Google’s new baby to stop Microsoft, Apple

Like Microsoft with it's announcement of the Surface tablet, Google is entering the hardware business. It's offering announced in the last 24 hours is a 7 inch tablet to be known as Nexus 7.

Naturally it will be running the companies own Android operating system, with a new iteration code named Jelly bean (4.1). According to the New York Times Google has decided to become a hardware company with its announcement of three new products yesterday. First is the Nexus Q, a media player being manufactured in the US. Second, is Project Glass, "a device that puts a camera and a tiny video screen into a kind of eyeglass frame", still in the early development stages. The third is the Nexus 7 tablet.

For such a low price point of US $199, you would have to question what technologies have been removed or stripped down. Alas the specifications are impressive with a Tegra 3 quad core processor running at 1.2 GHz, a 1280 x 800 high definition display a front facing camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, and 9 hours of video playback. But what stands out to us is that it weighs just 340 grams.

For $199 you would think that Google was using stripped down technology with limited abilities like many of the lower end tablets. Neither Amazon's Kindle or Barnes and Noble's Nook claim to be top of the line tablets that will allow you to do a great deal of multi-tasking or business. They are designed to be primarily entertainment devices for reading books, watching videos or surfing the web.

Engadget ran a series of benchmark tests of the Nexus 7 versus the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 and the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity. It smoked the Galaxy Tab 7.7. on every benchmark used and the new Nexus lost only one round, to the Transformer Pad Infinity. That's not bad for a 1.2 GHz tablet against a 1.7 GHz tablet.

This is an impressive new product from Google, with superb performance at a very affordable price. Let's wait to see NZ availability and pricing.