PSA: The 2013 Nexus 7 has been discontinued
It had a great run, but Google has today discontinued the 2013-edition Nexus 7. The device was arguably—and is still to this this day—one of the best options when it comes to mid-range Android tablets. You may not be able to grab …
Context & Ripple Effects
The 2013 Nexus 7 was the last of the original Nexus tablet line still on sale, and its discontinuation closes out a run that began with what 9to5Google calls one of the best mid-range Android tablets ever made. It follows closely on Google ending sales of the Nexus 5 phone just six weeks earlier, marking a coordinated clearing-out of the 2013 Nexus generation.
The retirement also foreshadows the pattern that defines Google's tablet story since: the Nexus 9 and Nexus Player were later confirmed dead, the Pixel C was pulled from the Google Store as the company's only remaining Android tablet, and by late 2024 Google had reportedly scrapped a planned second-generation Pixel Tablet over weak sales expectations.
First-order effects
- Buyers of mid-range Android tablets immediately lose what the report called one of the category's best options, with Google's own lineup left without a successor at that price point.
Second-order effects
- Hardware partners like HTC — which built the Nexus 9 flagship tablet — inherit the burden of keeping premium Android tablets alive without a Google reference device setting the template.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds through the Pixel C withdrawal and the reported Pixel Tablet sequel cancellation, Google's role in tablets shrinks from reference-hardware standard-setter to absent player, ceding the Android large-screen segment to Samsung and other OEMs.
The trend: Google's decade-long retreat from self-branded consumer hardware categories — phones first, then tablets — with each discontinued Nexus device a step in the same arc.