We’ve heard plenty of rumors about the Nexus 7 in the past few months. We had heard of a 32GB model and a HSPA+ model that became a reality earlier this month. There was also a rumor about a $99 Nexus 7 tablet. Those kind of disappeared after Google announced the new versions of the Nexus 7, the Nexus 10 and Nexus 4. But they seemed to have resurfaced now, mostly due to benchmarks for an ASUS tablet “ME172V” showing up in GLBenchmark’s database.
Now this could be just a new ASUS tablet, especially with CES coming up in January. So there’s a chance that this could be a Nexus tablet and an even higher chance that it won’t be one. The benchmark shown above only shows us that it’s running Android 4.1.1 and that’s made by ASUS. Not a whole lot of information. But if it was a Nexus device it should be running Android 4.2 or 4.2.1 right? Since it’ll be launching with the latest version of Android.
We have heard rumors of ASUS working on another cheap tablet that we’ll probably see at CES. It’s said to be a 7-inch device with a 1024×600 resolution. It’s also said to have 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage and a 4270mAh battery. We’ve also heard that it’ll be running Android 4.1.1 – Jelly Bean and run on a 1GHz processor, but we don’t know how many cores it would have. Just by the fact that it’s running Android 4.1.1, sounds like it won’t be a Nexus though. Since we are three software versions ahead of that now.
There have been so many rumors for the next iteration of the Nexus 7. We even heard last month that there would be a new Nexus 7 coming soon, probably at Google I/O in June, but that ASUS wouldn’t be making it. As you probably know, the Google Nexus 7 is the best tablet out there. Right up there with the Nexus 10 by Samsung.
Would you be surprised if Google brought out a $99 version of the Nexus 7? Who would buy it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.