Google’s New ‘Nexus 4’ Phone; ‘Nexus 10’ Tablet; and Android 4.2

Not to be outdone by the likes of Apple or Microsoft, both of which are holding press events within the next week, Google is hosting a little media get together of its own on Monday, October 29, in New York. The company is expected to unveil a handful of new tech toys, including a new Nexus smartphone; a 3G cellular version of its seven-inch Nexus 7 tablet; a larger, ten-inch Nexus tablet made by Samsung; and, finally, a new version of its Android mobile OS, v4.2. (Apple’s event is on October 23 in San Jose, and the much-rumored iPad Mini tablet should be announced. Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch event is scheduled for October 25 in New York.)

The details on the new Android devices and OS come from TheNextWeb.com, which claims to have “a source with knowledge of Google’s plans.” Here’s a quick breakdown of the report:

Android v4.2 “Key Lime Pie/Jelly Bean”: Google will reportedly introduce a new “Content in the center” feature in Android 4.2, which is apparently still called Android Jelly Bean, even though it was referred to as Android Key Lime Pie in the past. The new feature is supposed to let users access Play Store content using a widget. And a “Tablet Sharing” will let you created different accounts, with unique settings and applications, etc., for different users. I bet Google will also add some new features and enhancements to its Google Now feature, but that’s just a guess.

It seems more than a little odd that Google is already ready to roll out another version of Android when Android 4.1 is available only on a very (very) small percentage of Android devices, but maybe that’s why it decided to stick with the Jelly Bean name, to play down the slow rollout.

Google Nexus 4 Smartphone from LG: The next Nexus smartphone will reportedly by manufactured by LG; it will pack a quad-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm APQ8064 Snapdragon processor; a 4.7-inch 1280 x 768 display; 2GB RAM; 16GB storage; an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera; a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera; and a 2100mAh battery. (If the report proves to be true, all of these specs would be an improvement over the current Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone, which is looking a bit long in the tooth—err, touch screen—these days, except for the meager 16GB storage capacity.)

The Nexus 4 will also reportedly run Android v4.2.

New Nexus 7 Tablets from Asus:  Google’s seven-inch Nexus 7 tablet is currently available in two versions: an 8GB, Wi-Fi only tablet; and a 16GB Wi-Fi only tablet. But that’s about to change, according to the report. Google is set to unveil both a new 32GB Wi-Fi only Nexus 7 and a 32GB 3G cellular Nexus 7 tablet. The Wi-Fi 32GB Nexus 7 is expected to sell for a similar price as the current 16GB model, which suggests Google will drop the price of both the 8GB and 16GB Wi-Fi models.

Google Nexus 10 Tablet from Samsung: Finally, Google is expected to announce a new, larger Nexus tablet made by Samsung. The “Nexus 10″—it’s unclear if this is the tablet’s official name—will reportedly have a 2560×1600 pixel (16:10) resolution, which could pack in 300 pixels per inch (PPI) compared to the new iPad’s 264 PPI. And it will run Android 4.2.

That’s a lot of products to announce at a single event, but Apple and Microsoft are sure to make a splash with their respective announcements, so Google will have to do the same if wants to stand out among all the noise. I love my Nexus 7 tablet, but I don’t think the addition of 3G or more storage will be enough to make me buy a new one, and I much prefer the smaller, seven-inch form factor to the ten-inch size, so I’m not particularly interested in the Nexus 10 either.

I also own a Galaxy Nexus phone, and I’m probably most interested in the Nexus 4 device, thanks to its improved specs, and most notably, it’s larger 4.7-inch screen, which is the same size as the display on the popular Samsung Galaxy SIII.

AS

Image via Onliner.by