Even after rumors of the Nexus program being replaced by project silver in 2015, this has not stopped other rumors of HTC being the next OEM to make a Nexus tablet for 2014. Google’s Nexus brand is associated with high quality and affordability and HTC seems to be the right partner for this. For the past two consecutive years Google has teamed up with ASUS on a 7-inch tablet, now DigiTimes reports that the software giant is now reportedly working with HTC on an 8-inch version slated to launch in the third quarter of this year. The reasons for Google’s switch to HTC is because it wants to push a new design, and ASUS is more interested in selling tablets and phones under its own brand instead.
HTC as a company is not new to the Nexus program as it was the first OEM to make a Nexus phone known as the Nexus One but this will be HTC’s first shot at designing a device for the series in tablet form at 8 inches. It’s also an interesting move by the Taiwanese company, which has recently expressed interest in penetrating more segments of the market in the hopes of getting its products in more hands. DigiTimes further explains that Google may not be as aggressive in selling the Nexus 8 as it was with previous tablets; apparently the earlier versions did well enough to encourage Android’s penetration into the tablet market, and Nexus slates simply don’t have as significant an influence as they once had.
Will Google announce this rumored device at I/O which takes place the last week of the second quarter? We wait and see.
SOURCE
