If this year’s Google I/O led you to believe there wouldn’t be a Nexus 7 successor, think again. The search engine giant has officially unveiled its new flagship 7-inch tablet—a refreshed Nexus 7 with a new processor, sharper display and slightly heftier price tag.
Google has upped the price points to $229.99 for 16GB and $269.99 for 32GB, versus the $199.99 cost for the 16GB previous generation and $249.99 price tag for 32GB. The primary difference you’ll notice on the new Nexus 7 is its improved 1920 x 1200-pixel resolution display, which is a significant upgrade from the 1280 x 800 resolution on the former generation tablet.
Google has also opted for the year-old 1.5-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro rather than an Nvidia chip like the 1.3GHz Tegra 3 found in the older Nexus 7. The newer ASUS-crafted tablet also comes with both rear and front facing cameras, unlike its predecessor which only featured a 1.3-megapixel front camera. The new tablet, however, comes with a 5-megapixel rear sensor and 1.2-megapixel front shooter. With 2GB of RAM, Google has also packed more memory than the 1GB of RAM found in the older model. And, of course, Google's new tablet will be running the newest version of Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.
There’s not much of a difference in design, but Google promises that the new Nexus slate measures 0.3 inches thin and weighs 10.22 ounces—which is lighter than the 0.41-inch thin and 12-ounce older Nexus 7. For $30 more than the previous version, Google offers some minor enhancements to its affordable flagship 7-incher, but it could face stiff competition in that space with newcomers such as the ASUS MeMO Pad HD 7 arriving on the scene.
