During Google’s First Quarter 2012 meeting, CEO Larry Page slightly hinted at an upcoming Android tablet stating that Google was “quite focused on” the lower priced tablet market. This falls in line with the longstanding rumors that Google would be co-branding their own 7-inch tablet sometime this summer. Depending on which unconfirmed rumor you use as your source, this “Nexus tablet” would fall into the lower price range between $150 and $250.
I think that we’re very excited about tablets. I think, you know, there’s a number of Android tablets out there. Obviously, we have strong competition there as well. I think you’ve seen us really invest substantially in things like Google Play, which really gives you great access to entertainment, media, books and videos and so on, as well as the apps. And we think that’s an important component on what we’re doing.
I think there’s also, obviously, there’s been a lot of success on some lower-priced tablets that run Android — maybe not the full Google version of Android. But we definitely believe that there’s going to be a lot of success at the lower end of the market, as well, with lower-priced products that will be very significant. It’s definitely an area we think is quite important and that we’re quite focused on.
This statement falls directly in line with my previous article “Putting the Google into Android Tablets“. Amazon’s Kindle Fire was a complete success and Larry eludes to the Fire here as well as the Barnes and Noble Nook since they were not full Google versions of Android being backed by their own ecosystems. Continuing to heavily focus on tablets, Larry reiterates that the Google Play is an extreme part of that process. The next part, is hardware.
Of course no additional information was mentioned and everything is left to speculation as usual. We’ll know when we know, when Google let’s us know. Don’tcha just love teasers that can be left to interpretation?
Source: AC