Second-gen Nexus 10 tablet will come 'in the near future'

The Nexus 7 may have received its second-generation update yesterday, but noticeably absent was a new version of Google’s larger tablet, the Nexus 10. If you feel the Nexus 7 isn’t big enough and you need some more screen real estate, fear not — a new Nexus 10 is on the way.

The new tablet wasn’t mentioned during Google’s Wednesday morning presentation, nor is it in any written statement. Instead, the news came straight from Android and Chrome chief Sundar Pichai after being asked by Wall Street Journal reporter Amir Efrati. According to a tweet from Efrati, he was told by Pichai that we could expect to see an updated Nexus 10 tablet “in the near future.”

The Nexus 10 that’s currently on sale is built by Samsung, and Pichai reportedly told Efrati that the next version of the 10-inch device would come from Samsung, as well. Google also chose to stick with Asus for the Nexus 7’s follow-up, so it appears that the company isn’t interested in fixing what isn’t broken.

With Nexus smartphones, the company typically uses a different hardware partner for each new device, but the company isn’t following that pattern with its Nexus tablets — at least, not for now.

It’ll be interesting to see how the next-generation Nexus 10 compares to the last-gen model as well as Samsung’s current crop of Galaxy tablets. The recently released Galaxy Tabs — at 7, 8 and 10.1 inches — were somewhat disappointing, pairing unimpressive specs with premium prices. In fact, the newer tablets don’t even compete very well with the Nexus 10 tablet that Samsung built for Google in 2012.

If Samsung builds another Nexus 10 that is miles ahead of its own tablet offerings, it could wind up helping Google at the expense of its own Galaxy Tab sales. Not that Samsung wouldn’t make money in the deal, but if the company indeed plans to transition to Tizen someday, stifling its own brand by building Nexus devices doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But who knows — maybe that transition is still years off, and device sales, whether to Google or retail partners, are sales all the same.

What are your thoughts on a next-generation Nexus 10 tablet? Drop us a line below.