Leaked Nexus 7 specs and price

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/06/this-is-googles-new-nexus-tablet-the-nexus-7/

by jbk • 14 years ago

76 64 14 years ago

gizmodo.com.au

StavrosK2• 14 years ago

$200? How the hell?

gosub2• 14 years ago

Decent 7" tablets based on the Allwinner A10 arm cpu can easily be found around 100/150€. http://tabletrepublic.com/forum/cortex-a8-allwinner-a10/

The performance is not at Tegra3 level, but they provide smooth scrolling and browsing. A cheap google tablet in this segment is a very tempting buy.

StavrosK2• 14 years ago

Sure, but a Tegra 3 tablet in that range is surely news, no?

creamyhorror• 14 years ago

It's a great price point. I only wish I had a particular need for a tablet. As it is I don't even need more than a single-core for reading ebooks, watching video, or surfing (I don't play games), and here comes an inexpensive quadcore. If anything the problem to solve is improving battery life significantly, so we don't need to limit usage if we're out and about for a while.

What cool/handy things do you guys do with your tablets?

1880• 14 years ago

While it's true you can find decent tablets for 100€, most of them have a problem which has been a deal-breaker for me: the aspect ratio is always wrong. In portrait, circles are squished horizontally; in landscape, circles are squished vertically.

I can't understand how that can happen and the manufacturer doesn't seem to notice or care.

clumsysmurf2• 14 years ago

Google could be subsidizing the device in exchange for Play Store revenue, since Google gets 30% cut from app sales.

saurik2• 14 years ago

Maybe from music or something, but not from app sales...

a) they don't actually get 30% (they get what is left over after giving the developer 70% and then subtracting their fixed costs... small money transactions is considerable in fees, bandwidth for them is cheap but not free, etc.)

b) it is now public (due to the Oracle case) that the Android division of Google actually lost money in 2010

c) despite their massive volume, Apple's App Store makes sufficiently little profit that they don't even break it out as a separate line item on their 10-Q (instead lumping it under "music related products and services", the same category that handles both iTunes and iBooks)

To expand on #C, it is seriously my understanding that Apple manages to only barely stay in in the black on the whole App Store model: their goal is ecosystem control and a competive advantage for their hardware platform, which in turn is where they make their real money.

Looking further at Apple's business model, you get ~$170 margin per iPhone sold; I know many people who have owned 3 iPhones over the last 5 years, but absolutely no one who has purchased the $1700 in apps that would be required for even the full 30% (that Apple can't possibly be keeping all of) to make that same amount of money.

In essence, you just can't subsidize a piece of hardware like this with app sales. I mean, this is going to be ludicrously obvious if you just take the individual device: if they wanted to subsidize it by even $100, and even if they managed to keep the full 30% (and again: they can't and aren't), then the average tablet user would have to purchase >$330 in apps per tablet... that is ludicrously unlikely.

MatthewPhillips• 14 years ago

8gb.

jsankey• 14 years ago

A great $200 tablet is coming soon, and when it does it will be huge. Tablets start looking a lot less like a luxury at that price point.

This is still pure rumor, though.

planetguy• 14 years ago

An iPod Touch has been $200 for years, and it's just a small iPad. I don't believe that stretching it out a bit can cost all that much.

clumsysmurf2• 14 years ago

If this tablet is a commercial failure with such great specs at such a reasonable price, this does not bode well for Android as a Tablet OS.

I have been developing for Android full time 2 years. I am waiting for some indication that Android is doing well on tablets and there is a return on investment (ROI) optimizing for this platform / form factor combination. So far that ROI has not been there for me.

thechut• 14 years ago

As a young, much newer Android developer I would be interested in your opinion on the ROI of developing for Android phones, specifically supporting lots of devices.

athalius2• 14 years ago

12 core GPU? Am I missing something here? I thought even the IPad was only quad core?

densh• 14 years ago

Please never consider such characteristics (number of cores or their frequencies) as an advantage when buying any mobile gadgets. Mobile technology varies highly and such characteristics are usually can't be easily compared between different hardware vendors (e.g. two 400mhz GPUs might have completely different performance profile.) I don't know what kind of hardware they have there but it might be anything — from a plenty of slower cores to having many specialized cores. Also a lot depends on software and it's integration with hardware. Do test real devices and measure real-life performance. That's the only way to tell if there is any improvement whatsoever.

