Google launches the Nexus 7 tablet in today’s I/O conference. It spots a 7 inch screen similar to Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and will be available at $199 USD. Nexus 7 is obviously going to hurt Amazon’s Kindle Fire, at the same time adding pressure to the current market leader Apple Inc. Just last week, Microsoft added Microsoft Surface to the tablet wars and claimed that in 2013, tablet will outsell PC.
Google partnered with ASUS to build the Nexus 7, it will be priced at $199 for the 8GB model and $249 for the 16GB model. It will feature a 7 inch screen with 1280×800 resolution, come pre-loaded with the latest Adroid 4.1 Jelly Bean. The guts will be made of Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 12 core GPU(!!), 1.2-megapixel front facing camera, 1GB of RAM, a 4,325mAh battery, and with Wifi/Bluetooth/NFC (Near Field Communication) ready. No, there is no rear camera because taking photos with your tablet makes you look like an idiot. There is no expandable storage either, but Google offers a wide range of cloud portfolios so that will not be a problem I guess. Google repeated several times that the 7 inch screen is perfect size for reading and watching videos, the size also allows it to be lighter at 340 grams.
In this day and age, content is king in these devices. Like Amazon’s Kindle Fire, digital content is the soul of Nexus 7 too. Google has reiterate Nexus 7 is made for Google Play, and the focus will be on delivering music, movies, books, magazines, apps, and games via Google Play. It will also be the first device that ships with Chrome browser. The battery life will allow up to 8 hours of video playback. According to Google, the entire UI in Jelly Bean will operate much faster than the current Ice Cream Sandwich.
Google was able to cramp some impressive guts under a 7 incher and most importantly still keep the price cheap, at $199 it is less than half the price of iPad. Nexus 7 might allow Google to finally get some share on the tablet user base and shake off the “just another Android-based tablet” tag.
Nexus 7 ships mid-July, available in US, Canada, UK and Australia, with the rest of the world at a later date.
Aaah, the geek world is so damn exciting.
[Google Nexus. Video Nexus, Hexydes]