Despite delaying its New York event due to the impact of Hurricane Sandy, Google has proven that rumours of new Nexus tablets are more than hot air, as it launched both an upgrade to its well received Nexus 7 tablet, and a Nexus 10, a 10” device that takes aim at Apple’s iPad and iPhone dominance.

 

The company announced the new tablets, as well as a new Nexus 4 smartphone, on its official blog, explaining that “people increasingly have more than one device, and they switch between them many times a day.”

 

To this end, the company appears to be positioning its Nexus 4 as its small device in the Nexus range, with the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 10 slotting into the medium and large flavours respectively.

 

All three devices though will run Android 4.2, the newest version of Android Jelly Bean, which brings features like Gesture Typing to Jelly Bean’s already sweet feature set.

 

The really big news coming from Google’s announcement is the introduction of its Nexus 10, a 10” tablet that challenges the iPad’s Retina display, by boasting a resolution of 2560 x 1600 (300 ppi) as compared to the iPad’s 2048 x 1536 (264 ppi).

 

 

 

According to the company, the Nexus 10, built in conjunction with Samsung, is intended to be a premium entertainment device. To this end, the tablet boasts a set of front facing stereo speakers, and nine hours worth of video playback, as well as more than 500 hours worth of standby time.

 

Further differentiating itself is that the Nexus 10 has been designed to be shareable, perhaps in recognition of anecdotal data that all too often, parents’ iPads are reportedly quickly claimed by their children.  

 

The company elaborated that users can add multiple users and switch between them instantly right from the lockscreen. “We believe that everyone should have quick and easy access to their own stuff –  email, apps, bookmarks, and more. That way, everyone can have their own home screens, their own music, and even their own high scores,” commented Andy Rubin, Google’s senior vice president, Mobile and Digital Content.

 

 

The Nexus 7 meanwhile has now received double the first tablet’s capacity, up to 32 GB, while the 16 GB version has had $50 slashed off its price to $200 (R1 720). The 32 GB Nexus with HSDPA then claims the consumer-friendly $250 (R2 150) price point.

 

No less welcome is the addition of HSDPA+ cellular reception to the range, which the first Nexus 7 didn’t have and which was considered to be a compromise to keep the device’s price as low as possible. For a closer (and audibly catchy) view of the new tablets in action, hit the video below.

 

To the point

 

Both tablets will apparently hit the stores on the 13^th of November in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Spain and Japan. Alas, South Africa is not on that list; however, we have high hopes that the device will become imminently, and reasonably available here soon, as did the Nexus 7.    

 

However, it is pretty obvious that in light of Apple’s launch of its new iPad Mini and iPad 4, and Microsoft’s launch of Windows 8 and Surface, Google would not even allow potentially one of the biggest storms to hit the US mainland in history to stop it from throwing its 10” hat into the ring.