Google Unveils Nexus 7 Tablet to Challenge Amazon Kindle Fire
The rumor mill has frequently predicted that Google would launch its own tablet. Today, it finally happened—Google has lifted the veil and introduced its own 7-inch tablet. In terms of names, Google follows familiar patterns: the tablet is called the Google Nexus 7. This device is produced by Asus.
A major competitor for Google in the tablet market is undoubtedly Apple. After all, the iPad holds the largest share of the global tablet market. But the real competition for Google comes from another direction: Amazon. The retail giant poses massive competition to Google with its own operating system.
The Amazon tablet, Kindle Fire, does run on Google’s Android operating system but is so heavily integrated into the Amazon ecosystem that customers don’t even encounter the (paid) Google services. Alongside music, movies, series, and eBooks, the apps also come directly from Amazon. We reported on this issue as far back as December of last year. With the great success of the Kindle Fire, Google risks losing the lucrative tablet market to Amazon, because once Amazon’s market share becomes large enough, other manufacturers might throw Google’s offerings overboard and seek Amazon as a new partner.
Google now intends to prevent this. The Nexus 7 is clearly positioned as a competitor to the Kindle Fire. The display diagonal is the same, at 7 inches. However, Google wins the duel for better display resolution: the Nexus 7 can display 1,280 x 800 pixels. The device is powered by a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor and 1GB RAM. It only features a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera. The tablet comes in two storage sizes: 8GB and 16GB. The battery life is said to be 8-9 hours. However, the real highlight is the price of $199 (8GB) and $249 (16GB). The lack of a rear camera and the fixed internal storage without expansion options show that Google wanted to keep the sale price as low as possible—just like Amazon already did.
At 340 grams, the Nexus 7 is quite heavy compared to an eBook reader but still reasonably light for a tablet. As an all-rounder, it’s undoubtedly also well-suited for reading—provided one can overlook the LCD display.
As so often is the case, we have to wait, because initially, the device will only be available in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Other countries are expected to follow, but a timeline for that has not been announced.
