Google Launches Nexus 7 Tablet Starting At $199

As expected, Google finally revealed an Asus-branded Nexus 7 tablet on Wednesday that will run the latest version of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Built with Asus, the device can be obtained for pre-order now on Google Play and will ship next month to customers in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The tablet with 8GB comes with a price tag of $199, whereas 16GB is $249.

According to Google, the product is basically a conduit for Google Play and it will come along with pre-loaded movies, books and other content like Transformers Dark of the Moon movie, the Bourne Domination Book and magazines such as Food network and Popular Science.

Nexus 7 is “built for Google Play,” said Hugo Barra, Product Management Director for Android at Google.

The Nexus 7 boasts a 1,280-x-800-pixel HD display, which is a perfect device for watching movies, playing games and viewing other content, Barra said. It is powered by quad core Tegra 3 processor along with 1GB of RAM.

During Google’s annual developer conference, the company also revealed a spherical Android-based media player known as Nexus Q. It is designed in a way that it can receive music and other content from Android Smartphones and tablets and distribute it over home stereos and TV screens.

Google also brings a series of improvements that are available in Android 4.1, including paid app encryption to facilitate developers guard their intellectual property and an on-device speech recognition engine that does not require the need for speech input when users are working via wireless connection.

The tablet was first introduced at CES in January, when Nvidia’s head Jen-Hsun Huang showed it off and said it would cost $249. However in April, there were rumors that Google is delaying its release to July, two months after the initial expected May date.