HTC hasn’t developed a tablet in three years, so a partnership between Google and HTC to do just that seems a little odd. But the WSJ is reporting today that Google has selected HTC to make its upcoming 9-inch Nexus tablet, according to people familiar with the deal.
In 2011, disappointing sales of the “Flyer” led HTC executives to swear off tablets until they found a good reason re-enter the market. With the contract from Google, it looks like the Taiwanese handset maker has found its reasons.
Not much is known about the arrangement, but HTC has had a long-standing relationship with the Android-maker, reaching back to the very first Nexus smartphone, which came out in 2010.
Even though HTC hasn’t made a device for the Google-specific line-up since, it doesn’t rule out the likelihood of Google working with the company again since it tends to rotate who it is working with on a regular basis. For instance, Asus made the Nexus 7, a low-end handheld tablet, while Samsung made the larger and more expensive Nexus 10.
HTC is known for building beautiful and sleek hardware, but also for preloading a lot of its homegrown software and applications on to devices. Inherently, a Nexus device is the purest form of Android, and most likely would not include any of HTC’s own software.
