We knew, or at least we thought we knew, for a while now, that Google and Asus are working on a co-branded 7-inch tablet, designed to directly challenge Amazon’s very successful Kindle Fire.
Rumored to be powered by a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, and to cost no more than $250, the Nexus Tablet, or whatever they will end up calling it, will probably not be released before July.
At least that’s what the guys at The Verge are claiming today, after finding out from undisclosed sources that the device still needs serious “tweaking” before it can be introduced to the public.
It’s unclear if July is now set for the unveiling of the device or for the actual release, but, all in all, neither of the two possibilities wouldn’t come as a huge shock for us here at Android Authority.
Why Google and Asus still need time to work on the 7-incher
Early rumors from a couple of weeks back stated that the Google-Asus co-branded tablet could be available for sale as soon as May, but many pundits dismissed the speculation due to a couple of reasons.
First of all, even though nobody at Google or Asus has confirmed this officially, the actual research and manufacturing work on the device hasn’t started until a few months back. The whole idea behind the making of a strong, elegant, and affordable 7-incher running Android wasn’t even around until the end of 2011, when we first started hearing about the impressive sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
Keeping this in mind, even though we are talking about two huge companies with the ability of getting an enormous amount of work done in a very short while, it’s hard to believe that their 7-incher could be finished by the end of May, especially considering the amount of scrutiny the device will receive from media and technology enthusiasts all over the world.
Also, let’s not forget what we are dealing with here. If rumors prove to be accurate, Google and Asus will be coming with a gadget that will probably be twice as snappy as the Kindle Fire and will be made available at around the same price. It’s obvious, therefore, that the two technology giants will either have to cut some corners and make some performance, design, or software sacrifices, or, they will have to assume substantial financial losses.
Either way, this is not an easy decision to make and is yet another reason to push back the release for as much as possible. On the other hand, if the tablet won’t come in July either and the launch will be once again delayed, Google and Asus might be in even more trouble. According to rumors we commented on last week, Amazon is gearing to release two to four tablets this year. At least one of these gadgets is thought to come as soon as July and it might give Google’s Nexus tablet a serious run for its money.
Furthermore, The Verge also reports that Apple might be coming with a 7-inch tablet of its own in the near future, supposedly called the iPad mini. Google and Asus must release their own gadget before the iPad mini or else they will be in big, big trouble.
Let’s stop the rumor mill from grinding for the time being, because we know that too much speculation can hurt our perception on reality, but check back on our website soon for the latest developments on the Google-Asus co-branded tablet.
