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Word on the street has been that Asus is planning to introduce a new low cost tablet with a 7 inch display and Android Jelly Bean software. Expected to hit South Africa in early 2013 for about $226, the Asus ME172V is now up for pre-order in Russia for about the same price.

The tablet is expected to have an 800 MHz VIA WM8950 processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and Android 4.1.

Update: The tablet actually has a 1 GHz processor. You can read our full review for more details.

It’s equipped with a 4270mAh battery and features 802.11b/g/n WiFi.

The Russian product listing also includes the first pictures of the tablet, which looks a bit like an Asus Nexus 7, with the same textured plastic back panel.

There’s no guarantee this tablet is real or that the specs are set in stone — I’ve seen plenty of retailers post product pages for rumored products, only to change their listings once a real device is launched (or not).

It also seems unlikely that Asus would launch a new tablet with a lower resolution display and slower processor than the Nexus 7 and then charge more money for it. If and when the Asus ME172V goes on sale in countries where the Nexus 7 is already available, I suspect Asus would charge less than $200 for the new tablet.

via Notebook Italia