Refreshed Nexus 7 tablet up for sale on Google Play in the US

Google’s newly-unveiled Nexus 7 tablet is already up for grabs on the Play store – albeit in the US only – confirms a TNW report. What comes as an even bigger surprise is that the tablet was originally scheduled for a July 30 launch in the US, but Google had to change its plans fast after Best Buy began taking in pre-orders for the tablet (before Google announced that it was releasing it).  According to the report, US-based retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, Gamestop and Walmart have started selling Nexus 7 stock units ahead of schedule. However, some others like B&H, RadioShack, OfficeMax and Staples are not selling the tablet yet, and will seemingly start doing so starting July 30. Available in the US! The tablet is about 2 mm thinner and 50 g lighter than the older Nexus 7. In a major improvement over the last-gen model, the display on the sleeker tablet will have a 1920 x 1200 resolution with a pixel density of 323 ppi. The 7-point touch IPS panel is supposed to be not just scratch-resistant, but also fingerprint smudge resistant. Yesterday, Google made it official that the refreshed Nexus 7 tablet will be making its way to India. On the company’s Nexus 7 website, the refreshed tablet is listed as “Coming Soon” to the country. Other than this news, the page is pretty lacking in details. It does, however, give users the option of signing up to a newsletter that would notify them of updates. The Nexus 7 also has new internals, with the tablet being powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC, which has four Krait cores clocked at 1.5GHz along with Adreno 320 GPU and a healthy 2GB of RAM. In a significant bump from the previous version, the newer Nexus 7 will have dual stereo speakers with 5.1 audio. Nexus 7 has a modest 5MP rear camera and a 1.2MP front-facing one. The tablet will also sport Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and dual-band Wi-Fi capabilities. The tablet has a 3950 mAh battery that will last you for a good nine hours of active use and can be charged wirelessly. The refreshed Nexus 7 will come in 16GB and 32GB Wi-Fi variants with an additional LTE version also available. The 16GB WiFi Nexus 7 will be priced at $229 (approx Rs 13,500), the 32GB variant will set you back $269 (approx Rs 16,000) and the 32GB LTE Nexus 7 is priced at a slightly steep $349 (approx Rs 20,500).