Google estimated to earn $15 for every Nexus 7 tablet sold

It’s generally a rule of thumb for a company to produce a product that could be profitable but if you are already one of the wealthiest and most respected in the industry, that metric isn’t always required. Case in point is Google’s upcoming Nexus 7 tablet, a device that the search giant is putting out primarily to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. The $199 price tag will certainly make it competitive but is Google going to make enough profit from each sale to be worth their while?

Research firm UBM TechInsights believes it is costing Google $184 to manufacture each Nexus 7, leaving a sparse $15 profit margin at the end of the day. In contrast, it is believed that Amazon makes $46 per Kindle Fire sold while Apple generates a profit of around $170 per iPad, so why would Google even bother with such a low margin product?

There are a couple of compelling reasons, actually. First, if consumers shopping in this price range are buying the Nexus 7, that means money isn’t being sent directly to their competitors for their tablets. It could be as simple as that, but CNET also points out that Google is probably hoping to generate additional revenue streams based on tablet use. The majority of this revenue is likely to come from advertising, the publication says.

Google is expected to launch the Nexus 7 tablet within a couple of weeks. Be sure to check out our hands-on review later this evening for a full evaluation.

Google's Nexus 7 tablet gets iFixit teardown, scores well on repairability scale

The folks over at iFixit have posted another of their popular teardowns for adventurous tinkerers who like to take their gadgets apart and fix them when things go wrong. Their latest victim: Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet. The device is only a millimeter thicker than Apple’s iPad, but that makes all the difference in the world when it comes to repairability according to iFixit, which gave it a score of 7 out of 10.

By comparison, Apple's tablet received a repairability score of two out of 10 on the iFixit scale, while the Amazon Kindle Fire scored an eight and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet got a six.

"That's the difference between being able to open a device and service all of its internals, and not. That's the negligible difference between extending the life of your device through repair, as opposed to tossing it in a landfill. And most of all, nobody will complain about that one millimeter difference in day-to-day use, but the user-serviceability it brings will make all the difference when the device breaks," iFixit said in its report.

Their teardowns are certainly informative for those of us who like to know about the hardware that power our gadgets, although I wonder how often tablet owners are actually in a position that they need or want to tear open their devices for repair. If that need arises, however, iFixit has you covered with the required tools.

In all it took 21 steps to take the Nexus 7 apart. Here are some of iFixit’s findings:

• The 7-inch, 1280x800 HD display is manufactured by Hydis and designated model HV070WX2. The LCD is fused to the Corning glass so it’s unclear if it uses Gorilla Glass or Gorilla Glass 2.
• The L-shaped motherboard is “littered with connectors and screws”. On one side you’ll find an Nvidia T30L Tegra 3 processor, 1 GB of Hynix H5TC2G83CFR DDR3 RAM (same as Retina MacBook Pro), Max 77612A inverting switching regulator, AzureWave AW-NH665 wireless module, Broadcom BCM4751 integrated monolithic GPS receiver and Invensense MPU-6050 gyro and accelerometer.
• The back side of the motherboard holds the Kingston KE44B-26BN/8GB 8GB flash for storage.
• The 4326 mAh battery is easily replaceable without soldering or even a screwdriver.
• The official Nexus page stated there is one “speaker” in the back, but iFixit spotted a pair of drivers.

You can check out the full teardown of the Google Nexus 7 over at iFixit.

Nokia says Nexus 7 tablet infringes on their patents

Google announced the long-rumored Nexus 7 tablet during their I/O Conference last week. The device won’t be available until mid-July but that isn’t stopping Nokia from claiming the slate infringes on some of their patents with regards to Wi-Fi technology.

The Inquirer believes that the patents in question have to do with the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard. In a message to the publication, a Nokia spokesperson said they have more than 40 licensees under their standards essential patent portfolio which includes most mobile phone device makers. The problem is that neither Google nor Asus are licensed under this patent portfolio. The spokesperson said that companies who have not licensed up should simply approach them and sign up for licensing rights.

Google’s $199 tablet features a 7-inch backlit IPS display operating at 1,280 x 800 and is powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 processor with 12 GPU cores. 1GB of RAM comes standard while users can choose between 8GB or 16GB of onboard storage. The device will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the latest Google OS revision highlighted by Project Butter. This initiative is said to improve overall system performance and reduce lag at virtually every avenue.

It is believed that Nokia will simply seek to have either Google or Asus sign up for licensing rather than try to impose legal injunctions against the tablet. For their part, Asus has refused to comment on the matter for now. No word yet on Google’s response.

Google's $199 Nexus 7 tablet details leaked ahead of I/O Conference

Specifications of Google’s long-rumored 7-inch tablet have leaked out ahead of the company’s annual I/O Conference that kicks off this Wednesday. The tablet is being manufactured by Asus but Google will brand and sell the unit, much like they are doing with unlocked Galaxy Nexus smartphones through the Google Play Store.

Gizmodo claims to have received a training document that details everything one would want to know about the Nexus 7 tablet. At the heart of the system is a quad-core Tegra 3 processor clocked at 1.3GHz, 1GB of RAM, a GeForce 12-core GPU and the option of either 8GB or 16GB of onboard storage.

The 7-inch IPS display features a 178-degree viewing angle and runs at a resolution of 1,280 x 800. There’s a 1.2MP camera on the front for video chats and we are told that the unit will provide nine hours of battery life from a single charge.

Additionally, the leaked document says the Nexus 7 will be the first device to ship with Android Jelly Bean, the successor to Ice Cream Sandwich. Pricing is set at $199 for the 8GB model and $249 for the 16GB variant, making the unit a solid competitor to Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet.

There is no word yet on when exactly Google is planning to make the tablet available for purchase but hopefully it won’t be too long after the announcement. Most expect Google to reveal the new hardware at this week’s I/O Conference. If so, we’ll know more details come Wednesday.

Source : http://techspot.com