The Google Nexus 7 manufactured by Asus remains a hugely popular device since it was first released back in the summer. The recent addition of more storage and 3G connectivity has caused interest in the device to grow even further. Now though a cheaper alternative to the Nexus 7 has possibly been spotted in some benchmark results.

There has long been rumours that Google was going to provide Android users a sub $100 Nexus tablet PC, but in the recent unveiling of new Nexus products nothing emerged. Now though some benchmark results from GLbench are showing an Asus tablet with the model number of ME172V.

The device has a lower spec processor than the Nexus 7 along with lower screen resolution but was running the Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean software in the tests. The Nexus 7 is powered by the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core processor, but this device was using 1GHz chip with an unknown number of cores along with a Mali 400 graphics chip.

GLbench has the screen resolution down as 1024 x 552 but this is more likely to be 1024 x 600, and is lower than the 1280 x 800 that is found on the Nexus 7. While there is nothing in the benchmark results to actually suggest this is another Nexus tablet, it was running a version of Android without any added features or bloatware by the company.

The device could be offered in selected regions away from the US and Europe such as the emerging market at a sub $100 asking price, but there has been numerous rumours suggesting that Asus and Google were working on a budget Nexus slate.

Asus has previously denied these though but maybe the company wanted to get the interest in the latest versions of the Nexus 7 rising before making available a cheaper alternative. You would have thought though the company would have wanted any such device available to consumers in the busy holiday shopping season.

Do you think we will see an even cheaper Nexus tablet?