The Verge today is reporting that Google’s first foray into the tablet market with a co-branded Android device won’t be with us until July at the earliest. The current design was ready to go for May, but Google pushed back the planned release so it could tweak the device, sources close to the project said on Friday.
The Mountain View team plans to make some design changes and hopes to lower the price from the current $249. The tablet, made in partnership with Taiwan’s Asustek Computer, currently comes with a 7-inch screen, an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, and is Wi-Fi-only. It runs Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. The $249 price tag on the current Google-Asustek tablet is higher than previous reports of a $149-$199 device. Amazon’s Kindle Fire, another 7-inch tablet that retails for $199, is the obvious competitor that Google will be taking on in that size and price range.
There are also reports that Apple is planning a smaller tablet with a 7.85-inch screen, called the iPad mini, which Google may be trying to preempt. Some reports have suggested Google wants to delay its tablet until after June so it can install the next version of Android, codenamed Jelly Bean, but that’s unlikely, the sources said. The current product is designed for Android 4.0, and new software could cause a much longer delay. Asustek is working with Google the way the US internet giant partnered with companies on Android Nexus smartphones, to make better phones and to jumpstart the market. Manufacturers say the co-branding was a huge boost, since Google is a household name. The co-branding strategy in Android tablets opens the door for a number of other companies to work with Google in the future, including Samsung Electronics, Acer and others.
EXPECTED SPECIFICATIONS
The Google tablet specs will be more Kindle-y than iPad-y
Everybody assumed that Google’s tablet would be an iPad rival. The fools! There are already stacks of iPad rivals running Android and costing roughly the same amount of cash, and it’s hard to imagine what Google can bring to that party beyond heavy subsidy.
It makes much more sense to believe DigiTimes – yes, that DigiTimes, the one with the rather patchy track record when it comes to predictions – and its claims that Google is going after the Kindle Fire.
That means the Google tablet specifications will include a seven-inch screen rather than a ten-incher. OLED-display says the panel is coming from Samsung, and will run a resolution of 1024 x 600.
It’s a much bigger potential market, and one that Apple isn’t in at all. Unless it drops the iPad 2 price out of sheer badness when the iPad HD comes out.
UPDATE: Fudzilla reported on 6 March 2011 that the Nexus tablet will carry Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chipset, which has led to speculation that Asus will be creating the tablet.
On 9 March, we reported on fresh rumours that Asus would be building the Google Nexus tablet, this time from Digitimes. The site says Google has been seeking a Taiwanese partner and having ruled out both HTC and Acer, it has opted to work with Asus.
The Google Nexus tablet will be a media tablet
Again, think Kindle Fire – but with Google Books, Google Music and YouTube instead of Amazon content.
The Google tablet will be called the Google Nexus tablet
That’s what most people think, anyway: Google already uses Nexus for its reference smartphones, although we suppose it’s always possible that they might call the Google tablet something else, such as the Google Boogle.
The Google tablet operating system will be Android 4.0
This one’s a no-brainer: Google’s Nexus tablet will come with the most up-to-date version of Android, and if it’s going to ship by the summer that means the Google tablet OS will be Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0.
The Google Nexus tablet user interface will be Holo
Google’s laid down the law on this one: All future Android 4.0 devices must feature its default theme, Holo. It’s hardly going to dig out MS Paint and ruin the UI for its own super-tablet.
The Google tablet price will be below £200
There’s no point competing with the Kindle Fire if your product is more expensive. That means a heavily subsidised US price of no more than $199, which works out as a UK price of £150 to £199.
Like Amazon, Google’s going to lose money on each one it sells – and like Amazon, it hopes to make the money back from other sources of income. For Amazon that’s media sales; for Google it’s media sales and advertising.
source:internet
Comments
Post a Comment