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Nexus 7 Deal Chops Price as Nexus 8 Rumors Swirl

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A new Nexus 7 deal chops the price of Google’s current Nexus tablet as rumors of the company’s alleged Nexus 8 continue to swirl ahead of Google I/O 2014.

Last year, in the buildup to Google I/O, we heard a ton about a new Nexus 7 tablet. The device, which rumors said would be replacing the original Nexus 7, was thought to have some significant upgrades including an overhauled design, a brand new display, new cameras, new processor, and brand new software.

At Google I/O, Google failed to announced the new Nexus 7. Weeks later though, Google made good on the rumors and debuted the Nexus 7 2013 alongside Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, the final installment of its Jelly Bean operating system.

The Nexus 7 arrived with a 7-inch high-resolution display, speedy quad-core processor, a beautiful black matte design, a rear and front-facing camera, LTE data speeds, and of course, the cheap price point that Nexus devices are known for. While it was a little more expensive than the original, the Nexus 7 was, and is, considered to be one of the best tablets on the market.

That’s what makes this new Nexus 7 deal from eBay so intriguing.

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eBay’s deal knocks the 32GB model of the 2013 Nexus 7 down to just $189.99, an $80 price cut from the normal price of the 32GB Nexus 7. That’s an attractive proposition and one that shoppers will want to take advantage of because stock is probably dwindling. These offers typically don’t last.

There are several stipulations including the fact that buyers will have to pay through a PayPal account, but it’s a deal that those living outside of Alaska and Hawaii will want to take a look at ahead of Father’s Day and ahead of the rumored Nexus 8 launch.

Nexus 6 rumors suggest that the Nexus program will be coming to an end this year. A Nexus 6 is supposedly dead in the water and Google will instead shift to a new project called Android Silver that takes many of the Nexus programs attributes and combines them with higher end devices and a massive marketing campaign.

The first devices will supposedly be coming in February of 2014 and it would appear that LG and Motorola will be among the manufacturers involved.

While the death of the Nexus program is now all but confirmed, there are rumors that suggest that at least one more Nexus will be hitting shelves in 2014.

Nexus 8 rumors have been swirling for several weeks now and they point to a high-end successor to the current Nexus 7. Rumors point to a new, 8.9-inch QHD display, 3GB of RAM, a 64-bit processor, and a new Android 4.5 update. Nexus 8 rumors also suggest that the device will arrive sometime in the third quarter which means July, August or September.

Nexus 7 LTE Review 2013 Verizon - 7

The Nexus 8 remains unconfirmed at the moment but several leaks have pointed to the arrival of a brand new tablet that many believe will be an HTC-made Nexus 8.

Myce, a site that tracks code and issues in the Chromium bug tracker, recently discovered numerous references to an unknown device codenamed “flounder.” In the past, Google has used aquatic code names for Nexus products. The Nexus 10, for instance, is called “manta”.

We’ve also seen the name “flounder” emerge at Google’s Android Open Source project. The reference in AOSP also contained the following code that seems to point to an HTC Nexus 8:

  • project device/htc/flounder/
  • f6f0fe7 flounder: fix KGDB port
  • d9a03bc flounder: take out conservative cpufreq governor a.o. extraneous stuff
  • 091c1c1 flounder: add Power HAL
  • project device/htc/flounder-kernel/
  • 6090a06 flounder: update kernel prebuilt

It’s still not clear when, or where, Google might announce the Nexus 8. A logical venue would be Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference that kicks off in late June.

GoogleIO-main

Google I/O is certainly a possible launch pad, we’ve seen Google announce Android updates and Nexus products on stage before, but last year’s Nexus 7 and Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update arrived after Google I/O.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Hildy J

    06/09/2014 at 7:14 pm

    Of course flounder could refer to a Nexus 6 by HTC (flounder starts with F, the sixth letter). I am most interested in the references to a 64 bit Tegra chip that Myce found in the flounder references.

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