Google is betting consumers will pay slightly more for a sleeker, more powerful version of its Nexus 7 tablet as the Internet company escalates its rivalry with Apple and Amazon.com in technology’s key battleground — the mobile computing market.
The fancier devices unveiled Wednesday in San Francisco will go on sale in the US next Tuesday in Google’s online store and numerous retailers with brick-and-mortar stores.
Among other things, the souped-up line of Nexus tablets will boast a higher-definition 7-inch (17.5-centimeter) display screen and a processor that promises to be nearly as twice as fast. Dual stereo speakers have been added for richer sound, and the device’s battery duration has been extended to 10 hours for Web browsing, an increase of about an hour.
On other fronts, Google also unveiled a gadget that will lean on its widely used Chrome Web browser and take aim at Apple on another front — the living room.
The new device, called Chromecast, is part of the company’s attempt to make it easier for people to access Internet content on their TVs. Chromecast is a small stick roughly the same size as a thumb drive that can be plugged into an HDMI port on flat-panel TVs. It brings Netflix, Google’s YouTube site and other Internet content to what is usually the biggest screen in households.
Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said Chromecast could undermine Apple in the still-nascent market to plug streaming devices into TVs, just as the Nexus tablets have siphoned some sales away from Apple’s iPad.