Google has unveiled the new Nexus 7 tablet device that’s thinner, lighter, and complete with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. It will be priced starting at $229.00 and can be purchased at Best Buy and most likely the Google Play store starting today.
The company’s Android and Chrome chief Sundar Pinchai took the stage to talk about Google’s latest creations. He reminisced about his talk at Google’s I/O developer conference where he says that it’s an exciting time for the computing world.
Pinchai touted that the tablet market is growing exponentially — more tablets are being bought than personal computers.With respect to Android, he says that Google is nearing 70 million platform tablet activations.
On Google Play, Pinchai says there are more than 50 billion downloads and developers are seeing 2.5 times increase in revenue per user, all from more than a million apps.
The Nexus 7
Since its launch in 2012, Pinchai says the tablet has had much success around the world. Now, Google hopes to follow that up with an updated version.
The Nexus 7 is touted as a powerful and portable device while also enabling users to have their information synced through the cloud. Almost 2mm thinner than the original Nexus 7 and 50 grams lighter. Featuring a true 1080p HD (1920×1200), surround sound with 5.1 Audio, front-facing 1.2 megapixel camera, and 5 megapixel rear facing camera. Includes a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset and 2GB of memory. All with longer battery life than the original Nexus 7.
Google says that it focused on core features, including a black finish and glossy details. It is also billed as the “world’s highest resolution tablet” with 323 dpi. The new Nexus 7 tablet screen size is 1920×1200 (1080p) on a 7-inch display and offers 9 hours of HD video playback and 10 hours of web browsing.
The device will be available on 4G LTE on Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. It will have Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, the newest operating system being revealed today.
Consumers can select from one of three models: a 16GB, 32GB, and 32GB LTE starting at $229.99. it will be available starting next Tuesday, July 30 available from Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart, Staples, and other retailers, as well as the Google Play store. Google is launching the Nexus 7 in the US, France, UK, Germany, Japan, Canada, Spain, Australia, South Korea, and Germany.
Many of these features were prematurely revealed yesterday when Best Buy began accepting pre-orders for the 16GB and 32GB device.
The news comes following the release of a nonchalant press invite last week which invited people to attend “Breakfast with Sundar Pinchai”.
Google today unveiled version 4.3 of its popular Android mobile operating system, detailing some new firmware functionality including multi-user accounts with restricted profiles.
“Parents can have peace of mind about which family members can access what content and which apps,” Google’s Hugo Barra said.
It means device owners can control the way an app behaves in separate user profiles, such as the amount of content shown to other users. Barra demonstrated how with a children’s jigsaw app, the parent would be able to slowly give their child access to new puzzles by buying them privately in their own profile. These are then unlocked in the child’s version of the app while hiding any additional content unlocked through microtransactions.
Android 4.3 also adds support for Bluetooth Smart technology – also known as Bluetooth Low Energy – enabling users to pair their Android smartphone or tablet with low powered devices such as fitness sensors.
Google has also upped its Open GL support to version 3.0 for accelerated 3D graphics and higher fidelity graphic rendering, such as photorealistic lens flares, reflections, highlights and shadows.
Version 4.3 also packs in a new set of DRM APIs that offer a new, standarized way of encrypting full HD content. Netflix is the first company to take advantage of the new capability, offering subscribers 1080p streams for the first time in its existing Android app. Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet is the only device that supports the technology right now, but more will be supported in the future.
“Watching 1080p videos on a tablet is obviously amazing, but actually most of the premium content that you get on tablets today is standard definition,” Barra added. “That’s usually related to content protection limitations that exist on HD content.”
Android 4.3 also adds a whole host of minor adjustments and improvements, such as faster user-switching, an auto-complete dial pad – shown off in a hands-on video created by AndroidCentral last week – as well as language support for Africaans, Amharic, Hindi, Swahili and Zulu, users.
To coincide with the launch of Android 4.3, Google is also updating some of its in-house apps to take advantage of the 1080p display found in the new Nexus 7.
The refreshed platform was shown off by the technology giant at an event held in San Francisco by Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president for Android, Chrome and Google Apps.
The latest version of Jelly Bean will ship be available for the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, original Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 later today, followed by the Google Edition HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 “soon”. It will also ship.
Sony is rolling out an update that brings Android Jelly Bean and some of its own software modifications to the Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia ZR and Xperia Tablet Z.
Elie Chahine 