We are expecting to see an updated Nexus 7 next week at Google I/O, and although we already had a pretty good idea of the specs, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed everything but the kitchen sink. Now before you start wondering if Ming-Chi Kuo is worthy, he ironically has a darn good track record when it comes to predicting Apple products. On the other hand, it's not like he is revealing anything earth shattering.
As expected, the display is going to be 7-inches and have a resolution of 1900 x 1200, which is a very nice upgrade. We already knew that Qualcomm was the chosen one for the CPU, but which one? Sadly it looks like the Snapdragon S4 Pro instead of the Snapdragon 600. This is a little disappointing to me, but this is a price tablet and the S4 Pro is more than enough for the average consumer. Another interesting spec is that it will sport a 5MP rear-facing camera which was absent in the original Nexus 7. Lastly the battery is 4,000mAh, which is actually smaller than the original Nexus 7 (4,325mAh). I was never all that thrilled with the battery life on the Nexus 7, so this is a little concerning. Nothing was mentioned on a 3G or 4G version, but with the Snapdragon in place, I am hopeful they will offer an LTE version at some point.
Pricing is expected to be in the $200 range, and I am assuming that will be for a 16GB version, while the 32GB version will be $250. At these prices it's expected that Google will be losing $5 to $10 per tablet, which isn't surprising.
Just like last year, it seems like the Nexus 7 could be the main attraction at Google I/O. Is anyone excited for another version?
source: AppleInsider
For the love of god, up the RAM to 2GB PLEASE!
smaller capacity battery means it will only take 23 hours to charge instead of 24! Yippeee!
Some of what’s going into the new Nexus 7 is amazing:
– 1900×1200 resolution is sorely needed
– back camera would be really handy for me
Smaller battery is very worrysome, I find the Nexus 7 already doesn’t have as much battery life as I’d like, and a higher resolution display may actually use more power. What I really want them to do as well is increase the RAM. I feel the Nexus 7 is totally RAM limited and when compared to my Nexus 4 it’s really obvious when multiple apps are loaded that RAM is an issue.
The Tegra3 is a 40nm chip, the Snapdragon 800 is only 28nm, so there should be a fairly large drop in battery consumption from the SoC.
The elephant in the room when it comes to battery life is really the display. If the new display doesn’t use more juice than the old, then the smaller battery probably won’t be any cause for concern.
That battery life is a little worrisome.
Its probably going to run for about the same time since Snapdragons are a more power efficient I believe.