MSM• 14 years ago

I would expand this to say don't just compare speed across brands on PC either- if you compare a quad core Intel to a quad core AMD, you'll see quite a difference. It's all about how those cycles are used!

athalius2• 14 years ago

I wasn't trying to make a baseline strength comparison, I was more curious about where the 12 figure came from. I was under the impression that Tegra 3 was a quad or dual core gpu ( turns out according to http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-superchip.html its an 8 core gpu ).

huxley• 14 years ago

Very different architectures. Anandtech did some performance comparisons of Tegra3 to the new iPad's PowerVR SGX543MP4 which show the PowerVR delivering better performance with "fewer" cores and far lower frequency:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5663/analysis-of-the-new-apple...

Symmetry• 14 years ago

What constitutes a GPU "core" is anything but well defined. Heck, people argue about whether the FX-8150 has 8 or 4 cores, but if we were to use NVidia's methodology we'd probably call it 16 or 32 cores. Who knows how Apple counts "cores" in their GPUs.

dmm• 14 years ago

That phone is ridiculously big. The $200 price is pretty good though.

JOfferijns• 14 years ago

"Nexus 7: This Is Google’s New Nexus Tablet"

It's marketed as a small tablet, not a big phone (similar to Amazons Kindle Fire).

dbaupp• 14 years ago

It's a tablet.

2muchcoffeeman• 14 years ago

I made the same mistake at first!

napoleoncomplex2• 14 years ago

"Details are scarce on Jelly Bean, but the slides tell us that Google will handle operating system updates from now on, which could address the fragmentation problem."

This is the most interesting line in that article for me. Please let it be true.

trotsky• 14 years ago

I want to believe, but hasn't that been a (mostly) true statement for previous nexus devices as well?

napoleoncomplex2• 14 years ago

The "from now on" part is giving me hope, but you are right, it is most likely something trivial like that.

objclxt• 14 years ago

I suspect it refers to the Nexus Tablet. I really can't see Google offering to maintain manufacturer specific Android front-ends like Samsung TouchWiz, and I can't see manufacturers dropping them for 'vanilla' Android.

falling2• 14 years ago

They could be "encouraged" to only use public APIs and not change the base OS, which would make porting much much easier.

This is of course assuming the problem is really a technical one and the carriers/manufacturers care at all about supporting last year's devices.

Shivetya• 14 years ago

It would be better with a rear facing camera. After originally not caring I have found that kids and grand parents both loved being able to take pictures and email them. The number of times I have ever used the front facing camera can be summarized with, demonstrating photo booth apps.

CrazedGeek• 14 years ago

See, and I'm the opposite. I never use the back camera on my tablet (too low quality, no flash), but I frequently video chat with friends and family with the front camera.

Also, I'm not too sure the lack of a back camera would be a deal breaker for most people -- the Fire's sold pretty dang well without one.

stevenwei• 14 years ago

If the price point is correct, this puts it in direct competition with the Kindle Fire, which has sold reasonably well (despite being a rather mediocre device).

epo• 14 years ago

Oh look! It's an iPad clone. At least Microsoft tried something different with the Surface FUDevice. Google just seem to have outsourced their industrial design to Apple.

programminggeek• 14 years ago

Funny story, I was at Sam's Club the other day checking out the tablets and I noticed two important things.

First, the iPad is always out front - highly visible and ready to play with. People are always stepping up and using it. The android tablets (including the Kindle Fire) were around back.

Second, a customer was playing with a 10" Android tablet and his wife came over. He commented to her something like "I like the tablet over there better" and he pointed to the Kindle Fire. The hardware is obviously not as good on the Fire, but the UI/UX and form factor seem to suit non-geeks a lot better than Android 4.0.

Also, my mother-in-law just got a Kindle Fire and loves it.

A couple data points don't mean much, but it's always interesting to see how normal people view and use these devices.

conradev• 14 years ago

The Kindle Fire is the only non-iPad tablet I have seen in the wild.

thoughtsimple• 14 years ago

I've also seen a ASUS Transformer in the wild. The woman who owned it had just received it and didn't really know what she was going to do with it. She didn't buy the keyboard. She seemed happy with it though.

shimon_e• 14 years ago

I see a lot of Chinese brand tablets in China. That and the Galaxy note are crazy as hell here.

noarchy2• 14 years ago

I've seen Nook Colors (and own one myself), but not many.

quattrofan• 14 years ago

Want

suprgeek2• 14 years ago

This is what Google should have done a year and a half ago. Totally different from the iPad (size/price) and well differentiated in the consumer's mind. Instead they went with a lot of "mee-too" expensive 10.1" tablets that have been utter failures. For avg. consumers the thought process was "Its not an iPad, has less Apps, and is COSTLIER????"

