Google may have canceled its New York press event due to the impending arrival of Hurricane Sandy, but not the storm - nor even the ghost of Steve Jobs - could stop the inevitable from happening. As expected Google announced the latest in a line of Nexus smartphones, but the bigger news was that the search giant is set to release a larger version of the Nexus tablet that the company had begun selling in July.
The new Nexus 4 smartphone will be made by LG Electronics and features a minor update to Google's Android operating system. The Nexus 4 features 4.7-inch screen, notably larger than the just released iPhone 5, but a bit smaller than rival Samsung's Galaxy S III Android-powered handset. The 16GB version of the Nexus 4 will sell for $199 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile, while a contract-free version will be available for a surprisingly affordable $299 with 8GB of storage or $349 for 16GB.
A major upgrade of Android is also expected next year.
But the bigger news to come out of Google is the new Nexus 10 tablet, made by Samsung and clearly aimed at taking the fight in the tablet arena directly to Apple. The Nexus 10 will be available next month for $399 for the 16GB version and $499 for the 32GB version.
Both of these pint-sized tablets are still pricier than the basic 7-inch Kindle Fire, which is available for $159 ($174 for an Ad-free version). But that tablet runs a custom earlier version of the Android OS and it is limited to the apps available in Amazon's app store (a small subset of what's available in the full Google Play store).
In the full size tablet arena, the new Nexus 10 could have an advantage as it offers the highest resolution display of any tablet on the market today at 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. The screen technology is Samsung's PLS (Plane-Line Switching) LCD with LED backlighting (not the AMOLED screen in the original leaked specs). The screen's pixel density is a full 300 ppi (pixels per inch) which bests even the newest iPad's so-called "Retina display" at 264 ppi.
This widescreen touch-screen display will reportedly offer 9 hours of continuous video playback, and up to 500 hours of standby time. The device is just 8.9mm thick (0.35 inch), less than the 9.4mm (0.37 inch) of the latest iPad, and its weighs a bit less too - 1.33 pounds for the Nexus 10 to the iPad's 1.44 pounds.
The Google Nexus 10 will feature a pair of front-facing stereo speakers to accompany the video. For those looking to chat it up it will feature a 1.9 megapixel front camera, plus an 8 megapixel rear camera. Inside this device offers a 1.7GHz dual-core Samsung processor, 2GB of RAM and built-in NFC support.
The Nexus 10 will feature the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, offering users the ability to set multiple profiles on a single device.
The Google Nexus 10 will begin shipping on November 13, 2012.
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