Did Google Tease A New Nexus 7 In The Hangouts Promo Video?
We were surprised to see no new Nexus hardware at Google I/O on Wednesday. We were expecting at least a new Nexus 7, and possible a white Nexus 4 with 32GB of storage. The closest we got was a Samsung Galaxy S4 “Nexus edition” with stock Android.
But we may not have to wait too long before Google updates its 7-inch slate. In fact, it looks like the company has already begun teasing the device in its new promotional video for Google Hangouts.
As you can see from the image above — and the video below — Google shows what appears to be a Nexus 7 tablet with a glowing notification LED at 21 seconds into the clip. But existing Nexus 7 users will know that the first generation device — the one that’s on sale now — doesn’t have a notification LED.
Many believe that this could be a second-generation device, then. We’re almost certain there’s one on the way, and it’s possible Google planned to announce it Google I/O — and so included it in the Hangouts video — but then delayed its unveiling for reasons we’re not aware of.
It’s also possible, however, that Google simply added a notification LED to the tablet in the video for effect, and that it doesn’t really point to anything at all. It certainly looks like a first-generation Nexus 7, so maybe that’s the case.
According to previous rumors, the next Nexus 7 tablet will offer a 1080p display, a quad-core Snapdragon processor, and Android 4.3 Jelly Bean — another thing Google was expected to announce at I/O and didn’t. It’s still unclear when the device might be announced.
