New Google Nexus 7 Tablet Launches Early at Amazon

If you’re tired of waiting for the new Google Nexus 7 tablet to hit retail, Amazon shoppers will be thrilled to know the Nexus 7 tablet launch has happened four days early at the online retailer. Yes, that means “today.” Right now. Immediately. The Nexus 7 Tablet at Amazon is available as of press time. Getting it fast and free via Amazon Prime has never looked better, presuming you order now before they’re gone.

Google’s shiny new slate is in stock, available for $229 for the 16GB model, and ready to send out via free two-day shipping for all Amazon Prime members. Several reports indicate that Best Buy, GameStop and Walmart have also succumbed to the Nexus 7 early launch. In fact, GameStop is even allowing customers to trade-in certain items such as consoles, video games, tablets and smartphones to generate in-store credit that can be put toward the purchase of a new Nexus 7.

Google first unveiled its new Nexus 7 tablet on Wednesday during its Keynote presentation. At the time, Google showed off some Nexus 7 games highlighted by Gameloft’s Asphalt 8: Airborne, which was optimized for the new tablet. According to Gameloft, the game’s optimizations were “primarily adding graphic and image quality enhancements with OpenGL ES 3.0,” although the title also marks Gameloft’s first title with Google+ and Google Play game services enabled at launch.

During its Keynote presentation, Google said the Nexus 7 would make its Google Play store debut July 30 for the 16GB and 32GB Wi-Fi models. Obviously, having the Nexus 7 Tablet at Amazon today for an early launch beats that date by several days. The new Nexus 7 has the same 7-inch screen as its predecessor, but its resolution has been improved to 1920×1200 and its pixels per inch ratio has gone up to 323. Google says both of those figures are the highest resolution for a 7-inch tablet.