Welcome to another new weekly column where we round up all the Android-related rumors and discuss the validity of each one. Everyone seems to love our original rumor reports, but we thought it would be fun to examine the rumors from around the web and share our thoughts on the possibility of them coming true. Read on for this week's latest Android rumors.
Is this the rumored Nexus tablet?
Rumor: Evan Blass of PocketNow received a leaked picture of an unknown Android device, which he suggest could be the rumored "Nexus tablet."
Our thoughts: We have been reporting on the rumored Nexus tablet for the last couple months, and now the Wall St. Journal is sharing new details of how Google plans to sell it.
Our first rumor report suggested that the device would be similar to the ASUS MeMo 370T, but then other sources said that device had been abandoned in favor of a cheaper design. The MeMo 370T was supposed to retail for $249, but NVIDIA has already said that Tegra 3 tablets will approach $199 soon, and we said that the final price could drop to $149.
The Wall St. Journal said Google was considering subsidizing the cost of the device to better compete with Amazon and their $199 Kindle Fire, so the final price could hit that magical $149 (or lower) price point where you see these devices sold at 7-Eleven stores.
Looking at the device pictured above, we can see it appears to be your average 7-inch tablet. There are ports for micro USB, micro HDMI, SD card, and headphone jack. At the bottom of the device on the left side there appears to be a SIM card slot, but most people expect this device to be WiFi only.
The docking and charging port is on the side of the device, along with two holes that would suggest a keyboard dock. ASUS is best know for their Transformer devices that feature optional keyboards, so it's possible that Google wanted to integrate that feature.
Since price is the main selling point with this device, we don't expect the design to be that exciting.
