Today, Google introduced us to two new pieces of hardware. There’s the new Nexus 7 which has been in the rumor mill for what seems like ever. And their “Nexus Q 2” device, Chromecast. The reason why we call it the Nexus Q2 in quotations is because it does basically everything the Nexus Q did, except the price is a whole lot lower. Which probably explains why it’s sold out already, before I could even finish this post.
The new Nexus 7 is available on Google Play, but it’s not yet available for purchase. It says that it’ll be available on July 30th, which is next Tuesday. The Nexus 7 as we mentioned earlier today comes with a 7-inch full HD display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB and 32GB variants, as well as a 32GB unlocked LTE variant which will work on AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. Is that awesome or what? Finally Verizon gets a Nexus, except they can’t interfere with the updates.
Now onto Chromecast. It’s basically a USB Chrome stick that works with laptops, TVs and the Chromebook Pixel. The Chrome team didn’t say that the Chromecast works with any of the other Chromebooks so we’re assuming they aren’t powerful enough. The Chromecast is basically a video-streaming dongle that costs $35 and uses WiFi and the cloud to stream everything. Google basically just killed Google TV….again. Like we said the Chromecast is already sold out on Google Play, but it is still available on Amazon or Best Buy later today. It’ll be shipping on August 7th, so you still have to wait a few weeks to get your new Chrome dongle in to play with.
The Chromecast was the surprise of the event since we knew just about everything about the new Nexus 7 and the new version of Jelly Bean Android 4.3. It’s great to see more hardware coming out from Google, and I’m excited about the new Nexus 7. Just crossing our fingers hoping that the Play Store can withstand everyone ordering their Nexus 7 on July 30th. How many of you have ordered a Chromecast or are planning to order a Nexus 7?
Nexus 7 (32GB) | Nexus 7 (16GB) | Chromecast ($34.99)