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Rumor: Google Nexus 7.7 to Launch in May With Tegra 4 CPU

nexus-7-google-tablet[1]There’s an old rule about gadgetry which states that no matter what you buy something new will come along in a few weeks which will be better, faster, and prettier. The Nexus 7.7 is going to make you feel that way about whatever Android tablet you just bought.

According to some recently leaked specs on a Korean website, Google’s next Android tablet is going to be the Nexus 7.7 and be built by LG.

This tablet is rumored to have the new Tegra 4 bajillion-core CPU with 2GB of RAM, a 7.7″ screen with a resolution of 1920×1200 (294ppi). The other rumored specs include front and rear cameras, with the front-facing camera being 5MP.

It’s supposed to ship with 8GB of Flash storage and retail for $299. There’s no word on what version of  Android it will run nor when it will be released, but my guess is that Google will unveil it at Google I/O in May. It might run Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie (assuming it is done in time).

Okay, I can see the rumors about the screen size and the CPU being true but surely that detail about the storage is wrong. 8Gb is not nearly enough storage in this day and age. If Google actually announces it then they’ll be laughed off the stage.

Mike Cane thinks that the Nexus 7.7 will have a card slot, but I don’t. Google doesn’t like them (or at least someone does not). So I’m guessing this tablet will have a minimum of 16Gb of storage.

Assuming it exists at all. This could just be fiction.

But if it’s not fiction, would you buy this tablet?

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Comments


fjtorres January 15, 2013 um 4:22 pm

Nope.
Too small. Too late for me; I’m not waiting til May.
But they’re getting there!

BTW, I agree that the storage is off; at $299 it needs 32GB.


Cookie January 15, 2013 um 4:43 pm

so 16:10. I too plan to buy before May, with a budget of $150. So I need a sale on either the Nexus 7, the Kindle HD+ or the Nook HD.

cookie January 15, 2013 um 4:48 pm

P.S. Your competition’s domain may be up for sale, so it may be a good time to buy.

http://the-ebook-reader.com/

Nate Hoffelder January 15, 2013 um 5:53 pm

Someone beat me to it, darn it.

Isles January 16, 2013 um 7:56 am

The domain isn’t for sale. We are just moving things around.

Nate Hoffelder January 16, 2013 um 7:58 am

"We"?

I guessed that when the problem went away. BTW, the email address is also broken.

Isles January 16, 2013 um 8:10 am

I started posting over there at the beginning of the month. Nathan told me there will be some interruptions of regular services over the next few days. No worries 🙂


Juli Monroe January 15, 2013 um 4:45 pm

Not at that price point with that amount of memory. Plus I just bought a Nexus 7, so I’m not in the market for another 7″ tablet so soon. For purely selfish reasons, I hope it’s true because those specs and that price will leave me with no buyer’s remorse.


yuzutea January 15, 2013 um 5:42 pm

$300 for 7.7? No. Would consider for a 10″er though.


Mike Cane January 15, 2013 um 6:37 pm

>>>Mike Cane thinks that the Nexus 7.7 will have a card slot, but I don’t. Google doesn’t like them

They’d be dumb not to do that. But they also might be dumb and do away with the one winning feature the 7 had — being able to use a USB OTG cable with it.

I really don’t see the advantage to customers of not having a card slot — and isn’t that who the hell these companies are supposed to be serving, and not just themselves?

As competition surrounds and continues to chip chip chip away at Apple, I think even they will have to put a card slot in the iPhone and iPads. I haven’t seen any indication they intend to increase internal storage — hell, with Retina they should be selling internal storage of 128 and 256GBs for HD movies and those massive iBooks. It’d be easy for them to restrict what a microSD card can be used for — they already do with the Card adapter they sell.

Logan Kennelly January 15, 2013 um 7:19 pm

It’s Mattias Duarte over at Google. He thinks that users get confused when having to choose where to store photos and music. By taking the choice away, you can simplify the UI to not include such choices.

HTC and Apple apparently agree.

Now that Android uses one large block of storage and comes with a decent amount of RAM, it seems reasonable to think of SD cards as simply media storage. Movies, photos, music. It doesn’t store applications (or the associated data) or anything system related. I don’t think it’s that confusing, and, since everybody seems to buying Samsung, I guess most of the customers don’t, either.

Come to think of it, I don’t hear too many people complaining about how confusing USB flash drives are too confusing, either.

Nate Hoffelder January 15, 2013 um 7:46 pm

In that case they could always copy Samsung and use a microSD card for primary storage. My original Galaxy Tab came with 8GB and I upgraded to 32GB.

fjtorres January 15, 2013 um 7:54 pm

Of course, they’d rather you buy a new device when you outgrow the storage volume.

