(Credit: Google)
A mysterious Asus slate appeared on GLBenchmark last Friday and some folks are speculating that it could be a new, cheaper version of the Nexus 7.
With a seemingly legitimate model name--Asus ME172V--the tablet runs Android 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean) and appears to have inferior hardware compared with the Nexus 7. The benchmarks for the new device were significantly lower, too.
The 1,024 x 600-pixel screen resolution on the ME172V is also not as good as the Nexus 7's 1,280 x 800-pixel display. Although the processor was clocked at around 1GHz, there's no telling how many cores is present on the slate. It does come with a Mali-400 graphics core.
However, an important detail contradicts speculation that this tablet is a cheaper Nexus 7. The ME172V reportedly has a microSD card slot, which would rule it out as a Google Nexus device. None of Google's latest Nexus devices feature a microSD card slot, and it would be quite unlikely that any upcoming Nexus tablet will be any different.
Also, while there have been rumors that Google plans to launch a US$99 Nexus this quarter, a Digitimes report last month mentioned that this slate isn't developed with Asus. Besides, it's more than possible that Asus is developing this ME172V tablet as a low-cost alternative for markets where the Nexus 7 isn't on sale yet.
Via Slashgear
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