds Launching GLBenchmark Egypt HD test 11.2 seconds 8.8 seconds Downloading and installing 27.4MB application 22.5 seconds 16.1 seconds

These aren't life-changing gains, but they're definitely there. Google wouldn't officially state that Asus is using faster flash memory in these new tablets, so whether these performance improvements are also present in the 16GB model is uncertain. What we can say for sure is that people buying the high-capacity 32GB version should be getting a slightly faster tablet than early adopters who snagged the 8GB version.

Software: A tour of Android 4.2 on the Nexus 7

Android 4.2 on the Nexus 7 has no major surprises: all of the features we mentioned in our review are here, with the exception of Miracast (which is only supported on the Nexus 4 for the time being) and the new camera features (which are present if you install a third-party camera launcher for the front-facing camera). Multiuser support and lock screen widgets, two features that weren't ready in time for our main review, are also here, but we'll be examining them more closely in a separate article.

Rather than tell you about all of Android 4.2's new features again, we've included screenshots showing how they are implemented on the Nexus 7. There are also some small additions to the software made to accommodate its new data connection; we'll be covering those here as well.

On the Nexus 4, the new Quick Settings pane is accessed either by tapping a button in the notifications menu or by swiping down from the top of the screen with two fingers; on the Nexus 10, you access notifications by swiping down on the left half of the screen and quick settings by swiping down from the right. The Nexus 7 works like the Nexus 10 in this respect.

Conclusions: Nice tweaks for new buyers

Tech enthusiasts with a Nexus 7 on their holiday wish lists will be glad that they waited for this refreshed version—even if you don't need 3G or 32GB of storage, the ability to get a 16GB tablet for the entry-level price of $199 is a nice perk. (Keep in mind that the 16GB tablet may not be as quick as the 32GB version, though.)

Current Nexus 7 owners, of course, won't need to upgrade unless better storage options or cellular connectivity are desperately needed, make-or-break features for you. The Nexus line's propensity for quick updates also means you shouldn't be waiting long to pick up all of the refinements in Android 4.2, which will of course look and act exactly the same on existing Nexus 7s as it does on new ones. Google still hasn't given any official dates for when the update will begin rolling out to older Nexus devices, but rumor has it that it's already trickling out to Nexus 7 tablets and some Galaxy Nexus phones.