Google's Officially Done Making Its Own Tablets (computerworld.com) 105
Google's decided to step away from its self-made tablets and focus instead on the laptop form. From a report: To be clear, Google hadn't actually announced any tablet-specific products this year; the last such item that made its way to the market was the Pixel Slate in 2018. But, as I learned today, the company did have two smaller-sized tablets under development -- and earlier this week, it decided to drop all work on those devices and make its roadmap revolve entirely around laptops instead. A couple of clarifying points here: First, none of this has any impact on Pixel phones. Pixel phones and Pixel computers are two different departments, and the roadmap in question is related exclusively to the latter. And second, when Google talks about a "tablet," it means a device that detaches completely from a keyboard base or doesn't even have a physical keyboard in the first place -- not a swiveling two-in-one convertible like the Pixelbook. The Pixelbook, with its attached keyboard and 360-degree hinge, falls under Google's definition of "laptop." Blurred lines, baby. A Google spokesperson directly confirmed all of these details to me.
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Precisely. I have an Android tablet from Verizon Ellipsis, which I use for most of my online work, since Windows has devolved the way it has. But I am nervous about how all that data could be used against me in future. The bulk of my transactions, I do from this FreeBSD laptop on Firefox, but the bill payments I do on that tablet through the company's apps (Citi, Discover, Amex, et al)
Google seems to be finding out what Apple did - not much of a market for tablets, other than certain specific uses (lik
I love my tablet (Score:1)
I use my tablets all the time. They use far less power than my laptop so I can watch videos for hours without being tethered to a power cord. It's also really good for practicing the piano, surfing the Internet, and reading books. It's a lot easier to show pictures to people and it is a lot easier to use than trying to hit tiny buttons on a tiny phone screen. It's nearly as portable as a smartphone (I can manage to fit my 7" tablet in some of my pants pockets) and definitely far more portable than my lapto
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If you have a rootable tablet you can install a proper userland, and maybe Eclipse will work there.
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Yeah, that's the other thing I wish my tablets had. Fully upgradable OS. I rooted one of my tablets, but have shied away from doing that ever since. There is just something very sketchy and wrong about using a closed source rootkit from some unknown Chinese software group (kingroot) to essentially pown my own device.
Now that Google is getting out of the tablet game, maybe Raspberry Pi tablets will become a thing. I love how Raspberry Pi runs real Linux proper with real apt-get updates instead of this Androi
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Nice FUD attempt. With the huge numbers of Raspberry Pi's that have been sold, making it the 3rd best-selling computer ever, your delusions fall flat on their face.
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Uhh, I certainly do. Raspberry Pi is about the only thing out there right now that is immune to spectre and meltdown [raspberrypi.org], so it's a lot safer to be browsing the web on my Pi than on my laptop. It's low power consumption means I can leave the thing on all day and not have to worry about driving up my electric bill through the roof. I don't even run my A/C during the day as long as I'm careful not to turn on heat emitting devices during the day. I live in Arizona, heat is a huge problem here if you're not careful
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Check out the Pinetab from pine64. It's Allwinner and underpowered but at least it'll ship with a mainline kernel and an obsolete GPU now supported by the mesa graphics stack
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As usual, CPU is not the problem, it's RAM. 2GB is not enough. It's barely even enough for daily use for average users, who will leave automatic updates turned on, and it's definitely not enough to run a decent IDE (Which is what we're talking about.)
My tablet has 2GB, it's annoying. My phone has 3GB, which is just barely enough for a mere phone. A tablet should have a minimum of 4GB and nobody should be suggesting doing development on anything with less than 8GB.
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The comment I was replying to was suggesting a Raspberry Pi tablet. Pine64 are at least dipping their toe in the water in terms of various form factors, i.e. phone, tablet and laptop. Their Pinebook Pro is competitive on specs to an 2015-6 ARM chromebook but at half the price.
But you are right! 2GB is insufficient for desktop use.
We haven't seen an *affordable* ARM-powered desktop largely because the chipmakers are churning out these SoCs by the millions for embedding in smart TVs and $50 Android streaming
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I get your point. I too use my Android tablets (one of which I actually got in a Verizon promotion for buying a smartphone for free, while the other was a $100 upgrade but I didn't need to turn the first one in) for watching videos when I'm lying down, and also reading books. In fact, I've adapted Nook as my preferred way to get books, over slaughtered trees or Amazon (which is too big and powerful for my liking). I wouldn't say it's easier than phones: I find my iPhone a lot easier to manage, while my t
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I just got a Samsung Tab A. Excellent value, plenty of horsepower, more than decent screen. Recommended. Except for the crappy Android UI of course, which could easily support desktop apps but just... doesn't. Google can suck my crusty shorts for that.
and meanwhile at nVidia (Score:1)
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I had a Nexus 7, 2013, but it was made by ASUS. And there were some annoying and fatal hardware issues. But it was terrific, totally.
