The Nexus 6, Google’s successor to the current Nexus 5 flagship smartphone, will be made my Lenovo.
The Chinese PC maker, which is about to take over Motorola Mobility, has to give $3 billion as payment to Google which then gets a 6% interest in Lenovo.
“That acquisition was mostly about Motorola’s vast intellectual property portfolio rather than its hardware businesses, the latter of which Google has successfully rid itself of," said Apple Insider.
“Google sold Motorola’s set-top box business soon after the original acquisition, and the Lenovo deal leaves Mountain View, Calif.-based Google with the lion’s share of Motorola’s patents as well as its secretive Advanced Research and Projects division."
With the upcoming Google takeover of Lenovo, the move fuels speculations that the Nexus 6 will be made under the Lenovo-Motorola branding.
The move makes perfect business sense for Google, analysts have said, because of Lenovo’s power in China. The Nexus 6, under Lenovo manufacturing, will be available to a new, wider market in the east and will potentially reach millions of new buyers.
In terms of the Nexus 8, an 8-inch successor to Google’s Nexus 7 tablet, Taiwanese publication DigiTimes reported recently that Asus will continue manufacturing the device.
It’s due to ship late April, where it will battle head-to-head with Apple’s iPad Mini range.
The long-awaited Nexus 10 2 is also finally thought to be on the cards for 2014, but HTC is said to be taking over manufacturing, grasping the tablet out of Samsung’s hands.
CNET reported that HTC will release the second generation 10-inch Google tablet in the third quarter of 2014.
So there we have it, Google’s Nexus range for 2014 all lined up and ready to go. The Nexus 8 should arrive in April, with the Nexus 6 and Nexus 10 2 coming a few months after between June and September.
