Google appears to be ready to go after the smaller tablet market according to a report today. The next lead device will be a 7-7.7-inch tablet built by Asustek and will be delivered before Google I/O in June. The timing seems a litle strange and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it delivered at I/O -hopefully to all of the attendees.
As more and more reports of this Google 7 inch product hit, it seems more and more real. I think Google has to go with a 720P display to beat Amazon’s Fire which frankly is eating the 7-inch tablet lunch at the moment. Google, also needs to keep prices below $200 to keep pace with Amazon’s product.
If you’ve had a chance to check out Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.7, you know it is a really nice form factor.
One thing to note about 7 inch 16:9 tablets compared to bigger 10 inch 4:3-ers is that they can be held with one hand from behind – so they don’t need that same huge bezel that most tablets currently employ. I’d like to see a 7.7-inch tablet with the bezel of a Galaxy Note and lots of thinness all around.