Weather? What weather? Google has announced the Nexus 10, a Samsung-made 10.05-inch tablet that appears to share a lot of DNA with the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. Android chief Andy Rubin revealed that the device will be packing a 2,560 x 1,600 display, promising a pixel density of 300 ppi. Google has also indicated that the Nexus 10 will crank out nine hours of continuous video playback and 500 hours of standby on its 9,000mAh lithium polymer battery. Of course, no new tablet would be complete without a new operating system, and while we'll still be calling it Jelly Bean, it's now been bumped all the way up to Android 4.2.
Google's Nexus 10 Tablet (Click Images To Enlarge)
The official specifications match those that were leaked late last week, and inside the device is a dual-core, Cortex A15-based 1.7 GHz Samsung Exynos 5250 CPU. In addition, there's a Mali T604 GPU, stereo speakers, 2GB of RAM, NFC, 802.11 b/g/n (MIMO + HT40) WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, with front-and rear NFC (Android beam) radios. 'Round back you'll find a 5-megapixel main camera and a 1.9-megapixel forward-facing shooter. Weighing 603 grams, it's 8.9mm thick and offers microUSB, Pogo Pin, microHDMI and the standard 3.5mm headphone jack. It'll be available from November 13th on Google Play in the US, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan -- with the 16GB edition costing $399 (£319 in the UK) and the 32GB version setting you back $499 (£389).
Google's Nexus 10 Tablet (Click Images To Enlarge)
COMMENTARY: So now that the device has been unveiled, how will it stack up against the new fourth-gen iPad? And how about Microsoft’s Surface tablet, which seeks to add a bit of PC flavor to the tablet world? The competition won’t be easy, and Google knows that.
One major weakness for Android thus far has been a lack of tablet-optimized apps. To remedy this, Google is making a major push to get more of these apps from developers. But just how much the dev community is listening remains to be seen. Microsoft’s Windows 8 RT operating system has even fewer tablet-optimized apps. Future versions of the Surface tablet will be able to run traditional PC apps, but it’s unclear whether or not consumers want a keyboard-and-mouse desktop experience on a touch-friendly tablet. Regardless, for now, iOS still clearly dominates in terms of number of tablet-specific apps.
The folks at Wired.com got their hands on the Nexus 10, and there is plenty of testing to be done before a full review. In the meantime, check out the main spec-sheet differences between the Nexus 10, the fourth-generation iPad and the Surface below to see how these tablets stack up against one another.
At $399 for the Nexus 10 with 16GB of internal storage, it's a bargain. This is a full $100 below Apple's iPad 4. Just from the specs, the Nexus 10 exceeds the iPad 4 in size and screen resolution. Google is working with its Android developers to develop native tablet apps for the Nexus 10. I have a feeling this tablet is going to be a winner.
Courtesy of an article dated October 29, 2012 appearing in Engadget and an article dated October 29, 2012 appearing in Wired.com
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