The tablet market has come up literally in the last 2 years. That’s impressive for a space that didn’t exist for most manufacturers before 2010. Apple has by far taken the bulk of the market share but competition is catching up. Given that smartphone OSes are used to power tablets, it has been relatively easy for many to push out a tablet. However not many have spent the time that Amazon took to build the Kindle Fire.
Carefully planting a Android Market alternative and then launching a tablet without Google’s blessings, they made the best of what was available. I doubt if any other iPad competitor apart from the Kindle Fire has got as much traction. HP-Palm faded away with the Touchpad and Blackberry took a big hit for Playbook.
The Google tablet is seen as a joint effort with Asus (who btw has a good product with Transformer) and is said to be sporting a 7″ screen. The formula Google is rumored to adopt is of a low cost tablet. And that’s where I disagree. Google if at all making a Nexus tablet, wouldn’t be looking to go mass market with a cheap product. That’s now what they did with the Nexus phones. Neither are Nexus products top of the line specs that would compete with flagship products of Android manufacturers like HTC & Samsung. Anyone looking at a Nexus tablet that would be a Kindle Fire killer is mistaken. The Nexus tablet is more likely to be the best alternative to the iPad. Pure Android, up to the mark hardware and regular software updates. Something that can also be a good developer device.
The most number of tablets sold on the planet has a 9.7″ screen and each unit sold for upwards of $500. Google doesn’t need a cheap tablet, it needs a good tablet. Nexus or not.