Last year we heard a rumor that Google is going to launch a “Nexus” tablet that will be of the “highest quality”. Now it seems that they have a countdown for MWC, where they might show off this tablet, but not necessarily launch it on the market then. If they are indeed launching a Nexus tablet soon, then it’s very possible that they want to do this at MWC, not just because it’s a big mobile technology show, but also because Apple’s next-gen tablet will be announced soon after that.
We know Google doesn’t want Apple to announce their tablet before theirs, just like it happened last year, when they did their best to launch the Xoom before iPad 2. They did that even though the tablet was not fully ready, both in hardware and software. Hopefully they won’t repeat the same mistake this year.
So what would this tablet of the “highest quality” be like? I assume it’s going to have the latest version of Android, obviously. Then it might get Samsung’s Exynos 5250 with the dual core Cortex A15 chip, for maximum performance (although I have to say I wasn’t very impressed with the last 2 Nexus offerings from Google in terms of performance). Then we could a very high resolution display, probably at 2560×1600, whether Super AMOLED or otherwise another high quality panel.
What else can we expect? Probably a high quality camera that does more than just take pictures. Think eye tracking or some enhanced augmented reality features. One feature I’d like to see on all 10″ or larger tablets from now on is an optional keyboard dock, because I think the future for both tablets and laptops is hybrids like the Transformer from Asus.
The truth is this countdown to the MWC might not even be about a Nexus tablet, so let’s not get our hopes up yet.