As you probably well know, ASUS, in a deal with Google, created the Google Nexus 7, which became a pretty popular hit within the tablet world, recently. The main reason being it’s affordability, of course. People are simply looking for tablets these days, that can allow them to browse online, and do simple tasks on a budget, and ASUS managed to fill that need perfectly. Today however, information was leaked that points to a new “Nexus 7” tablet by ASUS, that’s even cheaper, and may make waves in the tablet market upon release.
The device is currently going by code name “ME371MG”, according to information leaked. Apparently instead of the NVIDIA processor used in other models, this new device will use an Intel processor, which are generally more “cost-effective”, so you can imagine they’re aiming at consumers who want a tablet for very little. The unfortunate thing, is that it will be using a single-core processor, which of course, doesn’t have the processing capabilities of many of the other processors that are multi-core, so don’t expect this tablet’s processor to be a speed-demon, you won’t find that kind of speed here. Hopefully the slow-speed processor will be justified by the low cost, but time will tell. The processor they’re using can ONLY be found in the cheaper tablets on the market, so again, a strong indication that low-cost will be key here. Right now, it’s been said that the tablet is running at a mere 1-2GHz clock speed, which is well below average.
Apparently, the tablet will only feature 1 GB of RAM (a fun little blast from the past), but will have a few different options for Hard Drive capacity. The options we’re looking at are 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB (pretty standard measurements) depending on how much you want to spend, and how much space you need. On the bright side, it will feature a microSD card slot, if you want to pay just a little bit extra to get more memory out of this thing (highly recommended). It also features an Android 4.1 Jellybean, which will be available to you, right after purchase.
The tablet will also have IPS LCD technology featured on a 7 inch display, so nothing too out of the ordinary there. The resolution we’re looking at for this model, will be 12800 x 800. The tablet will also feature two built in cameras, one on the front, and one on the back (for some reason), the one on the back will be a 3 megapixel camera, and the one on the front will be a 1.2 megapixel. So, if cameras on your tablets are important to you, then that should be covered here.
Whether or not this device is actually successful, will depend a great deal on its price-point. If they can somehow manage to sell it for less than half of the previous model, the Nexus 7, then they’re in business, but if it ends up being only 25% cheaper, or less, than the Nexus 7, then it’s likely that this device will likely stay firmly planted on the shelves, but we’ll have to wait and see.