Google Budget Nexus – Coming Soon?

According to Chinese website MTK, Google has plans to introduce a lower-cost Nexus smartphone that could cost US$100. This would be a similar processor used in Xiaomi and has Hugo Barra done enough for Google to deem XiaoMi as a potential competitor?

To achieve this, Google is said to utilize MediaTek processors which are generally cheaper than its Qualcomm Snapdragon and NVIDIA Tegra counterparts.

If this is true, this should effectively push down the cost of budget phones like the Moto G and also see increased offerings from LG, Samsung, Sony and the likes who would likely adopt the low cost processor for their budget phones too.

The second key point would also be finally increased support for MediaTek processors which generally had stagnated at 4.2 support due to lack of driver and kernel. It would indirectly benefit Xiaomi users who could possibly upgrade their OS to 4.4 KitKat which would benefit low tier phones more thanks to less resource consumption. One possibility would be for Google to use the MediaTek latest, MT6595, a 4G LTE octa-core smartphone chipset, the first 4G MediaTek chip. And if they can price it at US$100, it would be a significant attack against the other budget phone manufacturers.

If it materialises, the phone would also not be in Singapore any time soon, and based on our past experiences in buying Nexus, the easiest way is through a concierge service. Do note LTE bands would be limited and we may have to go for UK or Japan sets instead. Although Starhub users probably wouldn’t need the 4G support.