Half a year after Google started selling the Nexus 7 tablet, an official dock is about to hit the streets. B&H started taking pre-orders last month, and now The Verge reports the tablet should ship by the end of January.
The $40 dock is made by Asus, the same company that manufactures the Nexus 7 for Google. Aside from standing the tablet up in landscape mode so you can watch videos, look at the clock app, or do whatever else it is you do with a horizontally propped-up tablet, there’s a built-in audio jack so you can connect some external speakers and turn it up to 11… or at least 10.
You can also pug in a power cable and use the dock as a charging station for your tablet.
And that’s about it for the special features. So basically Asus is charging $40 for a stand (you don’t need a dock to charge your tablet or plug in speakers).
This is really disappointing, considering Google intended the Nexus 7 to set a new standard in low cost tablets. Looks a lot like Microsoft’s Surface efforts, except at the low end of things.