Google’s Nexus 7 tablet is the best 7-inch tablet we’ve seen so far. Now Samsung and Google are reportedly working on a 10-inch follow-up. Let’s hope it’s as good. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
It took Google and Asus just four months of collaboration to build the stellar Nexus 7 tablet — a tablet that redefined how good a 7-inch slate could be. In fact, even after the launch of Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, the Nexus 7 remains our favorite 7-incher. Now, according to reports from CNET, Google is looking to Samsung to rewrite the definition of what a 10-inch Android tablet can be.
Samsung and Google are reportedly considering an iPad-besting display density to be the killer feature for a 10-inch Nexus tablet. Sounds good, right? Not so fast.
While we’d love to see Google produce a proper 10-inch Nexus tablet with a Retina Display-quality screen, a gorgeous display is simply not enough to propel a tablet past the iPad’s massive lead. The iPad is still the tablet sales king for a number of reasons — the display, the price, the portability, the huge selection of Apps and a ton of fantastic marketing too.
The competition is also only increasing, with compelling tablets shipping from Amazon and (soon) Microsoft too. If Google and Samsung are in cahoots for a new Nexus tablet, they need to be careful to make the right moves and not just roll out a Galaxy Tab with a Nexus logo on it. After all, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab models have all floundered in terms of sales.
Here’s some unsolicited advice for Google and Samsung on how to make a 10-inch Nexus the best device it can be.
Subsidize and Get the Price Right
Let’s get this out of the way — it needs to be cheap. The base price for Apple’s iPad is $500. That means $500 is too much and $600 would be way too much too.
Amazon has proven with its 7-inch Fire tablets that shipping a slate at a low price goes a long way toward getting your product in people’s hands. Amazon has sold as many as 1 million Kindle Fires a week. Google already knows that pricing matters. After all, the Nexus 7 starts at $200 (same at the Kindle Fire) and Google and Asus are making little to no profit on the devices.
A 10-inch Nexus doesn’t have to necessarily be the top seller, but it does need to show Google’s Android hardware partners the path toward building a competitive 10-inch tablet. So far, most 10-inch Android tablets have come in around the $500 price point of the iPad, but that strategy hasn’t led to any significant sales traction. Google needs to take a lower-priced route here and hopefully pull the market down in price a bit too.
Just as Google followed Amazon’s pricing lead with the Nexus 7, so too should Google follow Amazon’s lead yet again. Amazon’s 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD starts at $300 for a Wi-Fi-only model and tops out at $614 for an LTE model with no ads and 64GB of storage. Starting at $300 would be a good move for a 10-inch Nexus, but to keep things competitive against Amazon and Apple, it’d be nice to see Google and Samsung offer a 10-inch Nexus that tops out at about $450, with lots of storage (64GB would do) and LTE connectivity. Google and Samsung are positioned to pull this off, given that Samsung makes many of the components found inside of tablets — displays, processors, storage memory and RAM, among other key parts.
Specs Still Matter
The major feature — well, only feature — that CNET has reported about Samsung’s Nexus tablet came from NPD Display Search analyst Richard Shim, who said the next Nexus slate will feature a 10.1-inch touchscreen with a 2560 x 1600 resolution. On paper, that display would be an iPad beater — the latest iPad features a 9.7-inch Retina Display with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. That’s a pretty good start, but we’ve seen fantastic Retina-rivaling displays on Android tablets before and, so far, that hasn’t helped sales even come close to iPad levels.
Asus’ Transformer Pad Infinity has a gorgeous HD display with a 1920 x 1200 resolution, but it’s far from a sales hit. On the smaler-screen side, both the Nexus 7 and the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD feature 1280 x 800 displays that deliver iPad-level beauty at a $200 price point. The bottom line is, anything less than a Retina-quality display would be a disappointment. So shipping a tablet with an iPad matching touchscreen isn’t really a killer feature as much as it is a necessity.
From the outside, we go in. The standard for Android tablets nowadays is to include a quad-core processor, such as the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor found in the Asus-built Nexus 7 and the 10-inch Asus Transformer Pad Infinity. Both of those Asus-built tablets have gobs of speed and power and both devices feature 1GB of RAM. With an eye toward future proofing, we’d like to see 2GB in a 10-inch Nexus tablet. After all, that’s what the U.S. version of Samsung’s Galaxy S III and the Note II have packed inside.
Because it’s a low-cost device, the Nexus 7 can get away with its low-resolution, front-facing camera. But if a 10-inch Nexus is going to realistically challenge the iPad, which CNET reported is Google and Samsung’s goal, it needs to go big here. The current iPad has a 5-megapixel, 1080p camera out back and a 0.3-megapixel shooter up front. We’d like to see a new Nexus tablet feature at least an 8-megapixel rear camera and an LED flash — similar to the rear camera setup we’ve seen in the Transformer Pad Infinity.
And if you’re going big, go big. Give us a decent camera on the front side. People love to video chat on their slates; the form factor is nearly perfect for it, but the video quality always looks lousy due to the lame front-side cameras. Google and Samsung have a chance to wow us here by doing better.
Stereo speakers are another feature we want to see. Tablets speakers are widely known for having crappy audio, but Amazon impressed us with the dual-speakers on both the 7-inch and 9-inch Fire HD tablets that produce clear stereo sound. It’s not better than a good set of headphones or solid wireless speakers, but the Fire HD sounds far better than the mono-speaker sounds were used to on tablets. Samsung has gone with a similar two-speaker configuration on recent tablets, including the Note 10.1, and while it doesn’t sound as good as what Amazon is throwing down, Samsung should be able to deliver if Google pushes them to.
Nail the User Experience
Most importantly, Google and Samsung have to nail the user experience on a 10-inch tablet. Android tablets have always lacked the functionality and fun of Apple’s iPad. That’s due in part to a lack of tablet-tailored apps. Google is working to change that, prodding developers to step up their efforts on building apps specifically designed for tablets. But we also need to see a new take on the user interface of bigger-screened Android.
Like all Nexus devices, the Nexus 7 runs a pure, unaltered version of Android, just as Google built it. There’s no manufacturer skin junking it up. A 10-inch Nexus, of course, would need to do the same. But Google also did something different with the Nexus 7. Something that worked.
Google built simple, easy-to-use widgets that put a user’s content front and center — books, magazine, movie and music album covers show what has been read, watched or listened to last. The widgets are easily customizable, so users can change their size. And they can even be disregarded and wiped off altogether. It’s a simple trick, but the widgets offered a new way for Android users to interact with their content. Google needs to do something similar to make a 10-inch tablet just as engaging. If they don’t, then a beautiful display and Hulk-like power won’t mean much to consumers, the way most 10-inch tablets haven’t meant much so far.
Design Matters too
Finally, it needs to look great. It needs to be daring and different and well put together. Google and Asus did something special with the Nexus 7. We’ve seen tablets clad in cold aluminum, glossy plastics, and matte rubber. But the Nexus 7 introduced a whole new idea to the tablet world with its plastic dimpled back that felt like the tightly wrapped leather you’d see on the shift knob of a Porsche. The Nexus 7′s simple, understated design made it feel special and premium, despite its budget-friendly price. Samsung and Google should continue this approach with a 10-inch tablet. Give us an Android something that feels tailored and handmade, not machine-built and robotic.
Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/google-nexus-10-inch-tablet-samsung/
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