While Apple is largely selling products on the back of being Apple and Amazon is largely selling glorified ereaders to your parents, Google has been selling the Nexus 7, which we really, really liked. Now it’s getting a pretty substantial upgrade, and a price cut into the bargain.
Reuters has the details, and starts it off with news of surprising ambition from Google:
Google is aiming to ship as many as eight million of the Asustek-made tablets in the second half of the year, throwing down the gauntlet to other low-end tablets such as Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle Fire and Apple Inc’s iPad mini, the sources with knowledge of the new product said.
The biggest change is that apparently the Nexus 7 will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor instead of the NVidia Tegra, because Google wants the battery on these things to last as long as possible. It’ll also be thinner and have a higher resolution screen. It’s still being built by Asus, however.
Currently the theory is Google will debut the new Nexus 7 at $200 and discount the old one to get it into as many hands as possible.
Keep in mind, Google’s revenue comes from selling ads, and also media, so it’s highly motivated to get good tech into your hands so you’ll buy stuff for it. Hey, Google, let Playboy feature high-resolution pictorials and you’ll probably sell millions based on that alone.