Not to long ago Eric Schmidt went on the record and said within the next six months Google would be releasing a tablet of utmost quality and branded by Google. At face value it would be fair to assume this would be aimed directly at Apples iPad. It has clearly been the undisputed champion of the current Tablet wars.
When the Kindle Fire arrived and sold millions of units, using a forked version of Android to promote Amazon services it may have altered the battle strategy. Google building a flagship “Nexus” device as a model to give the OEMs an example of how to do their jobs, is nothing new, but typically produces a quality product for consumers. New rumors, and they are just that have surfaced at the DigiTimes, claiming that this tablet is aimed directly at the Amazon Kindle Fire.
It takes a lot of time to build a quality tablet. To compete with the Fire, Google needs to compete in price, and hardware and ecosystem. The Kindle Fire which was only recently announced and released, would take a bit of time for Google to respond to, which wouldn’t allow for a competitive tablet to be designed, built, tested and released. As it stands, my prediction is that Google is working on a flagship tablet, that has been in the works since the release of the iPad 2.
If this is true, the tablet will be running ICS which is Android 4.0, will have a 7 inch display and would have a price aimed squarely at undercutting the 199 price point of the Kindle Fire. To be clear on this, the Digitimes, has a poor track record for rumors, take this one with a grain of salt, as with any of their claims. The rumor that Google is building a high quality self branded tablet is likely true, as it came from Eric Schmidt, currently news beyond that is pure speculation and rumor mongering.
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