At this price point and not having the "cheap crap" label is going to drive a LOT of sales (in my opinion). Unfortunately "Android Tablet" has gotten a slightly bad rap by now...

joenathan2• 14 years ago

What are you talking about? This is Google's first Nexus tablet, not only that but there have always been Android tablets at that size, even before Google had a tablet ready OS(Honeycomb), like the original Galaxy Tab http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Tab and the Nook Color, just to name a couple.

suprgeek2• 14 years ago

Google threw their weight behind a bunch of 10.1 tablets before this [1],[2]. Both these were priced higher than the iPad at launch. I Never said there was a previous "Nexus" branded tablet or that there were no 7" Androids at all.

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-l...

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Xoom

jsz0• 14 years ago

Isn't a 7 inch tablet kind of redundant when most Android phones are 4.5-5 inches these days? It doesn't seem like an extra 2-2.5 inches is going to make a big difference especially when you are running the exact same applications scaled up a bit. I believe this is one of the reasons the iPad has been so successful since Apple draws a clear line between a small phone and a large tablet. Consumers can immediately see the benefit of a larger device. When you're dealing with 2-2.5 inches even $200 seems hard to justify. That's about $100 an inch!

tomkarlo• 14 years ago

4.5 - 5" phones are still pretty new, and they're still not remotely the majority of units being sold. Not to mention lots of folks out there have 1-2 year old phones they're not about to replace (and may not want a 5" screen.)

At least for reading, a 7" device like the Kindle Fire is a huge improvement over a 4" phone screen, much more than the simple size difference would indicate. At similar (smallish) font sizes, I can get about 5-7 words across the screen on a phone, whereas I can get 9-12 words on a 7" device.

For books, news and movies, a size increase of about 75% is a big deal.

Achshar2• 14 years ago

I am inclined to think 7 inch will be a let down. Not much different from other big phones. A 10 inch is the least. The 7 inch tablet really has to die IMO. I am looking for a tablet and will get one but never a 7inch. My phone is already almost 4 inches. I don't need a mildly bigger phone. I need a nice big screen which is a joy to watch videos or use flipboard on.

CapitalistCartr• 14 years ago

"The 7 inch tablet really has to die IMO."

Because you don't want it, it needs to die? So you "need a nice big screen", good for you; I don't. The seven inch tablet is great for me. I'm in the over forty crowd and my iPhone is hard to use accurately with my fingers, to the point of frustration. I need something to use as my pocket computer that's easier than my smart phone, allows me to configure it to my convenience, allows me to insert portable storage, uses standard ports, such as USB, and to change the battery when it wears.

Achshar2• 14 years ago

My point was that the phones are moving closer to the 7 inch mark. There is now just about 2 inch difference b/w a high end phone and a tablet. So if you need a 7 inch tablet, in most cases a 5 inch galaxy note will suffice. Except maybe a USB port, but there are micro usb to USB converters out there that are tiny. The 7 inch model does not make sense because there isn't much to differentiate b/w a 5' phone and a 7' tablet. What can be seen on 7' tablet can most certainly be seen on phone, best example being desktop websites. They will look very similar on a 5' and a 7' screen. 10' will make a difference though, both because of screen size and higher resolution.

dagar• 14 years ago

It has a 138% larger screen area than the Galaxy Nexus (4.65") and 222% larger area than the Nexus S (4"). I don't believe calling it mildly bigger is accurate.

http://www.displaywars.com/4,65-inch-16x9-vs-7-inch-16x10 http://www.displaywars.com/4-inch-16x9-vs-7-inch-16x10

ansgri• 14 years ago

It will allow you to get a smaller phone, after all. 10 inch is a bit too big to carry around all the time.

noarchy2• 14 years ago

As I look at these Nexus Tab specs, my first-gen Nook Color is looking very feeble by comparison. I've been running CM9 (ICS) nightlies on the Nook, and the hardware just barely manages. I'd love to grab a powerhouse 7" tab at that kind of price point (~$200).

rsanchez1• 14 years ago

ICS is on less than 10% of devices, and already they're moving on to Jelly Bean? The rumor is that Google will handle OS updates to address the fragmentation problem, but that will be hard to do when you update your OS with less than 10% of devices using ICS, and over 60% of devices STILL using Gingerbread.

http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

Leaked Nexus 7 specs and price

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