Google has already had more than enough partnerships with Samsung (Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 10, Galaxy Tab 10.1 for I/O, etc), and they’ve been focusing on working with other OEM’s lately, too, such as LG and Asus, for the last Nexus 4, most likely the Nexus 5, and the two Nexus 7’s. As rumors start to say that LG will be the one to make the 2014 Nexus 7 (or Nexus 8?), then it makes sense for Google to put Asus in charge of the new Nexus 10 tablets (probably the next 2 generations of it), since they’ve already done a great job on the Nexus 7, especially the last one.
I for one would love to see a new Nexus 10 that has about the same design, build quality, and display quality as the new Nexus 7. The only thing I hope they drop is the weirdly large bezels on the sides. At the very least it needs to be proportionate, even if they decided to keep the bezels big (which might be needed for a large tablet).
The latest rumors say that the new Nexus 10 will be based on the new Transformer Pad Infinity, at least in terms of specs. That means it will have a Tegra 4 processor, a 300 PPI (2560×1600) IGZO IPS display, which makes the panel very efficient even at high resolutions, helping the Infinity last up to 13 hours of heavy usage. It also has 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage, as the default minimum. I’d love to see the new Nexus 10 come with 32 GB of storage by default, too. It’s about time devices start coming with 32 GB of storage instead of 16 GB.
The Infinity also has a great keyboard dock, which seems to make the whole package even more like a laptop than previous Transformers. If Google wants Android to compete against Windows, then they couldn’t have had a better partner than Asus for this. My only worry is that since this is Android 4.4 that it will be coming with, and not Android 5.0, there won’t be a huge overhaul in UI, and for Android to start being treated seriously as a desktop OS replacement, it needs to actually be optimized for that kind of use-case. Right now, it’s not so much. But perhaps they’ll keep working with Asus for next year’s Nexus 10, too, and they’ll do it then.
I’d also like to see a bigger 12″ or 11.6″ display, because 10″ is too limiting for a “laptop” use case, and you can’t be very productive on it. Samsung is already considering making a Galaxy Note 12.2, but such a tablet makes a lot more sense when it comes with a keyboard dock, too. If I were Asus/Google, I’d also stop putting batteries in the keyboard dock, which just makes the whole package too expensive. Considering these tablets last at least 10h of heavy usage, it’s not really necessary to do that.