An Asus support executive revealed some of the features the next generation of Nexus 7 will come with, along with a probable launch time frame.
When the first Nexus 7 came out, it literally rocked the boat for the other tablet manufacturers. Quad core processor, 1 GB of RAM and a killer GPU, all for under $200? It took Amazon a while to even get close to that (I’m referring to Kindle Fire HD, since the first Amazon tablet didn’t have such great features), while Apple’s iPad mini still can’t touch the Nexus 7, neither in terms of performance, nor price. Of course, there are plenty of Chinese manufacturers who offer really powerful Android tablets at very competitive prices, but most people are skeptical about those, fearing that the build quality is not good enough.
Recently, Voyo A15 was launched with a quad-core 2Ghz Samsung Exynos 5250 CPU, 2 GB of DDR3 RAM, an 11.6″ 1080p display and Mali T-604 GPU (which is said to offer five times the performance of Mali 400) for around $250. Most people are still more excited about the prospect of a new Nexus 7, and 4G connectivity certainly sweetens the deal a lot.
According to an Asus support executive, the next Nexus 7 will come with a 1920×1200 resolution, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 CPU, 2GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LTE. Photography and web-chat lovers will be delighted to know that the second-gen Nexus 7 comes with two cameras: a 5MP one on the back and a 1.2MP one in the front. All this will be powered by a 4000 mAh battery. The previous generation came with a non-removable Li-Ion 4325 mAh battery, so I guess that the new hardware is less power hungry, despite the resolution increase.
Regarding the version of the operating system, the support executive claimed it would be Android 4.3. If Google doesn’t want to launch this device with Key Lime Pie (aka Android 5.0), Nexus 7 II will surely be upgradeable to that version in the future. Being a member of the Nexus family, it will be among the first devices in the world to get the new operating system. Nexus 7 II owners won’t even have to wait that long for the upgrade, since Key Lime Pie is said to be launched in October 2013.
Casual users should stick to their first-gen Nexus 7, since there aren’t many apps that require more resources than that tablet already has. Still, Nexus 7 II will represent a great device, and if Google keeps the same price tag, it will surely be a success.
If you liked this post, please read about Google Reader’s end and the Google Nexus Prime announcement from 2 years ago.
