Is Google testing the Nexus 8 in India?
Will we or won’t we see the Nexus 8? That’s the question that has been on our minds for what seems like an eternity as we await any sort of official word on the rumored followup to Google’s popular Nexus 7 slate. The general consensus is that the tablet does indeed exist; could we be closer than ever to its big reveal? According to import/export records, prototype units have already arrived in India for testing.
If the database entry we are looking at has any truth to it, two separate shipments of two Nexus 8 tablets each have arrived in the country over the past two weeks. The latest entry dated July 4th simply reads “NEXUS8 PROTOTYPE TABLET” while an earlier entry for June 30th went a bit farther. Its description reads “NEXUS8 PROTOTYPE TABLET SIMILAR TO NEXUS(7).” Not the most revealing description, but a Nexus 7-esque slate was about what we expected.
The only other revelation coming from this find is potential pricing information. While the value per unit varies slightly between the two shipments, both are listed in the range of 16,500 INR. The number shakes out to about $275 when converted to US currency. A pricing of $250-275 makes sense for a Nexus tablet featuring a slightly larger screen and beefed up specs over the last iteration, especially if we are looking at a variant with cellular radios onboard (info we can’t decipher from this listing).
What we can’t gather from the entries is any info on the Nexus 8’s potential hardware array. We can’t glean the manufacturer of origin. We definitely can’t decipher a release date. The presence of multiple instances of a Nexus 8 in the database lend some credence to the possibility that the entries aren’t simply being spoofed, but without much more to go on we’d say take this little bit of info for what it is. Will we see the Nexus 8 by the end of the summer? Or will Google hold the tablet back to coincide with the official rollout of Android L? You guess is as good as ours.