Column: Google floods the market with hardware and Apple floods it with speculation

In what was likely an accident, Best Buy revealed the specs and images of the new Nexus 7 tablet early Wednesday morning, only hours before Google's own announcement about the device.

The tablet was made available for pre-order but was later not available for purchase and instead labeled "Coming Soon."

By then, tech sites all over the Web were saturated with details about the new tablet: It would have a 7-inch screen with the capacity for input from 10 fingers at a time and a crystal clear resolution of 1,920 by 1,200 pixels; a 5-megapixel camera; a long-lasting (9-hour) battery; an incredibly thin 8.65 mm body, and a starting price of $229 for the 16 GB model.

That's $30 more than the price of the last Nexus tablet, but still a whole $100 less than Apple's comparable iPad Mini.

In fact, the new Nexus 7 will have a higher screen resolution and weigh less than the iPad Mini.