Brace yourselves folks, Google has finally launched its Nexus series in India officially on the Play Store – the start has been made with the Nexus 7, which is available from the Play Store for a price of Rs. 15,999, with a shipping date of April 5th.

For now, only the 16GB Wi-Fi model is available, which makes the INR 15,999 (~ $295) price tag a bit steep and makes me wonder how much the 3G and higher storage variant will cost. This is expected, however, as the prices usually rise quite a bit as products make their way to the country. You can order it right away, though shipping will start by April 5th with no mention of exactly how many days it may take to reach consumers.

As a reminder, the Nexus 7 sports a 7-inch 1280 x 800 IPS display, 1.3GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 1GB RAM, 1.2-megapixel front camera, 16GB storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC and GPS connectivity, and a 4325 mAh battery. It runs Android 4.1 out of the box, which means Google has bought over the old stock instead of the one pre-loaded with Android 4.2, but hey, it’s a Nexus, so you can manually update it as soon as you receive it.

With the recent release of Play Books as well as a dedicated Hindi transliteration keyboard, I suspected Google was looking at expanding their services in India, and the launch of the Nexus 7 confirms that suspicion. While many will be disappointed that there is no Nexus 4 (or Nexus 10) here yet – nor has Google improved their abysmal support for local debit cards – it is still a start, and even if the Nexus 4 never makes it here, we can hold hope for at least the next Nexus smartphone getting an official launch in India.

Hit the link below to order the Nexus 7 from Google Play. Any bets on when Google will bring over the Nexus 4 and other services like Movies and Music?

Buy Nexus 7