It’s been a long time, but it’s finally here. Google’s big answer to the iPad — the tablet that created an entire market — is here. And it’s bringing a better-than-retina screen, curves and serious speed.
Its name is Nexus 10, and it’s cheaper than the iPad.
Looking at the specs, it seems that the Nexus 10 can be a more than worthy big tablet contender. The screen is sharper than the iPad, running at a whooping 300 pixels per inch. It’s a tablet that has the potential to change the marketplace, just like the Nexus phone started the trend that eventually forced an iPhone design change.
The Guts
This tablet has a lot of power: a dual-core 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos processor. The whole tablet is made by Samsung. The chip includes a quad-core GPU inside, which will be make that super-dense display fly.
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The Display
The screen is a 10-inch 2560×1600 better-than-retina display. That’s extremely sharp for a tablet of this size — over four million pixels. It surpasses the iPad, which only has 264 pixels per inch. The Nexus 10 has 300 pixels per inch. It’s also better than its closest competitor, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD.
Connectivity
The device comes with microUSB and microHDMI ports, plus Wi-Fi. No news on 3G or LTE support yet.
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Support for Multiple Users
Unlike the iPad — and like Microsoft Surface — the Nexus 10 can be shared among different family members. Thanks to Android 4.2, people can easily set up different user accounts and switch between them instantly from the lock screen.
Cameras
Like the iPad 4, this one has two cameras too: a 5MP sensor on the back. On the front it gets better than Apple’s tablet: 1.9 megapixels.
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Sound
The Nexus 10 has two front-facing stereo speakers, which in theory should give you a much better listening experience that what the iPad can give you.
Battery Life
Google claims that the battery gives you nine hours of video playback. That’s not as good as Apple’s advertised battery life of up to 10 hours. But battery life is notoriously hard to pin down based on what companies say; we’ll have to wait until we try it out ourselves.
AirPlay-like video transmission technology
The Nexus 10 also supports Miracast, which allows you to transmit movies, television shows, and anything else on your screen to any television with a wireless adaptor.
You can learn more about all of Android 4.2 features here.
Physical Specs
It weighs just 604 grams, which is lighter than the iPad, which weights 652 grams.
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Price and availability
The price is perhaps the most surprising aspect: In Australia, it will cost $469 for the 16GB and $569 for the 32GB model. That’s $70 cheaper than the iPad, which is amazing when you consider how much better the specs are. It also continues the trend — which had all but disappeared these last few years — of Apple being outgunned on the price tag.
It will be available on November 11, in the Google Play Store in the US, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan.