The Google Nexus 7 2013 successor was expected to be announced together with the Google Pixel and Pixel XL back in October. But as we all know, this is not the case.
Speculations had pointed towards an Q4 2016 release and when this did not happen alongside the Pixel and Pixel phones, many are still adamant that the Google Nexus 7 2013 successor will be released before the year ends, just in time for the Christmas holidays.
When the Google released its 2016 smartphones, the search engine giant rang a huge change in terms of how it does things. In the past, the company has partnered with major names in the tech industry in making Nexus devices that also featured the name of the partner OEM. For instance, last year, it was the turn of LG and Huawei as far as the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P are concerned.
It was thought that Huawei was still in contention to make the Google Nexus 2016 phones, but things changed along the way. A few days ago, a Huawei official confirmed that the Chinese tech giant declined Google’s offer for manufacturing the 2016 Pixel phones. As you may know by now, the Pixel phones are sold as Made by Google with the company’s branding alone. This is meant to show that Google did all the work – both hardware and software – while in real sense, HTC handled all the dirty work. While HTC was OK with this, Huawei wasn’t.
Back in September, famous leaker Evan Blass confirmed that Huawei will be in charge of making the Google Nexus 7 2013 successor. He even went ahead to mention some specs of the tablet, saying that it will come with 7 inches of display and 4GB RAM. However, following the recent revelation that Huawei backed off from the deal to make the Google Pixel phones solely because Google did not want the name of the Chinese OEM to feature anywhere on the devices, it is hard to believe whether the same OEM will be pulling the strings as far as the Google Nexus 7 2013 successor is concerned.
It has been rumored that the tablet might adopt a new naming style to match the Pixel phones, with some pundits suggesting the Google Pixel 7 tablet as the name. If this turns out to be true, it is possible that HTC will still take the deal to manufacture the tablet. However, if the search engine giant sticks with Huawei, we might see a Google Nexus 7 2016 released with the former’s branding, probably for the last time.
As the debate of who between HTC and Huawei will be in charge of making the Google Nexus 7 2013 successor takes shape, speculations of what features the tablet will carry are also rife. Apparently, the 7 inches of display size will be housed on an AMOLED screen with QHD resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. Under the hood, the supposed Google Nexus 7 2016 or Pixel 7 tablet will reportedly come with a Snapdragon 820 SoC alongside the earlier-mentioned 4GB RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.
The back of the device will carry a main camera of 13MP, but it is still unclear what features this camera will come with. The story is the same as far as the front snapper is concerned, but speculations are promising a 5100mAh battery to take care of things. Expect a USB-C port for charging and data transfer.
We all saw what happened to the price of the Google Nexus 6P when Huawei took charge of things verses the case of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL with HTC at the heart of things. This could also mean that a HTC-made Google Pixel 7 tablet may be pricier than a Huawei-made Google Nexus 7 2016 tablet.
Who between HTC and Huawei would you prefer to make the Google Nexus 7 2013 successor? Share your thoughts with is via the comments.