It has been known for a while now that Google are working on a “Nexus Tablet” to bring lead the way and bring competition to the tablet market, and if The Verge’s exclusive report is true, that market is the 7-inch tablet market. It is said that Google have internally pushed back the release date of the tablet to change the design and ensure the price is lower than the current estimate of $249. If it can hit the sub $200 mark, they just might be onto a winner.
While it might be reasonable to think that the push back is due to the possibility of launching with Android 5.0 “Jelly Bean”, The Verge’s sources are certain that’s not the case. Instead the 7-inch tablet will come with NVIDIA’s Quad-Core Tegra 3 CPU (we’d prefer Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4, but we can’t all be winners), Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”, and will be Wi-Fi only.
Being Wi-Fi only makes it easier for Google to sell this themselves through an online store and not through carriers. That move can also be a double-edged sword — the lack of carriers pushing the device will make it harder to publicise the device to the average consumer walking into a carrier’s store. That being said, Google can easily place an ad on their home page which millions of people access on a daily basis.
