Google has unveiled the Nexus 7, its first own-brand Android tablet made by the Taiwanese company Asus.

Google tablet will be sold for $199 from mid-July pitching it directly against Amazon’s Kindle Fire. It is set to be released in mid-July.

The 7-inch device has a smaller screen than Apple’s bestselling iPad and is 340g meaning it is also lighter to hold.

It also features Google’s Chrome browser at its default option – the first Android device to do so.

Google has unveiled the Nexus 7, its first own-brand Android tablet made by Asus

The machine features a quad-core CPU (central processing unit) and a 12-core GPU (graphics processing unit).

Having so many cores means the machine can ramp up its processing power when dealing with complicated graphics or running several programs at once, but can use less at other times to extend battery life.

The first countries to get the device are the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

While the tablet had been widely rumored before the firms I/O developers conference in San Francisco, the unveiling of another product – the Nexus Q – proved a surprise.

The device is a small Android-powered computer without its own screen. Rather than be used as a standalone unit it is meant to be plugged into a stereo and television system.

It can stream music and videos from other devices allowing both its owner and others to play media files.

Google described it as the “world’s first ever social streaming device”.