You guys up for another rumor? According to a source that spoke with Android and Me, the Google Nexus tablet is a “done deal” and won’t be what we were hoping for. When we first heard the possibility of ASUS manufacturing the Nexus tablet, we immediately assumed the $249 quad-core ASUS MeMo 370T would be the device. This won’t be the case according to the source, who says the MeMo 370T was scrapped after Google contracted ASUS for the Nexus tablet.
When ASUS pushed Ice Cream Sandwich out to the Transformer TF101, users danced in the streets and tossed confetti at one another in celebration. Unfortunately not everyone made it to the party as many users experienced hangups, reboots, and constant issues. Today ASUS began rolling out another update to help take care of these issues and now everyone can have their Ice Cream Sandwich and eat it too.
According to some industry sources that spoke with DigiTimes, we could be seeing the mythical Google Nexus tablet as early as May. It’s reported that ASUS will be the one to manufacturer the 7″ low cost tablet after other potential partners didn’t quite make the cut. Apparently HTC and Acer were in the running, but after HTC’s unwillingness to to develop a low-price model and Acer’s lack of in-house R&D, ASUS was declared the winner. Considering ASUS’s recent dedication to Android and the tablet market, I would not be surprised at all if they end up manufacturing the Nexus tablet, in fact I expect it.
At this year’s Mobile World Congress, Google all but confirmed that Android’s next iteration would be named Jelly Bean. Of course it’s still unofficial, but even Benson Lin, Asus’ Corporate Vice President, is talking about it and has every intention of being the first on the upgrade list.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 –When Asus first announced the PadFone at Computex 2011, they did so with a level of gleefully cheesy showmanship that set Apple fans sarcastically hailing chairman Jonney Shih as South Korea’s next Steve Jobs. To many Apple fans, the PadFone — a laptop with a tablet inside with a phone inside the tablet — represented the worst of the rest of the industry’s “kitchen sink” approach to beating Cupertino. If we can’t build a phone to beat the iPhone, a tablet to beat the iPad, or an ultraportable to beat the MacBook Air, why not beat one device to beat all three at the same time?
But it’s wrong to dismiss the PadFone just because of cheesy showmanship, or because it’s not likely to topple Apple’s three pillars in one go. We had a hands-on with one, and it’s far from a cheesy device. In fact, it’s actually a little marvel.
