Should the Google Nexus 7 camera be on the back?

In order to keep the price of the Google Nexus 7 tablet as low as possible, it was decided to have only one camera. A front facing camera, in other words, one that faces you. Is this the best option though? If you were designing a tablet and could only have one camera, would you put it on the front or the back?

One way to look at this is to consider how many apps would use the camera on the front and how many would use it on the back.

A front camera just points directly at your face and so the only applications that can be used are a photo-booth type app that takes head-and-shoulders snapshots, perhaps with special fun effects to make you look fat, thin, old, bald or whatever, and video calls. Is there anything else a front camera is used for? I can't think of anything.

A rear camera though has lots of uses. It cam be used as a digital camera, for example. Although 10in tablets are a bit bulky to carry around, they are still useful as cameras, and 7in tablets are quite portable. Even if your tablet never leaves the home there are still lots of photo opportunities, such as parties, visiting relatives, your pets doing funny things, and so on. A rear camera opens up opportunities for a lot of other apps like photo editing tools, apps that turn photos into slide shows or video clips, apps that upload photos to sharing sites like Instagram. What's the point of Instagram if you can only take photos of your face?

You can also do things like create eBay listings. You can enter the description, take the photo and do everything you need on the tablet. Without a rear camera you have to fiddle around with another one, upload the image, download it to the tablet and so on. It's not as good.

A rear camera is not just for taking photos and barcode readers and QR codes can be used too. You could take video clips too.

Given a choice, I think I would rather have the camera on the rear and not the front. I can live without video calls or at a pinch, I could turn the tablet around to face the camera. You wouldn't be able to see the person on the screen, but they would see you. Or you could stand in front of a mirror. The rear-facing camera would show you in the mirror.

You can use a Google Nexus 7 or similar tablet as a camera, but it is awkward. You have to point it away from you and you can't see the screen, which means you don't know if the shot is framed properly. The button to take the photo is on the screen too, so you have to reach round to press it, which is a bit awkward too. I does work though and the shots, although only 1.2 megapixels, are OK.