HTC-made Google Nexus 8 tablet tipped to launch in Q3

Google in keeping with its tight-lipped ways is yet reveal its plan for the next Nexus tablet, however a new report suggests that the company might launch the tablet by the third-quarter of this year.

The report emerging from Taiwan also cites sources from the upstream supply chain to claim that the Mountain View giant has teamed-up with HTC instead of Asus for its next Nexus tablet, believed to be called the Nexus 8.

Asus has been the official manufacturer of Nexus 7 tablets, the Nexus 7 (2012) and Nexus 7 (2013), for two years in a row. Neither Google nor Asus has hinted at whether the Taiwanese giant will one more manufacture the next Nexus tablet.

One of the sources told Digitimes, "Google partnered with Asustek for the first two generations of Nexus 7, but for the next-generation model, the Internet giant is considering adopting a new design and therefore has switched to a new partner."

Further, the report suggests that prior to Asus, Google contacted HTC for the Nexus tablet line-up; though the search giant at the time was refused as HTC was busy promoting its smartphones business at that time.

In addition, the sources claim that Google is not very aggressive in the development of the third-generation Nexus tablets, as the company's purpose of pushing its Android ecosystem in the tablet segment has already been served by the first three tablets.

Earlier, a report suggested that Nexus 8 could feature a 'high performance' 8.9-inch display citing the competition from Amazon's Kindle range and Apple's iPad Mini.

Reports had also pointed that Google's next Nexus tablet could be introduced with Android's newer version and KitKat's successor, expected to be version 4.5.

A report on Monday revealed that Google might launch a new Nexus smartphone powered by a MediaTek chipset as a low to mid-range smartphone, priced as low as $100 (roughly Rs. 6,000).