Its death inspired me to buy a used Surface Pro 3, also terrific, except for the current unpleasantness of the screen losing touch at the top, pure software issue,. go Google THAT ONE. Other than that, great.
Then I bought my wife a Yoga 910. I'm envious, it's bigger but very very nice. and you can replace the battery and SSD.
Tablet-like 2-in-1 devices are great. Touch screens
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Mine suffered from touch failure, first due to the connector that can be cushioned and solved then it just would not touch any more, cable failure. I hear some never suffer from this.
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Currently I very much enjoy my pixelbook. Especially with Crouton and experimenting with Crostini. I also run a few favorite Android apps on it. Crouton means running it in developer mode. But with Crostini I may eventually abandon Crouton.
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My Nexus 7 lasted until last month. I'll probably still try to fix it.
I'd buy another new one right now for the original price if it was for sale.
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I'll second that. Problem w/ Android is that despite versions from Lollipop being upgradable, one still has to wait until the carrier has an upgrade before one can proceed: that's at least the case w/ Verizon (dunno about the other GSM compatible 4G tablets). That's pretty frustrating, when one knows that one has the hardware that supports the latest version, but cannot upgrade b'cos... the carrier!
With an iPad, whenever Apple releases the latest OS, if that iPad has a supported configuration (adequate
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Also had a Nexus 7 LTE, and loved it; later got another 7-inch LTE tablet by Acer (I think it was). Would love to find the next one, as software updates for the Acer thing have ceased (as well as for the Nexus, of course).
So, quick specs:
- 7in (ok, possibly now 8in might be possible, but with external dimensions no bigger than Nexus7 was, preferably even a little bit shorter)
- LTE / 4G (and also older mobile network technologies, see below..)
- 1920x1200 or above image resolution, good color balance/accuracy
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But he was comparing apples to... Apple! The original question twisted the headline story about Google being in the actual tablet making business w/ a question about whether it's insourced or outsourced. Point is - except Samsung, LG and the Chinese brands, no one seems to make their own tablets. So it is fair to question who does if the meaning of the headline story is twisted.
Apple is in the business of iPads, but has contracted the manufacturing to others (is it Foxcon here as well, or someone else?
Oh, snap! (Score:1)
Wait... (Score:2)
considering the earlier article (Score:2)
if i can not trust google to produce good honest search results why should i continue to trust android and chromeOS? maybe its time for some open hardware to enter the smartphone market, and then i can install any Linux distro that has support for it, and finding a laptop to run Linux has not been a problem for me. Google better get their collective shit together if they want to continue having me as a customer, because the rate google is going they are starting to look w
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Google was founded as an alternative to the incumbent search engines that were either badly curated or being pwned by the unscrupulous and thieves. Ads and revenue were expected to come if they got it right. They did.
Good and honest in search results is never going to be within the power of the search engine. Someone, somewhere, will take advantage of something.
Better idea: Get out of hardware entirely (Score:2)
Remember all those Google industry-defining, home-run hardware successes?
Yeah, me neither.
Google is a search company and a software company. Its hardware offerings are underwhelming, and Pixel doesn't even let Google crack the list of top ten mobile phone manufacturers [worldstren...opmost.com].
In fact, it's hard to find any hardware category where Google isn't an afterthought or an also-ran, or even mildly profitable.
In this Google is a lot like Microsoft, without the one hit of the XBox.
Google should stick to software.
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Google is a search company and a software company. Its hardware offerings are underwhelming, and Pixel doesn't even let Google crack the list of top ten mobile phone manufacturers.
Google doesn't make any of those devices, anyway. They only design them, when they even bother to do that. All of the manufacturing and assembly is done on contract.
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Google doesn't make any of those devices, anyway. They only design them, when they even bother to do that. All of the manufacturing and assembly is done on contract.
Like Apple's chips are manufactured by TSMC and the iPhones assembled by Foxconn? Designing it is usually what defines it as "theirs".
