The second coming of Google's Nexus 7 remains an Asus manufacturing duties and the two firms apparently on a May 2013 debut in which consumers will get LTE capability as among the major upgrades to come with the 7-inch slate.

However, the upcoming refresh of the Nexus 7 is no longer powered by NVIDIA's Tegra 4i chipset, according to DigiTimes.

NVIDIA, the report said, failed to meet Google's preset release date for the Full HD 1080p small tablet, forcing Asus to look for alternatives.

Gladly filling the void is Qualcomm, offering the same quad-core chip solution with integrated LTE chip, which means the second-generation Nexus 7 will come equipped with superfast wireless Internet access.

The shift, the same report said, is a big letdown for NVIDIA, which supplied the core powerhouse that ran the show when the first Nexus 5 was pushed out by Google in 2012.

The chipmaker stands to lose "almost eight million processor shipments in 2013," DigiTimes said, citing its sources.

But the company's loss is consumers' gain, especially the Android crowd, who will get the bumped up Nexus 7 by mid-2013, following the tablet's expected preview via the I/O Developers Conference that Google will stage on May.

By the time it becomes available, Nexus 7 is expected to tussle it out in the growing small tablet class, in which the biggest players to date are Apple through its iPad Mini and the iPad Mini and Samsung via the Galaxy Note 8.0 that is scheduled for release on Q2 2013.

The Google tablet will also encounter serious challenges from entry-level kinds like Amazon's Kindle Fire, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 and the recent issues coming from Acer and HP.

However, Nexus 7 will hit the road carrying over the advantages gained by its predecessor. Experts called the first edition the best Android tablet in its class while consumers scooped up the slate in big numbers, sold by its cheap price tag but the with premium specs.

It is expected that the next Nexus 7 will sustain or even exceed the showing of its older brother.