Short of three weeks and its Christmas 2013 but the Nexus 10 2 remains out of sight, leading some to speculate that release date of the supposed iPad Air rival is not happening this year's holiday season.

A blog post from Las Vegas Guardian Express predicted that Google is unlikely to issue the second build of its 10.1-inch vanilla Android slate.

"With Christmas just around the corner, it is unlikely that (the tablet) will be released beforehand. It is more likely that the Google Nexus 10 2 tablet's release will be pushed to 2014, if it even happens," said the same report.

It is just too late for Google to reap benefits on a late or mid-December rollout for the second Nexus 10 edition, added the report and the argument makes sense. By this time of the year, gadget shoppers have already decided what toys they'd be bringing home. In fact, as early as Black Friday or Cyber Monday, buying decisions have been finalised, which should be true for most of tablet shoppers.

One glaring indicator of this is the iPad Air romping its way to record sales figures in the past week and if only the Retina-laced iPad Mini was readily available in the same period, the iOS tablet juggernaut would have been felt much stronger.

What would be left for the Nexus 10 2 are crumbs, which leads to the next projections that likely the first Nexus 10 will be the last of the big-screen tablet coming from Google. Truth of the matter, the tab wasn't exactly a commercial success that the tech giant can be really proud of so why go for the next instalment with no assurance of decent return?

There were talks that the 10.1-inch tablet will be retired and the move will allow Google to focus on figuring out a more effective way to combat the iPad Mini onslaught. Earlier reports point to the possible creation of a more compact slate but is slightly bigger than the Nexus 7.

As some analysts assert, the new sweet spot for tablet size is the 8-inch profile, which should give more reasons for Google to go ahead and build the Nexus 8. The device should provide more muscles for the Nexus tablet lines to slug it out with the iPad Mini, now available in two versions.

Another development that seems to support the notion that Nexus 10 is on its way out is the manner Google is deploying the latest Android KitKat 4.4.1 update. According to Gotta Be Mobile, the patch became official for most of the Nexus devices on Dec 5.

Take note of 'most of the Nexus devices', which should mean that Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 2012, Nexus 7 2 and first Nexus 10 owners will get the Android fix. But no, the 2012 build of the Nexus 10 was not explicitly listed.

It is not clear if the omission was deliberate or not but it fuel speculations that the Nexus 10 will soon end its life cycle and there will be no attempt of refresh from Google.

Now true or not, Android fans have reasons to still hope of getting their hands on the Nexus 10 2, which is rumoured to flash equal amounts of brawn and beauty with the following specs and features:

- 10.1 inch with 2560 x 1600 Full HD display and 299ppi

- NVIDIA Tegra 4 quad-core or Qualcomm Snapdragon 800

- Up to 32 GB Storage

- 2GB or 3GB of RAM

- Camera mix of 8MP rear and 2.1MP front

- Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and microUSB

- A massive 9500mAh

The Nexus 10 2 release date, in the event it becomes a reality, should be within the first three months of 2014. Of course, a Nexus 8 coming out in its stead should not be discounted, likely bearing pretty much of the same specs detailed above but with a smaller footprint.