Project Tango tablets arrive on Google Play in the US – listed as ‘Coming Soon’

Google’s Project Tango, from Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects(ATAP) group is a project which aims to use a combination of specially built hardware and customised Android builds to make 3D maps of the real world. A phone was announced when Tango was first unveiled, but it’s the Tango tablet which seems to have gained a lot more press of late, with a tear down and trip to the FCC showing up as recently as Septemnber. Today, the Tabgo tablet has appeared on Google Play in the US, indicating that the tablet will possibly go on-sale quite soon.

The tablet which appears to be listed in Black and White, has a ‘Coming Soon’ tag on Google Play, so not even US residents can purchase it, but alas, we don’t even get an option with the all to familiar ‘Project Tango Tablet Development Kit (White) is not available in your country’ appearing on the page.

The specs of the tablet are fairly high-end, with a heap of sensors and camera technology, including a front-facing camera with 120° field of view, and a 2µm sensor on the 4MP camera on the rear, but then you’ll be paying a high-end price for it. Google announced earlier this year, that the tablet would cost US$1024 to developers. Full specs for the tablet include :

• 7.02” 1920×1200
  HD IPS display (323 ppi) with Scratch-resistant Corning® glass
• NVIDIA Tegra K1 with 192 CUDA cores
• 4GB RAM
• 128GB internal storage with MicroSD Card slot
• Dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz/5GHz) WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, NFC
• 1 MP front facing, fixed focus with IR LED and 4 MP 2µm RGB-IR pixel sensor
• USB 3.0 host via dock connector and Nano SIM slot
• Dual stereo speakers and 3.5 mm audio connector
• Sensors:
• Motion tracking camera
• 3D depth sensing
• Accelerometer
• Ambient light
• Barometer
• Compass
• GPS
• Gyroscope
• 119.77×196.33×15.36mm @ 370grams
• Android 4.4.2 (KitKat)
• 4960 mAH cell (2 x 2480 cells)

A consumer version of the Tango tablet is apparently coming next year, with former Nexus manufacturer, LG apparently delivering the goods. Until then, if you have a project that requires a 3D map of a location then you’ll have to shell out for the developer kit.

Have you got a great idea for using Project Tango?