Verizon is now selling the 2013 Nexus 7 on a two-year contract for $249. If you don’t mind going on a multiple year plan for your tablet then this is a great deal well worth a mention.

The second generation Google Nexus 7 is one of my favorite tablets now because it’s 2013 edition was such good value for money. I constantly try to tell my friends to buy this tablet, when they are looking even though they are persistently trying to afford a Microsoft Surface Pro. With tablets it’s important to realize that there are many entry levels so they don’t all compete against each other. With that being said, the Nexus 7 can almost rival the top guns, and it’s only about half of the price.

What makes this deal even more intriguing is that Google is now rolling out a new firmware update called KVY49L that will make all the 2013 edition tablets compatible with Verizon’s network. Most of the big network carriers in the U.S. had this feature already, but the “Big Red” originally decided against it. They have now changed their minds after being happy that the tablets are now compliant with their network security.

Speaking of firmware, both the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 10 received updates with Android 4.4 KitKat in November so it also offers the latest Android operating system experience without being a top of the range device.

Overall the Mountain View company is disappointed with the sales of the 2013 model and rumors are now suggesting that we could be seeing the 2014 edition as soon as April this year. That means we could see a newer model of this exact device within two months, which would explain the price drops we are now seeing. Still, that doesn’t make this device any worse than what it is, and it’s often a good time to buy because many choose to stay away from buying a brand new tablet until the prices drop anyway.

The 2013 iteration of the Nexus 7 has a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels with a pixel density of 323 ppi. It has a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera. For the hardware there is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 system chip with a Quad core Krait processor. Storage is what a lot of my friends take a look at when deciding if they will be buying a tablet or not and the Nexus 7 has the bare minimum they would ever accept in 32 GB. This is often what also drives the price of a device upwards too, so always check how much built-in storage it has before investing in one yourself.