Well the long wait for the 2nd generation Nexus 7 appears to be almost over. At least that's if all the evidence that's been popping up and discussed on the web is to be believed. Now there's no official confirmation from Asus or Google but from several recent FCC certifications and Bluetooth SIG's, it would appear to be the case. However some of the technical details remain in a bit of confusion...most specifically the processor used. We'll walk you through the latest right now.
First off, there have been several FCC certification documents...in fact nearly a dozen if you count them all up...for tablet devices with model #s MSQK008 and MSQK009. Some of these appear to have 10 inch screens and others, such as the one below appear to reference a 7 inch display. At first I thought all of them were simply Asus Memo Pad tablets...and some of them undoubtedly are. However, a couple...including the one shown below, specifically mention 'nexus' as the brand name and it just so happens that this also is for a 7 inch tablet as can be figured out from the LCD Panel model # as well as battery size.
Now shortly after this particular 'K009' FCC doc was discovered, another document was unearthed from the Bluetooth.org site showing what appears to be the same slate...with the same 'K009' # and a small picture of a 7 inch tablet...which you see above. Now here's where it gets a bit confusing. Everything seems to match up as this being the new Nexus 7...it's got a 5mp rear camera, 1.2mp front, appears to have slightly smaller bezel's, has a 7 inch screen etc. The one thing that conflicts however between the FCC and Bluetooth SIG docs is the processor. The Bluetooth SIG has a short description that clearly states the slate has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor. However the FCC docs show the CPU part# as APQ-8064...which is actually a Snapdragon S4 Pro. So what's to be believed?
Well here's our take. The part numbers of the Snapdragon 600 and the Snapdragon S4 Pro are almost identical...the only difference being the addition of a T on the end thus the Snapdragon 600 CPU part id is APQ-8064T. It would appear to make sense that the T was either left off by accident or someone left off the T when looking up the processor name and an error was made. Now we don't know this for sure of course. It just would make a whole lot more sense for the new Nexus 7 to have a current generation Snapdragon 600 processor rather than a last generation S4 Pro. Now both are an upgrade over the current Nvidia Tegra 3 to be sure...but that's our thoughts on the subject. Another possibility is that there will be both a 'Memo Pad' 7 inch and a 'Nexus 7' made on the same platform but with slightly different specs and thus both are sharing the same FCC cert.
Now a last thought has to do with the display. No confirmation has been able to be gotten exactly on the resolution of the new N7's screen. Some sites are reporting that it will be 'Full HD' 1920 x 1080 while other sites are claiming it will be 'better than Full HD' at 1920 x 1200. Either of course will be a dramatic upgrade over the existing 1280 x 800 display on the current Nexus 7.
As you can see there is still a bit of confusing on some of the details and some unanswered questions that make me want to still take all of the above with a grain of salt. For one thing, the pictures of the label placement on this new tablet appear to show the tablet in horizontal position, which is unusual for a 7 inch tablet. The original Nexus 7 had its label put on the tablet in portrait position. There's also the fact that several of the FCC certs that have been unearthed with the MSQK008 model # appear to be 10 inch tablets....not 7. Thus, there's the off possibility that all of these FCC certs that have been coming through that have the MSQK008 and MSQK009 'could' just be Asus MemoPad tablets. Asus did recently introduce both new 7 inch and 10 inch Memo Pad tablets at Computex. However, at least two of them that reference 7 inch displays mention 'nexus' under the Brand Name...thus our theory of the Nexus 7 possibly sharing some underlying components with a 'Memo Pad' tablet. Anyway all should be cleared up in the coming weeks. One site is reporting that June 30th is going to be the day that the new Nexus 7 is officially introduced. That's just two weeks away. Here's a few links where you can see docs and get more details.
Are you excited about the new Nexus 7 finally arriving? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Droid-LifeBluetooth SIGFCC
