Microsoft may have impressed with its Surface tablet last week, but this week it's likely to be Google's turn, with the search giant rumored to be introducing its own seven-inch, Nexus-branded slate at the Google I/O developer conference on Wednesday.
Gizmodo is reporting that their Australian branch has viewed a training document which allegedly spills the beans on Google's big announcement at the I/O developer conference this week: As widely rumored, the company will introduce its own Nexus-branded tablet hardware in an effort to show Android tablet makers how it should be done.
"According to the leak, it's built by Asus, with a 1.3Ghz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, GeForce 12-core GPU and 1GB of RAM with two different storage variants: 8GB and 16GB," the report reveals. "The Nexus tablet will also feature NFC and run Google Wallet (probably only in the U.S.) and Android Beam.
"The screen is an IPS display with a 178-degree viewing angle, running a resolution of 1280 by 800," the report continues. "The device will also sport a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera. The battery will also give you nine hours worth of operation. The 8GB model will set you back $199 USD and the 16GB will cost $249 USD. No word in the document on local prices."
Most curiously, the report also notes that the Nexus 7 tablet will introduce the next version of Android, Jellybean, but that it will be a modest leap ahead in version numbers, to 4.1 instead of 5.0. The same information was recently leaked on the Google Play Store, where a Galaxy Nexus smartphone being sold there included text about being upgradeable to Jellybean 4.1 when available.
Such a move makes sense, given the extremely slow adoption rate of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich among manufacturers, which is on less than eight percent of devices after eight months on the market.
Although Asus may not be the largest OEM of Android tablets, they do tend to make some of the more interesting models, so the Nexus 7 could be just what Google has been looking for. We'll all know for sure come Wednesday morning when the I/O conference kicks off…
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(Image courtesy of Gizmodo Australia)
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