Surprise, surprise... or not really. In what could be one of the worst kept secrets in tech, Google today revealed the next tablet in line to compete, not so much with the iPad, but with the Kindle Fire, with deep integration into the Google Play store. More on that later.
The Google Nexus 7 tablet by Asus is available for pre-order today via the Google Play store starting at $199 for the 8GB version and $249 for the 16GB version.
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Google’s OS successor to Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, will have a home on this 7 inch beauty sporting a quad core Tegra 3 processor, 1.2 megapixel front facing camera, 1280x800 IPS display, and 1GB of RAM. A 4,325mAH battery is included and is spec’d out for 9 hours of video playback, and 300 hours standby time. Along with bluetooth and wireless radios, NFC is also on board which will allow other devices sporting Android Beam to transfer data to one another by tapping both devices together.
A 12-core GPU is behind the impressive gaming demos showed off at the Google IO keynote, showing smooth character movements with nary a flutter to be seen. Games can be controlled by an onboard gyro allowing the tablet to control movement within the game itself. There is no doubt Google has put forth the effort for the Nexus 7 to be a serious gaming machine.
Google has expanded the offerings in the Google Play store ahead of the release of the Nexus 7 to include movies, books, Nexus 7 optimized apps, and games. Magazines have also been added, with features that include interactive elements that allow the reader to interact with various parts of the magazine, such as play videos, or see specialized content. The music application, besides being able to plug into your downloaded music, has a Shazam-like widget that, when activated, can ID a song you are hearing on the radio, for example, and in turn open up the Google Play store to allow you to purchase it. The Nexus 7 also “learns” from your various selections and uses a customizable recommendation engine to discover new media for you.
There is no doubt Google has entered a rather contentious market place where the Kindle is king and the iPad already in the hands of thousands not willing to give it up too easily. Only time will tell if the Nexus 7 will make a dent in the tablet space, but Google is most certainly out of the gates with a strong contender.
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Source: Google Play Store
