Rumors are rife that Google and Asus are gearing up to release together a 7-inch tablet in July with initial shipments of 600,000 units, according to a new report.
DigiTimes has recently claimed, mentioning that the information came from sources at the upstream supply chain, that the device's shipment will begin in June and the tablet will be launched in July.
The report said that Google originally planned to release its entry-level 7-inch tablet PC in May, but design and costs did not reach its expectations, and the product was delayed to July for some minor adjustments. Author of the report, Monica Chen said shipments of the tablet are expected to reach 2-2.5 million units this year.
According to earlier reports, it was said that Google was developing a "Nexus" tablet with ASUS which would run on Android 4.0 slate and would be available at a price of $249. Although the tablet was rumored to arrive in May, few reports mentioned that it will come out sometime around July of this year.
Sources have also indicated that Google thought that a $249 price tag would be too high to be competitive enough with other slates that are already available in the market. Hence, the search giant aimed for a $150 - $200 retail price, which will probably eliminate the current competition and rivals like Amazon Kindle and Nook.
Earlier, reports emerging in The New York Times hinted that Nvidia's head honcho Jen-Hsun Huang had indicated that the company was working on lowering the cost of its latest Tegra 3 processors. He hinted that Android tablets would go for $199 by the second half of the year.
Google has also set a goal for itself with respect to tablets. Chairman Eric Schmidt said last December that his company would release "a tablet of the highest quality" within six months.
It's not known whether the rumored Google/Asus tablet is the device he was referring to, although some have suggested that the software giant would instead release a flagship tablet in conjunction with its new acquisition, Motorola Mobility. As recently, Google announced its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola was finally complete.
Talking about the new tablet which is also dubbed as Google Nexus tablet, its rumored specifications are believed to include a 7-inch display, potentially running at 1280 x 800 resolutions, a jump from the more typical 1024 x 600, along with NVIDIA's Tegra 3 chipset and WiFi connectivity, though without cellular modem. The device will run on Ice Cream Sandwich, the first version of Android specifically designed to run on both phones and tablets.
