Google unveils Nexus tablet made by Asus and Project Glass pre-orders

The device is made by the Taiwanese company Asus rather than the firm's own Motorola hardware unit. It runs the new Jelly Bean version of Android.

An 8GB version will be sold for $199 (£127) from mid-July pitching it directly against Amazon's Kindle Fire.

The firm also showed off its internet-connected augmented reality glasses revealing the first models would ship in 2013.

The announcements were made at Google's I/O developers' conference in San Francisco.

Multi-cored

The 7-inch (17.8cm) Nexus tablet features a quad-core CPU (central processing unit) and a 12-core GPU (graphics processing unit).

Having so many cores means the machine can ramp up its processing power when dealing with complicated graphics or running several programs at once, but can use less at other times to extend battery life.

It is a similar size to Amazon's tablet and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 7.0.

But it has a significantly smaller screen than Apple's bestselling 9.7-inch (24.6cm) iPad. At 340g (12oz) it is also lighter to hold.

The machine features Google's Chrome browser as its default option - the first Android device to do so.

RelationshipsThe Google Play site said the 8GB model would sell for £159 in the UK, and the 16GB version for £199.

The news follows Microsoft's announcement last week that it plans to sell its own family of tablets called Surface which will run Windows 8.

Tudor Aw, technology sector head at KPMG Europe said it marked a shift towards Apple's business model which recognised the advantage of being involved in both hardware and software.

"Following hard on the heels of a similar announcement by Microsoft last week [this] demonstrates that gaining a strong marketshare of the tablet market will be critical to tech players if they want to maintain a strong relationship with their end customers - both consumers and business users," he said.

"Tech players recognise that given the increasing importance of tablet devices, they can no longer risk selling their software and services solely through other people's products."

But one analyst, from Forrester Research, said the Nexus 7's success was not guaranteed.

"Google's real tablet problem is the lack of compelling tablet-optimised apps and Google has yet to address how to motivate developers to fill the gap," said Frank Gillett.

"I also expect Amazon will update the Kindle Fire before October at the latest, and that will have more compelling content thanks to the retailer's Prime subscription package which includes movies, books and other content.

"I was surprised Google didn't offer a similar deal to monetise its hardware."

bbc.com