While it’s far from official at this point, the Rumor Mill won’t give up on the idea that HTC has been chosen to bring to market the next Nexus-branded tablet. Of course, it’s not like it hasn’t had help or anything. On August 23, for instance, the ‘Flounder’ tablet made its way through Wi-Fi Certification, which ties to initial reports dating back from June when the first real details started to surface. Now, thanks to a new report, it looks like one of the device’s accessories has just been leaked ahead of an official announcement. As it stands right now, the expectation is for the HTC-branded Nexus tablet to make its debut later this year, probably around the end of October. If you were curious what type of accessories might find their way to market at some point around that time (or, at all, knowing the track record for Nexus accessories that are meant to arrive in the Google Play Store), a new report from Android Police has some details.
The report cites information provided to the site from unnamed sources, and states that HTC and Google will have quite a few different official accessories for the tablet known as the “Flounder” or “Volantis” right now. The first of which will apparently be a keyboard case. With it, the HTC tablet’s case will work in the same way that Apple’s Smart Cover works for their own tablet, with the segmented sections folding in specific ways to form a prop for the tablet. The magnets within the case will also make it possible to put the device to sleep, or wake it up, just by closing or opening it. What may really make it stand out, though, is an integrated battery that’s supposedly measured in at 450mAh. The charging port will reportedly be within the hinge, while an indicator light will be on the other side of the hinge that will give you the ability to quickly see what status the battery level is at/charging level. The case itself will reportedly connect to the tablet using Bluetooth 4.0, and the initial pairing will apparently be initiated by an NFC chip. The size of the keyboard will be 228 x 320 x 5 mm, and it will also boast a full QWERTY keyboard, along with Android-based “function” keys. There’s no word on a release date quite yet, or how much it will cost. Do you think you’d pick it up, depending on price?
