All you need to know about the Google Nexus Tablet

After months of speculation and delay, Google is all set to launch its first ever Google branded Nexus tablet at the Google I/O conference in June. This has been a long time coming and seeing the rapid adoption of Android tablets, Google wants to be part of the party just like they do with their Nexus branded phones. However, rather than just dishing out another high-end and high priced tablet, Google plans on setting on setting a new benchmark to what a mainstream tablet should be. The iPad is already in a league of its own when you look at the amount of units sold so going after that market is really a moot point since we’ve seen company’s try that a countless times already and fail, miserably. With the Nexus tablet, Google is going after the mainstream crowd, particularly the sub-$200 price bracket. Currently, we have the Amazon Kindle Fire that’s wildly popular in this segment and Google plans to capture this market. So here’s what we know so far about the Google Nexus Tablet.

Built by Asus
One would typically expect Samsung or even Motorola to be the hardware partner for Google’s official tablet but as it turns out, Asus will be the one manufacturing the Nexus tablet. Google also plans to sell the tablets themselves directly to the end user through an online store. Now, there aren’t any leaked pictures of the tablet yet but we don’t have to wait for that since we have a sneaking suspicion that it will be based on the Asus Eee Pad MeMO ME370T. Asus announced this tablet at CES along with a whole bunch of other tablets as well but what makes this stand out is that it’s a 7-inch tablet priced under $300. Now this was back in January and enough time has passed since then for Google and Asus to figure out a way to reduce costs so while the tablet may not actually launch at a sub-$200 price at first, it’s said to be around $250 (approx. Rs.14,000), which is still very good.

Could be based on the MeMO tablet

Going by the Asus MeMO, the Nexus tablet should feature a 1280 x 800 resolution, scratch-resistant screen, feature all your usual connectivity options like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB and maybe HDMI. It’s still not certain if Google will keep the rear camera or ditch it in order to save costs since most of the tablet cameras are either not great or never really used much. We’re really glad they are going with the 7-inch form factor rather than a 10.1-inch display since 7-inches is a lot more manageable in your hand and easy to use.

Powered by Nvidia
Asus and Nvidia have a really strong partnership right now as the company used the Transformer Prime to showcase the capabilities of their Tegra 3 SoC and also launch the platform in the market. It’s now confirmed that the Nexus tablet will be powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 3, which is really big news since it will be the first time a quad-core SoC based tablet will be available at this price point. Asus is really gunning hard for a top spot in the tablet race according to the Xu Youjia, who told the China Times that  his company would not settle for anything less than the second best (keeping Apple in mind obviously) and hopes to take the lead in the tablet segment.

Powered by...

By using Nvidia’s SoC, the Nexus tablet will automatically get an upper hand when it comes to gaming and other multimedia aspects, where the Tegra 3 really excels.