Ah, you might not like it but the pic just above (and at the bottom) is a leaked press shot of Google’s first ever Nexus tablet, called Nexus 7 for now until any official word flies by. It’s said to be a 3-toned device, with white color on the front and a two color combo of black and grey in the back. Looking at above pic, we think that’s not the case, and it’s white color only on front and most of the back. And, it looks like even bigger than not only the original 5.3-inch Galaxy Note, but also than the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2.
Anyway, this appears to be the first Android 4.1 Jelly Bean device, and of course, the launch device itself of the Jelly Bean. If the rumor goes right, which it easily can and usually does, the Nexus 7 tablet would be showcased in last week of this month at annual Google I/O conference, and would launch in July with Jelly Bean on board.
Also on-board is quad-core Tegra 3 processor (no Tegra 3+ yet), making Nexus 7 the first 7-inch tablet with 4 cores. One can spot the presence of speakers on the front. That’s very phone-specific feature, but since it’s there on the Nexus 7 we would wager Google plans to bring VoIP call functionality to Android, via Jelly Bean, and might use Google Voice for that. Or, it could be simply for enhanced music experience, but that’s not the likely thing in my opinion. Anyways, we’ll see.
Design-wise, it’s a little bit disappointing. It looks very very Samsung-ish. And if Asus is the one making it, that’s huge disappointment because Asus has shown time and again its designs are killer — just have a look at Transformer Prime, or the Asus ultrabooks with U56E series. From Asus, we would expect better than this anytime.
So, it seems, there is not too much extraordinary with the Nexus 7, as regards the processor and all except the fact that it should come with Jelly Bean pre-installed and that it’s a Google’s Nexus device. But the pricing of Nexus 7 tablet would be a game-changer factor. Nexus 7 is expected to cost somewhere between $150 to $250, giving some real competition to $200 Kindle Fire and rumored low-cost iPad 7. Making available a low-cost and reputed android tablet the market is the driving factor behind the Nexus 7, it’s said.
Well, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich isn’t too old right now – launching only in October last year – and only some 7% of all android devices run on ICS right now. So, JB’s launch would surely increase the fragmentation thing, but that’s not a problem as all. Whatever happens, the Galaxy Nexus should be getting the Jell Bean update in instant, and other worthy – ahem, capable devices, processor and RAM wise – would catch up too. And anyway, we know the development community has our back even if OEMs delay it or don’t update.
