As expected ASUS has made its Nexus 7 tablet available in India. The tablet will be available in India from today. It was first launched in the US a few months ago with the new Android 4.1 (Jellybean) version. The Nexus 7 is being sold in the US for $199. In India, it will be sold almost at double the price at Rs. 19,999/- (US $ 369/-).
The tablet is not the latest Nexus 7 32-GB version, announced by Google a couple of weeks ago. This tablet is Wi-Fi only and runs on Android 4.1.
Though I do believe that upgrading to 4.2 should be easy, considering the device will be running a stock Android version and the manufacturer is not responsible for upgrades.
Currently I could not see as a listed item on any Indian retail website except on Chroma website. Chroma mainly being a physical store, it is safe to expect these tablets showing up across stores in India. The timing is almost perfect as the festival season of Diwali happens next week. So expect a lot of Nexus 7 tablets to be sold over the weekend.
Why is the Nexus 7 over-priced in India?
Nexus 7 has been rumored to be a highly subsidised device by Google. The idea was whatever profits Google makes on Nexus 7, it would do so by selling content and apps on Google Play.
Indians might not actually end up buying content and apps from Google Play. They would definitely spend a lot less per device on apps than some on the U.S or U.K.
So that is probably the single biggest reason for Google not to subsidise the tablet and hence ASUS is pricing it on the higher side.
Hopefully LG which is also expected to sell Nexus 4 in India soon, does not take a cue from ASUS and overprice it.
Will you be buying a Nexus 7 Tablet in India, priced at Rs. 19,999 ? Do drop in your comments.
8 Comments
I’ll probably buy Galaxy Tab 2, atleast it has 3G, plus Samsung is a lot better brand than Asus.
Its definitely overpriced with out SIM option when compared to samsung galaxy tab2 which is of same price.
Exactly, bro.
No stocks in any of Chroma’s store or distributors in Karnataka.
Is this a soft launch?
No marketing efforts by goggle or Asus, no availability.
Why did take ASUS/Google 6 months for just press-release?
Because they are total nuts. I evn don’t get it when they have own hardware company thats Motorola, which is losing billions of dollars day by day why partnershipping with other companies? If Nexus name matters so much to them simply rename motorola to nexus.
@Ankit: Firstly Nexus is very different form Motorola plans. Nexus offered through Google Play is subsidized, so its pricing in India and other countries where its not available through Google Play, is something that is totally upto ASUS.
I agree, and I guess the same was the reason Galaxy Nexus was not released in India as Samsung didnt want to. My question is why doing this Nexus thing when they can simply use Motorola and completely control both software and hardware.
This would not just save Motorola, but also help them control software updates, service updates which a lot of Android folks complain about and this is one of the reason why Apple fan boys love Apple.
I’ve recently purchased tab 2 and I am loving it.