Today’s hottest topic has easily been the $199 Google tablet that will most likely be unveiled at Google I/O next month. We are expecting it to be built by Asus, powered by NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor, measure in at around 7″ on the display front, and be sold directly to customers through the Google Play store. It sounds like all sorts of win, however, we still want to know if the Android world is ready to take this step into the tablet realm.

While $199 sounds like an amazing price point, there are some things you need to understand. You have to assume that this won’t be anything close to the quality of an iPad or even Transformer Prime for that matter. NVIDIA has talked recently about their Project Kai which is a platform or package for companies to cheaply make semi-high end tablets using their quad-core processor. The catch here is that they will use cheaper RAM, probably less internal storage, and displays that are miles away from the new iPad’s retina to keep costs down, similarly to what Amazon did with the Kindle Fire.

Are you OK with that? I would assume that if you don’t already own an iPad or other high-end tablet that this is definitely an option. It will be stock Android, tied directly to Google for updates (not carriers), and at a price that will be tough to beat. Are you in or out?

We have kept the poll to a simple “Yes or no,” but we would love to hear your reasoning in the comments.

Thursday Poll: Will You Buy a $199 Google Branded Tablet? is a post from: Droid Life

The folks over at Techno Buffalo have learned from a “trusted source” that Google and Asus will in fact, be unveiling and distributing the new Nexus tablet at next month’s Google I/O. On top of that shocker, the tablet is reported to be running NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chip, which would meet the Project Kai’s standards for creating tablets that maintain powerful performance while meeting a competitive price point. It’s beginning to look like everyone who was hoping this tab would sell for $200 at market will most likely have their dreams come true this summer.

To top it off, as reported from the source, the tablet is rumored to come with Google’s new Jelly Bean operating system which hasn’t even received too much mainstream attention in 2012, seeing as how most Android devices are still running Gingerbread. Google I/O is literally a month away, so the wait is finally coming to an end.

Via: Techno Buffalo

Google and Asus to Unveil Tegra 3 Powered Nexus Tablets at Google I/O? is a post from: Droid Life

The star of the show at this year’s CES was a 7″ tablet that NVIDIA and Asus partnered to create which would meet a price point of just $250. What made it so desirable is that while meeting such a competitive price, it didn’t sacrifice in the specs department. It had a low power consuming display and naturally, NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 chip powered the internals. 

According to a semi-recent announcement from NVIDIA’s VP, they have developed a platform called Kai which is not just hardware, but a platform at which other companies can accomplish the same thing. The goal is to be able to create a tablet more powerful than the Kindle Fire, but be sold at the same price. NVIDIA’s VP said this on the announcement of Kai:

Our strategy on Android is simply to enable quad-core tablets running Android Ice Cream Sandwich to be developed and brought out to market at the $199 price point, and the way we do that is a platform we’ve developed called Kai. So this uses a lot of the secret sauce that’s inside Tegra 3 to allow you to develop a tablet at a much lower cost, by using a lot of innovation that we’ve developed to reduce the power that’s used by the display and use lower cost components within the tablet.

With signs of Google looking to produce a tablet along the same price point and power, could the Nexus tablet be based on the Kai platform and maybe feature a Tegra 3? It’s a stretch, but it is starting to look like the Android tablet market is to become very exciting for consumers this summer.

Via: The Verge

NVIDIA Announces Kai Platform, the Basis for Building Quad-Core Tablets at $199 is a post from: Droid Life