It doesn't quite have the minimalist aesthetic of a Jonny Ive-designed Apple i-device, but Google's new Nexus 7 tablet has the feeling of something that is going to take-off.

While it's not going to dethrone the iPad, I think we may have witnessed the birth of a creditable challenger.

That's partly the aesthetics (it looks and feels good in the hand) and partly the inside (processor, battery life and the software).

While the Android 4.1 operating system (Jelly Bean) update is not revolutionary, there are a number of significant improvements. The transitions are more elegant and other features such as voice recognition and notifications have been overhauled.

Eight to nine hours battery life is great and it will find its way more easily into coat pockets, purses and brief cases - the only iffy part here being that it is not SIM-enabled. So you will either need WiFi or be bothered to tether it to your phone.

The biggest plus, however, is the price. At $250 for the 8GB model and $300 for the 16GB version, this is much cheaper than the base model 16GB iPad.

(Why Google insisted on charging those down under $50 more, I don't know. But that small differential could have an impact. As a Gartner analyst told me today "$200 is the new $100" - and people don't think twice about spending that. Once you go over $200, however, it has a psychological impact on buying decisions.)

Also, it's good timing to come on to the market halfway through the lifecycle of the current iPad model - especially when it comes to the end of the year buying season.

But as 7-inch tablets go, it's a big improvement on the chunky and under-powered Kindle Fire and feels much more comfortable in the hand than the slippery 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Because Google has worked closely with Asus to develop this model, the hardware, software and the content offerings seem to be much more in harmony.

A week after Microsoft trotted out is prototype tablet-laptop hybrid, Google seems to have come to the conclusion that the Apple way of integrating everything is the way forward.

The Nexus faces a big hurdle, however. It hasn't got the street level distribution that Apple enjoys and its music, book, video and app offerings are still catching up.

Apple has over 650,000 apps in total, 225,000 of which are native to the iPad. Google by comparison has 600,000 apps, only a fraction of which are customised for tablets.

Add in the media-streaming Nexus Q orb to the mix, the other major piece of hardware that Google rolled out today, and it's clear that Google is trying to build an ecosystem a la Apple.

One caveat: anything in an ecosystem has limitations. It may be Google and not Apple, but this is still built around using Google products to play content bought through the Google store.

There is no interchangeability. If you buy on Apple, it stays on Apple and vice-versa. So it will take a lot for people who have invested in content to switch.

The rise of Android in the smartphone market, where worldwide it has since overtaken the iPhone, must give Google hope however that it can do the same in the tablet sector. One day.

-Sydney Morning Herald

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