Google have unveiled the Nexus 7, a new tablet which is aimed at the cheaper end of the market and will retail at £159 for the 8GB version and £199 for the 16GB model.
You get an awful lot of bang for your buck, starting with a 7 inch screen running at 1280×800. This is powered by a 12 core GPU and backed up by a quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 CPU.
Running Android 4.1 “Jelly-bean” the tablet comes pre-loaded with Google apps such as Gmail and will also come with ‘tons of free cloud storage’.
Google say the lightweight 340g tablet will play for an impressive 8 hours if you are watching videos or 300 hours on standby.
On the downside there is no Micro SD slot and 16 gig will be quickly used up if you are a fan of HD movies, the cloud storage will be invaluable.
For more information head over to the Nexus 7 site.
Sounds quite good although a Nexus 7 is only one third as good as Altern-8 (joke for rave fans!)
ScottyB
Imo you’d be better off with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, Same price for 7″ 16GB and its specifications are practically on par & with more features (Rear camera with zoom, SD card slot etc)
DJ Judas
Unfortunately this just isn’t the case, the processing power in the Nexus 7 is greater than the Tab 2 and going from memory the screen is inferior too. While there’s no general consensus on Jellybean yet, it’s a safe bet it outperforms ICS in usability also.
The Tab 2 is actually inferior to the Tab it replaced; the Tab 7 Plus, which also has more processing grunt but was originally priced much higher than the Tab 2’s £199.
cc_star
Tegra 3 is the winner here… and of course unskinned, straight up Android not dirtied by a Samsung skin & potentially slow update process.
tonycawley
8 gig and 16 gig are some pretty poor options in my opinion, and with no method of upgrading the storage you’re going to quickly run out.
Also, the extra £40 for 8 extra gig? That’s even worse than the vita memory pricing. Still, at £199 for the 16 gig model you really can’t complain.
cc_star
Would have preferred a 32GB myself, but all my music is in Google Music & I can’t see me using it for watching movies on but if I do I’ll be able to transfer & delete at will, of course stuff like iPlayer, Netflix & any Google video options like Play Store, YouTube etc take up zero space.
£199 bargain.
Nickboss1
Sounds good
Kreisash
I believe that they will not deny the option of using external storage via the micro USB but it’s possible. But if they do allow it like on many other tabs, then the lack of SD doesn’t become so much of an issue.
Whacked an order in for the 16GB today. (Going halves with the other, er half… maybe I can get my M11x back then…)
SpikeyMikey23
Thats the Mrs’s christmas present sorted :D
Bilbo_bobbins
I’ll wait for a Ipad mini I think. Android market sucks massive balls. I would love it for music/vids as its much easier to use than crappy iTunes, but still, it would sync with all my Apple stuff too
Forrest_01
iPad mini? Wouldn’t that just be an iPhone??? :P
DJ Judas
That’s essentially what all tablets are currently, phones without the ability to make calls….or vice-versa, phones are tablets with the ability to make calls.
There’s definitely a market for sub 10 inch tablets so I’d be very surprised if Apple didn’t join in soon enough.
The problem Apple face is that the price would have to be competitive, but so would the hardware at 7 inches, to do this they’d have to sell their 7 inch tablet at sub $200 with the same internal hardware as their larger, more expensive tablets with there being little to justify the huge leap in price between the two sizes.
The only way around this really is to release the next iPad with some serious hardware, or use the marketing trick that is justifying a price bump for a few extra Gigs of storage through the use of storage as a classification method, and releasing the iPad micro/mini/nano with 8Gb storage when in reality the price difference between the flash storage prices should be negligible.
cc_star
Apart from a few lovely apps designed specifically for iOS, the stores are pretty similar the new Play Store is probably easier to use too, and that’s without taking into account the web interface.
iTunes library syncs just fine with Android, not sure what you’re talking about there, I can only think you’ve never used one or at least not for a considerable amount of time
Looking at how much iPod Touchs are I severely doubt sales of this would be troubled should Apple decide to cannibalise their existing iPad business with a cheaper smaller version (they won’t, surely)
E8_BALL_
Watched a review on BBC Click yesterday, it look like a nice bit of kit.
BalramRules
Google’s just freaking awesome!! But Apple is too… :o
Looks like the both of you’s have competition… woooo
But hopefully both, the Nexus 7 and iPad are successful. :)