It’s been a little over a year since the Nexus 7 was announced at Google I/O. And we still don’t have a refreshed model. But that hasn’t stopped the leaks, rumors and speculation. Today, Staples decided to add to all the speculation about a second generation Nexus 7. By dropping the prices of the 16GB and 32GB models to $179 and $199 respectively. It’s not a huge drop, but still a quite noticeable one. Normally when prices begin dropping on old hardware, its because a newer version is set to come out and the retailer is getting ready to make room for the new version.
The Nexus 7 is still a great device. Even though it’s a year old now, for a $200 tablet, you could do much worse. In fact, Lenovo and Samsung both put up their sub-$200 tablets for sale today in the US. Lenovo at $179 and Samsung at $199. Both tablets have lower-end specs than the Nexus 7.
So far Google Play hasn’t discounted the price yet, but if the Nexus 7 is coming soon, I’d expect the prices to begin dropping soon or to see “out of stock” on the Play Store. The 32GB Nexus 7 is $50 cheaper than Google Play right now and if you have a Discover card, the ShopDiscover service offers you an additional 5% off at Staples. Which is definitely not a bad price. But we’re still anxiously awaiting the new version from Google and ASUS.
That new Nexus 7 could be coming any day now as we’ve seen it pass through the FCC, and the Bluetooth SIG running Android 4.3. So hopefully Google won’t hold out to much longer and just make it available so those of us itching to replace our year-old Nexus 7 (like myself) can do so. C’mon Google, we’re trying to throw money at you! How many of you are waiting on the new Nexus 7? Let us know in the comments below.