(MSNBC) -- Last December, Google chairman Eric Schmidt told an Italian publication
that the company would ship an Android-powered tablet "of the highest
quality" within the next six months. Now a report suggests that a 7-inch
tablet, co-developed by Google and Asus, will be hitting shelves in
July.
The report comes from DigiTimes
— a tech industry site known for vaguely sourced reports which don't
always pan out — so we're taking things with a hefty serving of salt, of
course.
But where there's smoke, there's often fire — and there
are certainly several signs pointing to a summer release for the
mysterious Google tablet. NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim previously told CNET
that this mobile device was in the works and that a production run was
"slated for April" (which would put a shipping date into the early
summer).
There aren't many details about the tablet though. Shim suggested that it "will have a 1280x800 resolution 7-inch display," previous reports explained that it will be priced between $149 and $249.
That's
about all we know for now. Well, that and the fact that whatever
happens, the Google tablet will have an uphill battle trying to win
customers away from the top-selling iPad, and the current Android leader, Amazon's Kindle Fire.
