"Nexus 7 vs Kindle Fire: The battle of the tiny tablets"

Yesterday, Google launched its very own tablet co-manufactured with Asustek: the Nexus 7, priced at $199. The tablet is being seen as a direct competitor to Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

So as far tech specifications between the two tablets go here’s a quick low down:

• Dimensions: The Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire have screens that measure 7 inches diagonally. The Nexus 7 weighs about 0.75 pound (0.34 kilogram), while Kindle Fire is slightly heavier at 0.9 pound (0.41 kilogram). In terms of weight Nexus 7 is much lighter and scores ahead of Kindle’s Fire.

• Processor: The Nexus 7 has 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core CPU, which includes a 12-core Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). This makes it the first 7 inch tablet with a quad core processor. The Kindle has OMPA 4430, dual-core processor, clocked at 1GHz thus making it much slower than Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 also has 1 GB RAM, while the Kindle Fire ships with 512MB RAM. Once again the Nexus 7 scores ahead as far as processing speeds go.

• Screen: The Nexus 7 has an IPS (in-plane switching) screen, with a resolution of 1,280×800 pixels. The Kindle Fire also has an IPS screen but it has a much lower screen resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. Nexus 7 is way ahead.

• OS: This is another crucial point where Nexus 7 just kicks the Kindle Fire where it hurts the most. Google’s tablet is shipping with the latest Android OS, Jelly Bean and thus has the the purest form of the OS because its manufactured by Google.

The Nexus 7 tablet. Reuters

Kindle Fire, runs on Android’s Gingerbread, but its a heavily edited version of Android and users don’t have access to Google’s Play on the Fire, something which Nexus 7 has. But Amazon’s Kindle Fire does come with access to a lot of Amazon content such as magazines, movies, etc. an area in which Google has some serious catching up to do.

• Camera, memory: Kindle Fire lacks a camera, a microphone, and will only ship with 8GB of memory. Nexus 7 has 1.2-megapixel front camera (no back camera included), no expandable memory and ships with 8GB memory as well. Nexus 7 has a camera and thus an advantage for users who want to do video-chat. Nexus 7 also has Near Field Communications (NFC) capabilities.

Overall the Nexus 7 does seem to have a distinct upper edge as it appear to be a cheaper, faster tablet.

According to a recent IDC report, Amazon, which stormed into the market in Q4 2011 to grab second place with 16.8% of the market on shipment of 4.8 million units, saw its share decline significantly in the first quarter of 2012 to just over 4%, falling to third place as a result. Samsung took advantage of Amazon’s weakness to regain the number two position.

IDC also predicted that

“Google will enter the market with an inexpensive, co-branded ASUS tablet designed to compete directly on price with Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The search giant’s new tablet will run a pure version of Android, whereas the Fire runs Amazon’s own forked version of the OS that cuts Google out of the picture.”

Looks like Amazon should be worried as Google’s latest offering seems to offer much more to users. And hopefully Google will launch the Nexus 7 in India soon and it won’t be over-priced.