Google Confirms The Rumours, Nexus 10 Announced

 

We knew Google had something special up its sleeve, but the specifics of what it had in store were vague at best. But in a smorgasbord of announcements coming direct from the company in the wake of the cancellation of the much-anticipated Android event, we finally have confirmation. First up, a 10-inch tablet featuring a Retina Display-topping 2560 x 1600 resolution, boasted to be the “highest resolution tablet on the planet”. Say hello to the Nexus 10...

Built in partnership with Samsung but designed by Google, the Nexus 10 appears to boast that same superior attention-to-detail and exceptional build quality which made its older 7-inch cousin (Nexus 7) so appealing. Unconventional in its design for a 10-inch tablet – the edges are ever so slightly curved, the corners are rounded and smooth, and a raised rubber-like strip are all unique to Google's new flagship – anyone believing Google would skimp on hardware extras was mistaken.

The superb resolution offered is seemingly just the beginning; running a stock version of Android 4.2 (with Google Now functionality out of the box), the Nexus 10 too looks to pack a punch in its performance. A powerful dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 chip sits neatly beside a quad-core Mali T604 GPU Google also had time to officially unveil a 32Gb Nexus 7, to retail in the UK at £200.and 2Gb of RAM, which ought not only prove worthy enough to run the Google Play store's more testing applications and graphically-rich games, but should also result in a lag-free, consistently brilliant user experience on the streamlined Jellybean platform. Also featuring a 9,000mAh capacity battery which Google says will allow up to 9 hours of HD video playback between charges; a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera, dual front-facing speakers for audio, microUSB, Micro HDMI and two NFC chips round out the quite spectacular-looking package.

Set to retail in November at just £319 for the 16Gb version (the 32Gb comes in at £389), this is considerably cheaper, too, than the iPad. Apple? Challenge accepted.

Richard Birkett