Google To Release Huawei-Made Nexus 7 This Year

Google’s Nexus 7 tablet may be making a comeback this year with the help of Huawei, if established gadget details leaker Evan Blass is to be believed.

Taking to Twitter, Blass revealed that the next Nexus tablet will feature a 7in display, 4GB of RAM and will be built by Huawei on Google’s behalf, with its release due before the end of the year. It’s also overwhelmingly likely that a new Nexus tablet will come with the latest version of Android baked-in, in this case Android 7.0 Nougat.

Given it has been three years since the last 7in Nexus appeared in 2013 as a result of a partnership between Google and Asus, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Nexus 7 make a return, as it was one of the more popular compact tablets at the time.

Next Nexus

While there are numerous tablets in various sizes from the likes of Samsung and Asus running Android, Google’s only own-brand tablet on sale at the moment is the Pixel C, a 10in tablet that dwarfs the Nexus 7.

In the years between the 2013 Nexus 7, Google did work with HTC to create the Nexus 9, in effect a pseudo-successor to the Nexus 7. But for some time a 7in Nexus has been absent from the range.

Google and Huawei are not commenting on Blass’s leaked information but given the two companies have worked together on the well-received Nexus 6P smartphone, it would be no surprise if that partnership continued to the Nexus tablet range.

That being said Google did kill-off the Nexus branding for its own smartphones, opting for the Pixel nomenclature instead, with HTC being rumoured to be hardware partner of choice.

With this in mind, Google could have chosen HTC as its next tablet partner, but Huawei has made its mark in the tablet market, with its MateBook showing how it has the hardware nous to take on the likes of Microsoft and its Surface hybrid tablet range.

It’s rumoured that Google will be holding an event in October to debut its new hardware so we’ll have to wait until then to see if Blass’s leak is accurate.

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