When Google announced the Nexus 7 some months ago, they told us it would launch in a WiFi-only model with an LTE-enabled model to follow. It’s been a few weeks now and we still haven’t heard any official announcement of the LTE model’s availability or pricing, but if you put your head to the tracks and listen you’ll find that there’s more than enough information out there about it. First off we start with rumors we heard just 3 days ago, pointing to a mid-September launch in Japan and the US for the LTE-enabled Nexus 7. Building on this just yesterday we found a Reddit user who was able to actually purchase an LTE-enabled Nexus 7 in Germany, and posted pictures and information to back that purchase up. We’re now seeing some new information from CNet that lends credence to the LTE-enabled Nexus 7 officially launching worldwide in just a few weeks, including a Google+ post from Google Japan that talks about the launch of the Nexus 7 there. Japan’s ascii.jp is also citing Google themselves saying that the Nexus 7 LTE will launch in mid-September. This paints a pretty clear picture: if you’ve been waiting on an LTE-enabled version of the Nexus 7 to pick one up, you won’t be waiting much longer.
September is traditionally a hot month for launching new products, particularly electronics, so it makes plenty of sense for Google to launch the LTE Nexus 7 then. The Nexus 7 has been receiving glowing reviews, including our own, and with a price of $229 for the 16GB model it’s one of the easiest ways to get yourself a comfortable tablet that performs better than most out there. The latest rumors for the LTE-enabled Nexus 7 point to a $349 price-point for the 32GB model. Unfortunately for those looking at a cheaper price point there are no current plans for a 16GB model, meaning you’re pretty much stuck with $349 as an entry fee here. $349 for an LTE-enabled version of what can be considered the best 7-inch tablet on the market is still an incredible deal, considering many tablets of this size retail at this price for the WiFi-only versions. Google is providing excellent value with the Nexus 7, and it’s not hard to see why this tablet is doing as well as it is.