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You're missing the point, google sucks at doing that.
other companies do well
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I hate windoze, and even I have to admit Microsoft makes good keyboards.
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Remember all those Google industry-defining, home-run hardware successes?
Yeah, me neither.
Google is a search company and a software company. Its hardware offerings are underwhelming, and Pixel doesn't even let Google crack the list of top ten mobile phone manufacturers [worldstren...opmost.com].
In fact, it's hard to find any hardware category where Google isn't an afterthought or an also-ran, or even mildly profitable.
In this Google is a lot like Microsoft, without the one hit of the XBox.
Google should stick to software.
Actually, it took Microsoft a while before the Xbox was in the black. On the Lumias too, Microsoft should have left that w/ Nokia: acquiring that was a disaster, and only hastened the demise of the Windows Phone. Although Windows 10 Mobile was actually pretty good, as was the Lumia 550. But w/ the number of times Microsoft took to get it right, it never caught on, and ultimately was not enough to threaten either iOS nor Android
Blurred lines, baby. (Score:2)
Google's Officially Done Making Its Own Tablets (Score:2)
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Translation: The public is officially done buying Google tablets, and Google has finally figured it out.
"Done"? Did they ever start?
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When I'm looking at iPads as the cheaper option, Samsung et al are doing it wrong.
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RIP Nexus and Pixel tablets (Score:2)
Dammit!
I had a Nexus 7 2013 wifi and used it every day until the battery finally crapped out a few months ago. Despite the hardware issues it had (A chronically loose connector that broke orientation and adaptive backlight) and the non-expandable memory, I loved it, and because it was popular, I could find a decent case to put it in. It went everywhere with me and did everything I needed (And would fit on storage).
Now I'm stuck with Samsung's bullshit ROMs (With stupid long boot times, random crashes, and f
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I have a Google Pixel C, which is probably the last Android tablet that they made. When it was new, it was probably the fastest Android device I owned. Over time, with a few updates, its gotten a bit slower (despite generally light use). However, it still works perfectly fine for my needs.
When I finally find myself needing to replace it, I really don't know what to replace it with. I really want "unmolested" Android on top-end hardware, but that doesn't seem to be an option in the tablet space anymore. I ma
There is Another (Score:2)
Now I'm stuck with Samsung's bullshit ROMs (With stupid long boot times, random crashes, and forced bloatware), or cheap Chinese pump-and-dump tablets.
Almost hate to ask but.... if you like tablets, there's this thing called the iPad, maybe you've heard of it?
It has most of the Google services you might have been used to...
Re: There is Another (Score:2)
Almost hate to ask but.... if you like tablets, there's this thing called the iPad, maybe you've heard of it?
It has most of the Google services you might have been used to...
Given that I hate the lock-in on Samsung ROMs, and that this is an article about Android, what in Slashdot's name makes you think I'd like an iPad?
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what in Slashdot's name makes you think I'd like an iPad?
(earlier).... I loved it, and because it was popular, I could find a decent case to put it in. It went everywhere with me and did everything I needed (And would fit on storage).
What about the lock-in bothers or even limits you? It seemed like all of those things you loved are still more than possible with an iPad. You can find great cases. You can go anywhere with it, super easy to travel with....
I guess I just thought this being Slashdot, you care
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What about the lock-in bothers or even limits you? It seemed like all of those things you loved are still more than possible with an iPad. You can find great cases. You can go anywhere with it, super easy to travel with....
I guess I just thought this being Slashdot, you cared more about utility and useful hardware. And there's always Jailbreaking, though over time the use of that has become much less.
Oh let's see, how about being able to pick my own software for my own needs (My own browser and e-mail, my own applications, side-loading) and getting rid of the unnecessary crap that Uncle Know-it-all burned into the phone? How about integrating with the rest of my non-Apple systems? Yes I'll grant you that cases for iPads are easier to find, but that's secondary to having good hardware that good software exposes for use. Any tablet is easy to travel with, if you have the right peripherals and adapters (Wh
Google's answer to iPadOS? (Score:2)
I was kind of hoping that Apple's iPadOS announcement would produce a jolt that forced Google to review Android's tablet strategy. I hope this was not it.
Google was still making tablets? (Score:2)
I thought they gave up on tablets long ago. Well, there is exactly one reason why tablets don't sell well: crippled user interface. That is 100% on Google. You stupid Googlers can suck my shorts for that reason alone, if not for endless others.