Google is reportedly getting into the tablet market, with another “Nexus” branded device. Google’s plan to step into the tablet market with its own device isn’t going to be an independent affair. The company is expected to directly sell a tablet co-created by Asustek Computer.
Exactly when isn’t so clear, The Verge is reporting that Google’s putting the tablet back to the shop, allowing Google to somehow shave down the device’s manufacturing costs so it can better compete against cheaper tablets like Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire and Asus’s upcoming tablet (Memo 370T).
It’s little known what we can expect hardware-wise on Google’s tablet, but the device is expected to ship with a quad-core, Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and Wi-Fi-only connectivity. If Google’s trying to lower manufacturing costs they might consider lowering the bar to a dual-core processor, which will put the device in range with the Kindle Fire’s 1 Ghz, dual-core TI OMAP 4 chip — which arguably has around the same general performance as Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chips (if not a little faster). There has been speculation as to the software that will be found on the tablet, originally some analysts reported that Google would launch the successor to Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, with their new tablet. But, The Verge’s secret source claimed that the “Nexus” tablet has been built for Android 4.0; otherwise the tablet have bit more of a delay than July.
