7-inch Google Tablet Coming From ASUS

First time accepted submitter Sez Zero writes "Google and ASUS have been collaborating on a co-branded 7-inch Android tablet, with a launch as early as May, according to sources, challenging low-cost rivals and the iPad with a $199-249 price tag. The fruits of the partnership, whispered to the runes readers at DigiTimes by industry sources, will take on the NOOK Tablet and the Kindle Fire, with ASUS selected for its willingness to flex to Google's requirements."

Comments

Google is going for low price

[Anonymous Coward]

Which hurts the quality of the product and hardware. This has been a huge problem with Android - customers don't really know if they get a good product or not. When they get iPad or iPhone they know exactly that they will love the experience. Android ecosystem is a complete mess.

Re:Google is going for low price

[Kagetsuki]

Actually I'll call bullshit on this and for a good reason: I recently purchased an Asus Zenbook UX21. Up untill this point I have never purchased Asus gear and have always gone for Toshiba and Fujitsu notebooks which have never let me down. But this Zenbook was preposteriously inexepensive, exactly the form factor I needed, and immediately available so I went for it. I'm so glad I did - I love the thing. It's well constructed and has killer hardware, the screen is nice, the keyboard is nice, it even looks nice. There are some small complaints about it sure but they are negligable unless I want to spend twice the price for a Toshiba Ultrabook (which looks fantastic, but basically the same specs + some minor polish and a few bells and whistles at 2x the price).

If anyone can pull off a great Android tablet on a budget it's Asus.

Re:Google is going for low price

[Anonymous Coward]

Your stance is exactly why Apple can charge so outrageous prices for their products and get away with it.

Seriously, most Android phones are excellent, are fast enough for their purpose and are well built. How many have you tried?

When people compare Android phones to iPhones they often compare the CHEAPEST model to to the most expensive phone on the market! FAIL - try comparing a midrange price Android to an iPhone... most like 1/3 to 1/2 the price of the iPhone. Believe me, that phone just works.

Go away, Apple fan boy.

Re:Google is going for low price

[symbolset]

Oh yeah, Android is horribly fragmented into camps that like physical keyboards or not, HD cams or no, front facing cams or not, items in pink, blue or prints.

Android vendors have better margins even than Apple, and that's saying something. I enjoy choosing, so I like the mess that Android is.

Re:Google is going for low price

[blind biker]

I think I agree. I bought two Asus netbooks (different generations) and both have been nothing but flawless in every aspect.

Re:Google is going for low price

[BasilBrush]

I don't want something that is seen by some as an essential fashion accessory. I would rather do without.

So, you're allowing your choice to be influenced by what others think of the brand. You might think that's anti-fashion, but actually, that's fashion.

I just to not want to be associated with that group that does.

You are following the fashion, every bit as much as punks who said their choice was about not wanting to be associated with glam rockers.

Your list is just a way of justifying the fashion choice you've made. Just as a punk might have listed everything they found wrong with glam rock.

Re:Google is going for low price

[Barbara, not Barbie]

The bottom line is that Pads are going to replace TV.

Are you insane? First, a 50" tablet is way too big to carry around. Second, the battery life would be absolutely terrible. Third, I like surround-sound.

Re:Google is going for low price

[oakgrove]

It may not fit your preference for the carefully curated device and I do see advantages to the Apple way but consumers like choice even if it does effect app compatibility which is what this is really all about. People like low prices and some Androids deliver that. People like hardware keyboards and some Androids deliver that. People like huge honking screens (me!) and Android delivers on that as well. Hell, there are even nut balls that like Android on their wristwatch (what? Like you don't think its cool) and yes, judging by the rooted Motorola ACTV sitting on my nightstand, Android has delivered. You can scream fragmentation all day long but its a hollow cry as the consumers have spoke and continue to speak to the tune of 850,000 activations a day. Now that fact may offend your delicate sensibilities but guess what? You are just one person and you don't get to tell anybody else what to think.

Re:Google is going for low price

[MrDoh!]

Not replace for watching that same content, but by using more time up. Instead of sitting there passively watching... whatever, I've noticed my wife can't sit there and just have the TV on. She'll have the ipad on her lap, browsing Facebook, playing some daft word game. The shows change but it's more background noise than actual watching. THAT'S how tablets are.. not replacing for now, supplementing is probably fairer to say.

If you used to spend (x) amount of time watching TV, how much time do you use a tablet? Do you subtract that time from TV watching?

Re:Google is going for low price

[Ihmhi]

What they need is a good viral advertising campaign.

7 inches... it's coming.

Re:Google is going for low price

[MagusSlurpy]

She's watching the wrong kind of stuff on TV, then. I'll have my laptop out if I'm watching the news or my roommate has a game on, but when Breaking Bad or SoA is on, I'm glued to that screen.

Yep.

[symbolset]

Count me in for four at least for my own house, and as many for gifts for Christmas.

I'm ot sure where you're going with that 1984 rhetoric though. This stuff works for us, it delivers modern innovation - and yet it lets us do with it what we will. That's not the same thing at all as the dystopian vision you portend.

