Google plans to sell co-branded Android tablets directly to consumers through its own online store, the Wall Street Journal reports. This move comes in an effort to kickstart Android tablet sales, which are still nowhere near the iPad sales levels.

There’s no word on the price, but Google might subsidize the price of the tablet(s), making them more attractive to consumers and closer to the $199 price of Android-based Amazon Kindle Fire and B&N’s Nook Tablet. Google already tried this approach with smartphones, having sold its Google Nexus phone through its own online store, but it gave up on it after disappointing sales.


The tablets will be manufactured by Asus and Samsung, WSJ claims, but a Google branded tablet is a possibility, too.This fact alone makes it unlikely that Google would try the same approach again, but recent rumors that Google is working on a cheap tablet of its own give some credibility to the story.