Mike Cane January 15, 2013 um 9:28 pm

Oh, I hate using Filez on my LifeDrive. But given the UI/UX expertise (at least at Apple), surely some thinking could be done to make it smoother. Do I have to do the damn thinking for them? For free?

fjtorres January 15, 2013 um 7:50 pm

That is what Microsoft does with the XBOX; they format hard drives and thumb drives to an XBOX-specific format so you can use generics as added storage. They limit the volume size to 16GB so as to not cannibalize their HDD sales but it adds a lot of value to the 4GB entry-level XBOX to be able to use a $10 thumb drive for game saves or video downloads.
So, yes, Apple and Google could format SD cards to a proprietary encrypted format (and taking advantage of the unique serial number of the card) tie that card to a specific device.
They just choose not to.
You want more storage? Buy a new device.
Every other excuse is just bogus.

Cookie January 15, 2013 um 9:30 pm

"We got tired of seeing OEMs include many GB of internal storage for music, while users were still running out of space for apps and data. This approach lets us merge everything on one volume, which is way better."

— Dan Morrill, Android engineer at Google

Thomas January 15, 2013 um 11:39 pm

I’ll agree that the Android file system is a bit screwy, considering than half of my internal memory is labeled "sd card" while the actual micro sd card is shown as "ext sd". In the app management system you can move some apps to the internal memory, but you can’t move them to an external card. Still, I won’t consider buying a tablet without expandable memory. I like to carry a lot of music and movies when I travel, and micro sd cards are a fraction of what manufacturers charge for more internal memory. And, prices on cards go down all the time. In a year, you can usually buy memory for half of when the tablet was new.

Logan Kennelly January 16, 2013 um 1:32 am

You are referring to a separate issue, Cookie. Google combined all of the internal flash into one partition (so that copying music onto the phone will take space away from applications, for example). This was a natural progression once manufacturers started using a single large flash block for implementing all of the required pieces of the system.

Thomas refers to some of this history when he mentions that the native space is still labeled "sd card".

The "big" decision in Android is whether developers code specifically for SD cards by exposing a storage type or allowing users to simply select a folder for storage (similar to how desktop computers work). Personally, I don’t have a big problem picking a folder if I’m already savvy enough to change the defaults.

cookie January 16, 2013 um 8:18 pm

Mike Cane made the statement "I really don’t see the advantage to customers of not having a card slot", and I provided a quote from A Google engineer who answered a question about why they got rid of the SDcard.

So, how is that separate issue?

Logan Kennelly January 17, 2013 um 4:08 pm

I suppose you aren’t completely at fault. AndroidCentral apparently ran an article conflating the two issues, as well.

The original link is here: http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/11/18/impromptu-qa-session-with-android-engineer-dan-morrill-brings-to-light-reasons-behind-galaxy-nexus-lack-of-usb-mass-storage/

The quote was given in the context of Android dropping USB Mass Storage support in favor of MTP. In fact, the follow-up question and answer:

> I understand this is a benefit, but how much space does a Micro-SD card slot take? I don’t see why we can’t have both.

< There's no particular hardware reason a device can't have both. The problem is that there is no good UI for it.

Thomas January 17, 2013 um 6:00 pm

If I understand this correctly, part of the issue is with a limitation in the file system. Most Android devices have the memory partitioned between "internal" memory (used for apps) and "sd card" memory (usable by the user). Actual MicroSD cards show up as "ext sd". A lot of users complain that they run out of space for apps even when the rest of their space is empty. On the Nexus 7, Google unified the memory to avoid this problem, but claims that they can’t use an external device in the file system. I’ve heard that someone made an app to access external memory like USB flash drives, but through a separate file system.

Android’s file system is based on Linux, which has a similar break between the operating system and user storage. It sounds like Google’s Nexus system is a kludge to fix one problem and create others. Since Google really wants people to buy their content from them instead of adding it themselves, they don’t really care about fixing it.

Logan Kennelly January 17, 2013 um 7:27 pm

No, no, no. Read my link above. They didn’t make anything worse by unifying the file systems (other than exposing poor support for MTP), and, rather than being a kludge, it was a very elegant, welcome change.

The people over at Google choose to not include (removable) SD cards because they think it confuses users. It is very possible, and many companies include support in their own devices (such as Barnes & Noble and Samsung). _Android_ will continue to support SD cards for the foreseeable future, but Google doesn’t like them for their own products.


Stephen January 15, 2013 um 8:06 pm

$299 for a 7″? No thanks. Maybe a 8.9 like the KF or something between 8.9 and 10″ but not 7.

Isles January 16, 2013 um 8:05 am

It will be a 7.7″ to compete with the iPad Mini.

Stephen January 16, 2013 um 7:39 pm

I understand, but IMO it is still to small to justify the price. For me at least, but if one is heavily invested in Google I could see the value….but only .7 more screen space over the regular Nexus 7……..

