I’ve been hearing rumors of a straight-from-Google Android tablet for a while now and all signs seem to point to an announcement at Google I/O later this week as Gizmodo Australia has reportedly seen a training document for the new device.
Let’s be honest, Android tablets have been lackluster thus far. None of them seem to have been able to match the iPad on price, size, and features. Many of the nicer tablets carry heavy price tags or expensive data service contracts. Others have been bulky and covered in ports or have been chintzy with resistive touch screens and terrible screens. The first Android tablet to see major success wasn’t an iPad competitor, in fact it was hardly recognizable as an Android tablet. The Kindle Fire is a 7”, $200 device for accessing Amazon books and video that include a web browser and can run games. It’s compelling because, unlike many Android tablets, it’s inexpensive, it’s well-built, and it has a clear purpose.
The Nexus tablet is, I think, the first real shot that Android has at making into the tablet market in a serious way. Why? It’s not going to be bundled with a cellular data contract, it’s not going to try to be a laptop, and it’s only going to cost $200. The Nexus isn’t going to compete with the iPad, it’s going to compete with the Kindle Fire. Consumers will be faced with this question: For $200, do you want an Amazon Prime device or do you want an Android device? A Nexus tablet will let you read Kindle books, stream video (though not Amazon instant video), and browse the web, but like the iPad, the other features aren’t going to be an afterthought to the e-reader and video player.
Instead of a modified phone operating system, the Nexus tablet will be running the latest and greatest Android OS, unmolested by third-party hardware manufacturers and cell providers. The training document indicates that Google will be handling software updates themselves so there will be no year-long waits for an update to be adapted to the device before users can install it. $200 for the latest Android running on good hardware? That’s almost in impulse-buy territory.
The Nexus tablet will also give some focus and stability to the Android ecosystem. If Google can really sell this as THE Android tablet, then they can give developers something to shoot for compatibility-wise. Google can control backward-compatibility, it can give important developers time to update their apps before a new update is launched, and they can ensure that current Nexus owners won’t be left out in the cold every time a new device is released.
Of course it will take some time for all of this to come together, but there is some real potential here for Google make the Android tablet a force to be reckoned with.