[GOOGLE I/O] Hands-On with the Nexus 7 Tablet

Hugo Barra, Director of Google Product Management holds up the new Google Nexus 7 / AP Photo

Google's I/O conference is in full swing today through Friday at the Moscone Center in San Fran. One of the marvelous new toys they brought for show-goers: the Nexus 7 Android tablet.

Gizmodo copped a few feels on the show floor and has made a weighty judgment call:

"There is zero reason to buy a Kindle Fire over this... Your move, Amazon."

The Nexus 7 has been designed from the ground up to take advantage of Google's burgeoning cloud-based content service, Google Play. The Play client boots at the Nexus 7's startup, which is slick and lightning-fast, according to Gizmodo.

The screen is bright and vivid at first glance. Then you start scrolling around the operating system and it's perfectly smooth. Google used the word "butter," and so far, that looks pretty apt.

It's the first 7-inch tablet to sport a bleeding-edge quad-core CPU and with Google Play and a super-competitive $199 price point, the Nexus 7 seems poised to "fire" on the Kindle Fire (hurr hurr).

Here's some confirmed specs and features from Gizmodo's brief rendezvous and ZDNet:

• Size | 7 inches
• Display | 1200 x 800 HD; 216 pixels-per-inch; "scratch-resistant Corning glass"
• OS | Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean"
• Processor | Quad-core Tegra 3
• RAM | 1GB
• Storage | 8GB for $199 model; 16GB for $249 model
• Battery | 4,325mAh (up to 8 hours of active use)
• Connectivity | Bluetooth, micro-USB port, Near-field communication
• Camera | 1.2MP front-facing lens (no rear camera)
• Other Features | Power button (duh), volume up/down rocker, rubberized backplate, headphone jack (duh)

SOURCE: Gizmodo | ZDNet

Super excited? I know I am. But we should be careful with getting too gushy about it. 

All this talk about the Nexus 7 might make Roy Batty feel kind of--wait... uh-oh... I think Roy just heard us talking about the Nexus 7... Yeah, he looks bummed.

Poor Roy.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... a quad-core in a 7-inch tablet... I saw a pixel density almost as high as the iPad3's... all those high-end specs will be lost in time... like keynotes at tech conferences..."