Mike Cane January 17, 2013 um 8:23 am

0.7″ inch doesn’t *sound* like a lot, but it really makes a difference in size. The iPad Mini is just 0.1″ larger than that — and look how it differs from a 7.0″ tablet.

Nexus 7 – 7.8″ x 4.7″ x 0.4″ – 11.9 oz
Sam 7.7 – 7.74? x 5.23? x 0.31? – 11.9 oz

BTW:

Nook HD 7″ – 7.7? x 5.0? x 0.4? – 11.1 oz

B&N really could have put a 7.7″ screen in that by slimming the portrait bezels.

And yes, I agree that $299 sounds high relative to what we know. But the 7.7s from both Samsung and Toshiba began at like $500-plus! With less resolution.

Mike Cane January 17, 2013 um 8:23 am

Damn copy/paste. The question marks should be inches marks (").

fjtorres January 17, 2013 um 8:35 am

Its actually a 21% boost in screen area versus a Nexus 7.
But the mini offers a 35% or so boost.
It’s a tweener.

Mike Cane January 17, 2013 um 9:09 am

Yeah, I can never work out the math. That shows how big a difference it really makes.

fjtorres January 17, 2013 um 10:50 am

The math is easy. If your calculator has a "square" function.
You just divide the square of the larger diagonal by the square of the smaller and the fraction is the percentage increase in area. 7.7 squared divided by 49: 1.21.
As long as the aspect ratio is the same you’re golden.
The reason it makes such a big difference is because you are working with the square.
Weight is even worse because it increases with the ration of the cubes.
One reason why bigger ereaders and tablets get heavier so fast.
And one reason why we don’t have to worry about giant insects. :0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law

Nate Hoffelder January 17, 2013 um 2:55 pm

Heh. I’m pretty sure that ratio sis how Apple picked the price for the iPad Mini (66% of the screen size for 66% of the cost). Unfortunately they forgot that the iPad Mini was a cut down iPad 2 so they priced it off the $500 iPad 4.


WiredMike January 16, 2013 um 9:47 am

Specs not really impressive enough for me to even think about.
8gig of storage? That has got to be a mistake. Maybe they got it mixed up with the
rumored 99.00 Nexus ?
Hope so. I am really wanting a 64gig, SD card, HDMI out and no glass lifting light bleed issues.
Now that I would gladly shell out 300.00 for.


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Mike Cane January 17, 2013 um 2:45 pm

@ftorres

>>>The math is easy. If your calculator has a “square” function.

You just *want* me to embarrass myself further with math, don’t you?

fjtorres January 17, 2013 um 4:36 pm

Nope.
Not really.
Honest!
😉


Google Nexus 7.7 potrebbe essere annunciato a Maggio January 21, 2013 um 3:40 am

[…] [Via] […]


greg January 24, 2013 um 7:10 pm

I know that HDMI or any other other way to plug into a big TV or screen is a pipe dream but lack of external storage does NOT fit how we use laptops and netbooks.

As a parent of two kids who do a LOT of sports, I spend quite a large amount of time sitting at practices in places where there is no wifi so what I do is always have an SD car or USB stick with various shows ive downloaded or DVD series Ive ripped myself to consume when I WANT to.
Same thing happens when we go on longer trips and tournaments, an SD card or USB stick is always loaded with cartoons and films which we bring depending on which laptop we bring with us.
And the kids have been using SD cards since theyve been walking, its everywhere, on our phones, our digital cameras, laptops/netbooks so I find the two complicated excuse to be rather feeble when a 3yr can do it.

I know the HDMI wasnt gonna happen but I did hope that Google would put a few pennies worth for an SD card slot even though its lot more profitable to sell larger more expensive onboard storage.

I love netbook-laptops because I can do real work on them and the tablet would ONLY serve to consume media. So instead of changing my lifestyle to fit Googles vision, I will find a company that lets me do things the way I want to.


Scott March 16, 2013 um 4:12 pm

Here is what I want in a tablet: fit in my jacket pocket, 4G LTE, rear facing camera, HDMI out, 32 Gig or expandable memory, good screen resolution and ten hour battery life. I’ll pay three or even four hundred dollars for it, too. No reason to upgrade until I find such a tablet.


Taylor Liesnham May 20, 2013 um 11:52 am

I’m in the market for a tablet this year, but I’m wait for the next generation to arrive. At the moment I’m looking at Android but I quite like the look of the iPad mini.


bmn June 4, 2013 um 6:07 pm

if this is true and with more storage capacity (16GB but i prefer 32GB) i would sell my 9 month old nexus 7(wifi/16GB) and get this one. i hope LG has international/global warranty too like asus.


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