New Nexus 7 announced with Full HD display, Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU and Wireless Charging starting from $229


Nexus7-2013-display

Google announced the new Nexus 7 today at an event in San Francisco where the updated Nexus 7 tablet was one of the main highlights of the event. We have seen plenty of leaks of this device including an unboxing so not much was left for the official announcement except for the confirmation of the specs , the pricing and launch date.  The biggest difference on this Nexus tablet is the update Full HD screen which makes it the highest resolution screen on a 7 inch tablet and also crushes the competition especially the iPad mini. It is the first tablet to run Android 4.3 out of the box which we have covered separately. The new Nexus 7 is marginally thinner than the first gen Nexus 7 and lighter too. It is slightly narrower than the previous model. Another big change is the move from Nvidia Tegra 3 to a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor in terms of the internals. And yes it is still made by Asus.

The device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor running at 1.5GHz along with a Adreno 320 GPU. The RAM has been upped to 2GB from the previous 1GB. There is now a 5MP Camera on the back and a front facing camera too.Audio has been improved with stereo speakers. The tablet comes in two memory capacities 16GB and 32GB and there is no microSD card slot. The battery is a sealed 3950 mAh unit which promises about 9-10 hours of usage. Good to note that Wireless Charging has been added and this might be one of the first tablets to support it.

2013-Nexus-7 -Front

Features and Specifications

Screen
7.02” 1920×1200 HD display (323 ppi), 1080p HD IPS, Scratch resistant Corning® Glass
Size 114 x 200 x 8.65mm
Weight 0.64lbs (290g) Wi-Fi, 0.66lbs (299g) LTE
Cameras 5MP rear facing, auto focus
1.2MP front facing, fixed focus
Audio Stereo speakers,
Surround sound powered by Fraunhofer
Memory 16GB or 32GB internal storage
(formatted capacity will be less)
CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon™ S4 Pro quad-core processor, 1.5GHz
GPU Adreno 320, 400 MHz
RAM 2GB
Wireless Dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4G/5G) 802.11 a/b/g/n, NFC (Android Beam), Bluetooth 4.0
Network (+ Mobile Sku) North America:
4G LTE: 700/750/850/1700/1900/2100 MHZ (Bands: 1/2/4/5/13/17)
HSPA+: 850/900/1900/2100/AWS(1700/2100) MHz (Bands: 1/2/4/5/8)
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Europe:
4G LTE: 800/850/1700/1800/1900/2100/2600 MHz (Bands: 1/2/3/4/5/7/20)
HSPA+: 850/900/1900/2100/AWS(1700/2100) MHz (Bands: 1/2/4/5/8)
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Power 3950 mAh (Up to 9 hours of active use)
9 hrs of HD video playback
10 hrs of web browsing or e-reading
300 hrs of standby
Sensors GPS, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Compass, Ambient Light
Ports and Connectors MicroUSB , SlimPort™, 3.5mm audio
Microphone, Power and Volume buttons
OS Android Jelly Bean, 4.3

Price and Availability

nexus7-2013-back

The Nexus 7 will be available in the US starting from July 30th on Google Play store and several offline stores such as Best Buy , Staples. and even on Amazon.The new Nexus 7 is priced at $229 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model, $269 for the 32GB Wi-Fi model and $349 for 4G LTE model with 32GB of storage. Initially only the WiFi 16GB and 32GB versions will go on sale followed by the LTE version at a later date.

No sign of the this tablet coming to India any time soon but it would be launching in UK, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Japan, Korea, and Australia in the next few weeks and other countries to follow soon after. Hopefully India is on that list.


Author: Varun Krish

Varun Krish is a Mobile Technology Enthusiast and has been blogging about mobile phones since 2005. His current phones include the Apple iPhone 13 Pro and Google Pixel 6. You can follow him on Twitter @varunkrish and on Google+ You can also mail Varun Krish