This week was more of an early look at next week as several Android information leaks made their way to the web. Google is holding an Android event in New York City this coming Monday and the company may have very few new details to share as a result. The biggest news is likely to be around Google’s biggest tablet: The Nexus 10.
Images and specifications of the reported device appeared this week and it looks like Samsung was tapped to create this Nexus slate. As a result, the outside of it may look like most other Samsung tablets, but once powered on, I think we’ll see a big difference. Why? Because the Nexus 10 is reportedly running on Samsung’s new dual-core 1.7 GHz Exynos processor; one of the very first to use the latest ARM architecture known as Cortex-A15. The 10-inch slate is also expected to use a 2560 x 1600 display.
Google isn’t expected to launch just a new tablet on Monday, however. One of the worst-kept secrets of late is the Nexus 4 smartphone as images and information have been appearing online for weeks prior.
The device is likely to be made by LG and patterned off the company’s Optimus G. Early reports showed the phone to have a scant 8 GB of internal storage and it appears they are partially correct. A manual for the Nexus 4 surfaced on-line and Engadget notes that two models are mentioned: one with 8 GB of storage capacity and one with 16 GB. Also part of the phone’s feature set will be support for wireless charging due to an induction coil within the backside of the smartphone.
This week also saw Android tablet sales reported as the closest yet to iPad sales. Independent research firm Strategy Analytics noted that in the third quarter of this year, Android accounted for 41 percent of global tablet market share, which Apple’s iPad earning 57 percent of the market. Obviously, no single Android tablet comes close to that of the iPad, but just like smartphone sales, the collective group of Android slates add up to a sizable amount. Overall, an estimated 24.7 million tablets were sold last quarter, with 10.2 million of them running Google Android.
