Ugh
I hate that phrase "holiday season" despite being non-religious. Must we bear this contrived description for what most in the west refer to as Christmas?
Google has dumped Samsung as the maker of its Nexus 10 fondleslabs and switched to Taiwanese manufacturer Asus, reports Geek.com. The report cited "multiple sources" as claiming the Nexus 10 refresh would be available on the Google Play Store in time for the holiday season. A screen capture of a retailer's leaked stock lookup …
Does it matter who builds the devices when Google set out to make them the 'reference' devices in the particular category? As I understand it, whether it is a Sammy or an Asus or whomever, the accessories for those other devices won't usually work with the Google branded product (standardised microusb and headphone socket excluded). Id love a Google version of the ASUS Transformer, but I can't see it happening.
A Google version of Transformer from Asus themselves is unlikely. The custom ROM's over at XDA are about as close as you are going to get. I'm using a custom Jellybean ROM on a TF101 and to be honest it whistles along far better than Asus's own ICS ROM which was a bit of a laggy buggy clusterfuck. I've always found the custom ROM's far superior to Asus's own.
Nexus 7, made by Asus. Great device, sells in great numbers (for an android tablet)
Nexus 10, made by Samsung. Uninspiring device, doesn't sell.
Google is doing exactly what anyone would do in the situation. Tell Sammy to take a hike, and hire Asus to do it right.
Note that I suspect Samsung didn't really try (or maybe even tried to sabotage it), since they didn't want to cannibalize their own product line...