If Google goes ahead with the release of a Nexus 7 Tablet in the very near future for the fabled $199 price-tag, the affordable tablet marketplace will be thrown into complete and total chaos. Of course, we’ve already become used to shelling out less than $200 for a striking and functional tablet in the form of the Amazon Kindle Fire, but given the fact that Google Nexus Tablet is rumored to feature a spec-sheet to die for, we’re talking the beginning of a whole new price war.
While this is of course nothing but great news for us, a quad-core pure-Google tablet with all the bells and whistles you could wish for is of course not going to come cheap to Google. Even with all the buying power in the world it is impossible to source and deliver such high-end hardware for pennies – precisely why Apple’s iPad and most other mid to high-end tablets come in around the $400 – $500 mark.
This is precisely why the Google Nexus Tablet could tear the competition to pieces, but at the same time prove hugely expensive for Google to pull off.
A Better Way Forward
The very fact that Google is throwing its own hand into the tablet PC race seems to suggest their acknowledgement that third-party manufacturers really are not the way to go if vying for Android supremacy. What’s more, it also seems apparent that Google is less than impressed with the pricing structures of exiting Android tablets, leading them to aim for the sub-$200 barrier with their own.
A Google Nexus Tablet for $200 or less with a high-end spec-sheet would immediately strike the biggest of all chords with millions – tens of millions perhaps who have been waiting for a perfect price/quality balance tipped in their favor.
To pull it off however, it seems inevitable that Google would have to be looking to subsidize each and every Nexus Tablet sold, perhaps to the tune of hundreds of dollars right out of their own pockets.
Multiply this by the tens of millions of Nexus sales expected and you have yourself the mother of all costs to cover.
Ongoing Revenue
Nevertheless, Amazon proved with the Kindle Fire that it is no longer a case of shifting hardware and counting the profits, but instead maximizing ongoing revenue by way of apps and advertising.
In essence, the Google Nexus Tablet if appropriately priced and fully-loaded could serve as the mother of all advertising platforms for Android and see billions more app sales on a global basis.
Should the fabled Nexus Tablet exist, rumor has it that our first sneak-peek is on its way this week at Google’s I/O event in San Francisco.
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