Google Nexus 7 Is Official, Pre-Order Now, Ships in Two Weeks ~ The World is Mine

Jun 28, 2012

Google Nexus 7 Is Official, Pre-Order Now, Ships in Two Weeks

6/28/2012 06:22:00 PM

dannzfay

During its annual developer-focused conference, Internet giant company Google has launched its first Android tablet. The new device has a 7” diagonal size and sports a 1280 by 800 pixel resolution.

This is the first 7” tablet that’s being endorsed and marketed by one of the world’s biggest IT companies. Steve Jobs’ Apple has always mocked the 7” diagonal size and said many times that 7” tablets are not really tablets and, although in a much more humble manner, we tend to agree with him. Microsoft’s recently presented Surface tablet keeps up with Apple and features a diagonal of more than 7”, and it also brings other innovative features, such as a foldable keyboard/tablet cover. Therefore, Google is left alone by the big league tablet players on the 7” tablet front and it only competes with the likes of Acer, Samsung and ASUS.

The manufacturer behind Google’s Nexus is, in fact, the Taiwanese mainboard manufacturer called ASUS, the maker of the famous Transformer tablets. Just like Acer’s Iconia A110, the new Google Nexus is powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 or Tegra 4 + 1 SoC and features 1 GB of system RAM memory. The screen is a little better than Iconia A110's, as Acer’s tablet only has a 1024 by 600 pixel resolution. The Nexus 7 has an IPS led backlit screen that’s somewhat protected by Corning’s special glass. It also features a rather mediocre 1.2 MP front-facing camera, Wireless N, Bluetooth, Micro USB and a NFC chip. Compared with Acer’s Iconia A110, the Google Nexus 7 is 30 grams lighter, weighing just 340 grams. That’s about 0.75 pounds for the new Google tablet, although we’d rather carry 30 grams more and have the 2 MP webcam sported on the Iconia A110.

Nexus 7 features a rather large and capable 4325 mAh battery that is rated for 8 hours of active use. This is considerably larger than Iconia’s 3420 mAh battery. There is also a GPS inside, a Magnetometer, Gyroscope, Accelerometer and a Microphone, but no HDMI, unfortunately. It would have been nice to have some output options like Acer’s HDMI with DualDisplay support on the A110. The tablet is running Android 4.1, which is the "Jelly Bean" version that everybody is talking about. There are only 8 GB of flash storage inside, but, overall, Google’s Nexus 7 only brings good news, as the $199 price will force the price down on less popular devices like Acer’s Iconia that we’ve been talking about. There is also a $249 Nexus 7 version that comes with 16 GB of flash storage, but we find the lack of a microSD slot to be quite a disappointment. Priced at about €159 for the 8 GB version and €199 for the 16 GB model, Google’s Nexus 7 has just raised the bar in the cheap 7” tablet market niche.

The pre-order prices vary in different areas of the world, as Google identifies the location of your IP address.

The company will reportedly ship the desired toy in about 2 or 3 weeks from the pre-order date. In the United States, the prices are exactly as we said before, and that’s $199 USD for the 8-GB version and $249 USD for the 16-GB model. One thing that raised our eyebrows is the fact that Google is completely fair and doesn’t charge the British the same numerical value in pounds, but it only charges £159 for the 8-GB model and £199 for the 16-GB one.

Canadians will have to shell out $209 CAD for the cheapest version and $259 CAD for the better-endowed model. In Australia, Nexus 7 is priced at $249 AUS and $299 AUS, respectively.