Google’s Nexus tablet

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt revealed in an interview last December that the company was hard at work on bringing a low-cost tablet to market, with a “six month window” until the debut. Since then, trying to piece together the specs for the “Nexus tablet” has been one of the industry's favorite guessing games.

Written by Yardi Blog Staff

04 / 20 / 12

3 min read

The biggest teaser so far is the price point: Google apparently plans to sell the tablets for just $149. That’s far below what consumers have been shelling out for the iPad, Thinkpad, Galaxy Tab, and other high-end models. It’s also less than what a Kindle Fire costs, which is currently the belle of the ball among the affordable tablet set. At that low of a price, does the Nexus tablet offer enough performance to appeal to consumers?

Here’s what we think we know about the Nexus tablet:

7” size
runs Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0
Snapdragon processor (instead of the previously rumored Tegra 3)

Aaaaand… that’s it. Not a lot to work with there, and definitely too early to tell whether the Nexus tablet is going to have enough horses under the hood – along with bells & whistles – to appeal to upscale buyers.

A lot of what we think we know is based upon a recent piece of vaporware, the ASUS MeMo 370T. This device, which was shown off in limited fashion at the 2012 CES, featured a 7” display, 1GB RAM, and an 8 megapixel camera, all running on the Ice Cream Sandwich platform, for somewhere in the neighborhood of $250.

Tablet computer close up

Now the MeMo 370T has apparently been scrapped, because ASUS is Google’s hardware partner on the Nexus tablet. Moving from the MeMo 370T’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor down to a Snapdragon (ASUS is tight with the Qualcomm crowd) is the easiest way to find pricing wiggle room below the $200 threshold. At $149, does this imply less features and functionality? The guesswork might end as soon as the CTIA wireless convention that runs from May 8-10 in New Orleans – Google is expected to unveil the Nexus tablet to a crowd that is eager to finally get a look at what all the fuss is about.

So… what do you think? Is this the entry-level tablet that some have been waiting for? Is it a good alternative for a small-scale property manager who has balked at the high price tag of the new iPad? Will it take a bite out of the high-end market share held by Apple and its competitors, or is a battle with Amazon’s Kindle the only real fireworks likely to result? Does the Nexus tablet mark a turning point in the market away from models that strive to offer near-laptop performance and toward lower-end devices that provide just enough to get by?

Most of all – is the Nexus tablet on your summer shopping list?