Have you some credible source, some study or even some analyst to call dire outcomes? Surely you must. Your fear, show me it.

Re:Yep.

[Anthony Mouse]

What are you on about? He knows it's got a 7-inch display, he knows about how much it costs, he knows what software it runs. Does it really matter if the processor is 1.4GHz vs. 1GHz, or it has two cameras instead of one? You'll be able to use it to read books and watch videos either way.

And if he needs four of them, the difference between $800 vs. $2000 for 4 x iPad3 is $1200. That is no small amount of cash. You could use it as half the 20% down payment on a house for crying out loud. (Or you could get a little less than half a Mac Pro, whichever.)

You don't have to take it personally every time someone makes a decision that reduces the ever-shrinking likelihood that Apple will maintain its dominant position in the tablet market.

Re:Yep.

[Anthony Mouse]

Obvious troll is obvious. You might want to look up the difference between "can't afford it" and "worse value for money."

It's about the software

[thegarbz]

Actually it's quite the opposite. Every device Google has had a personal hand in designing has been one perfect experience after the other. It is typically the handset manufacturers who are unable to code decent software, then the carriers who load the devices up with junk that ruin the experience.

I have an ancient phone, yet I run CM9 on it. It is far smoother than phones twice as expensive, rather new, and spouting features like dual core processors depending on who had a hand in making the software.

I for one am excited about what google can come up with in this partnership.

Re:It's about the software

[oakgrove]

I use lots of Bluetooth devices. You could almost call me a Bluetooth fan boy if there was such a thing and never not once has my Nexus S exhibited the behavior you are describing. And that is on a stock ROM. Not everything is perfect but you could cite examples of bugs in every device ever invented. I've been very happy with my S during the course of its life and only replaced it when the much superior Galaxy Nexus was released.

Re:Already a failure

[thegarbz]

you can get the Samsung or Motorola tablets at Staples for $299-$399 right now and I know that hardware is better than ASUS.

Sure the hardware is better, but it won't run anywhere near as well. If Samsung and Motorola have shown just one thing it's that they lack any competent programmers. I really did enjoy watching the dramas with RobustFS that Samsung released on their phones. You know you could quadruple and then some the I/O performance on the Galaxy S simply by converting the partition to ext4?

Yes at the time the Galaxy S was quite mean hardware. Yet the version of Eclair they shipped was about the only version of Android that I have seen which would force close apps because they were taking too long to load due to the OS overhead. The only good thing Samsung ever did was not lock down the bootloader on their devices. Although I'm not sure they did this out of kindness but rather their engineers were too dumb to figure out how.

Re:Android vs Linux performance?

[thegarbz]

By what metric? Given that Android uses a Linux kernel and similar drivers there are many parts of the system which should be equal in speed (thinking file system performance). But then there's also parts of Android that would be majorly let down in performance terms (such as UI rendering on pre ICS models which didn't support hardware acceleration nor give the UI a high thread priority).

Re:Already a failure

[sl4shd0rk]

Come on ASUS, you guys used to know what you were doing. Now it's a year late and a processor core short.

Not sure where you're getting your hardware specs from as tfa says the hardware is unconfirmed at this point.

Re:GPS?

[kwardroid]

"And am I mistaken, or would adding GPS add no more than perhaps $2 to the marginal cost of each tablet these days?"

Don't know about the costs, but all gps enabled devices I have seem to have the GPS and 3G "glued together" on 1 chip. I guess it's to get AGPS to work. Adding a standalone GPS might be cheap, but it will take ages to get a fix.

Finally; Hopefully Google and Asus Delivers

[oakgrove]

I have a Xoom and an iPad. When the Xoom had HC on it the iPad got a lot of use as Honeycomb was a little too raw. But the day ICS as installed on this device the iPad was sat down and hasn't been picked up since. The experience has been wonderful. Even this tegra2 flies with Android 4.0 on it. All of the apps I have ever looked for have been available even apps to mmake apps right on the device itself. How cool is that? Nothing as complex as a modern smartphone or tablet will ever be perfect but the TMobile Nexus S and now Verizon Galaxy Nexus have been nothing short of superb. Fast fluid stable fun. Every Thing I've wanted in one of these devices and I've used them all. In my collection I have an iPad an HD7 windows phone, a Nokia N770 mid, and several Android devices.

Android OEMs have struggled by themselves but with Google's help and Asus' engineering they could come up with something really great at a price point that is easily palatable by people not well off enough to afford 4 and 5 hundred dollar plus devices.The naysayers should wait until something is delivered before throwing irrational hate at a piece of circuitry and glass they've never even touched.

Re:Google scares me

[oakgrove]

There many things to worry about in this world all the way up with the existential things like war and famine. Getting ads that might actually show me something that appeals to me in exchange for the great things Google provides I'd pretty far down on my list of fears. Matter of fact I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure it didn't even make the cut.

Re:yes!

[aynoknman]

If those are the actual effects _on_you_, I strongly recommend suicide as you are wasting useful oxygen.

He's not wasting useful oxygen, he's converting it into much more useful CO2.