Nexus 7 tablet successor to arrive in July
A follow up to Google’s successful nexus 7 tablet is set to arrive in July and could cost as little as £150, according to reports.
The device will swap the Nvidia Tegra processor found in the original Nexus 7 for a Qualcomm chip, according to a Reuters report that cited two sources with knowledge of the product.
The tablet will also have other minor hardware changes such as a slimmer bezel and higher resolution screen, the sources said.
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Google plans to put the tablet on sale around July and hopes to sell around eight million of the tablets in the second half of 2013. According to one of the sources, the tablet could go on sale for as low as $150 as Google hopes to supplement its hardware income from the device with ad sales. The current generation Wi-Fi only model currently retails in the UK for £159 from the Google Play store.
The first Nexus 7 device was manufactured by Asus, which is also reportedly making the successor. While this is logical it was by no means a foregone conclusion - Google uses different manufacturers to make its Nexus-branded products.
Neither Google nor Asus returned a request for comment at the time of publication.
The first Nexus 7 device was received well by the buying public and stock shortages were quickly reported via several retailers. Its release was largely seen as a response to the success of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet that uses a fork of the Android operating system.
Until the release of the Kindle Fire, and later Nexus 7, Android tablets tended to come in at the premium end of the price scale, making these two of the first 'big brand, low-cost' tablets on the market.