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Google will no longer make its own tablet devices
- btreecat 7y agoThey talk about Pixle/Chrome OS "tablets" but not Android, which is what I actually want. Please make a follow up to the Nexus 9.
- akmarinov 7y agoIsn’t that because they don’t make Android tablets at all?
- plotteddancer16 7y agoDidn’t they stop/restart once before? Sounds like history is repeating itself...
- dan_quixote 7y agoYes, this is from last year: https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/09/google-gives-up-on-tablets-android-p-marks-an-end-to-its-ambitious-efforts-to-take-on-apples-ipad https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/09/google-gives-up-o...
- sylens 7y agoThey never figured out how to build on the Nexus 7's success and momentum
- billsix 7y agoAs an Android user, I liked my Nexus 7 at the time, but I received security updates for a year or two max, and then never bought an Android tablet again because of it.
- henryfjordan 7y agoGoogle is pretty good about announcing security update support up front so you can make that decision at least. I think the Nexus/Pixel phones are generally 2 years of updates, 3 for security. Maybe a little short if you're optimistic about how long you'll keep the device but that's better than most manufacturers being late or inconsistent about updates.
- pgeorgi 7y agoTo be fair, this policy (pre-planning and announcing update timeframes) only really started after Nexus 7 for Google Android devices.
- neilv 7y agoWould you like to help polish GNU/Linux with mainline kernel and open source drivers on that Nexus 7? If it's a 2013 WiFi version (a mostly great device): https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Google_Nexus_7_2013_(asus-flo) https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Google_Nexus_7_2013_(asus...
- askvictor 7y agoThere was also the fact it's memory (I think it was flash memory) got really slow after a year or two. Like unusably slow. That's probably how they got it so cheap, to try to showcase and build momentum, but after two years (from both hardware and software POV), it's useless. I still have some iPad 2's floating around, which have the same issue, albeit on a longer scale. Can no longer update the OS, most new apps won't install as they target a different OS, it _seems_ to be getting more sluggish over time (though there was a clear performance drop between two of the major OS versions - I think it was 6 to 7). It's a shame as it's still a useful and nice piece of hardware.
- notatoad 7y agoThere's plenty of clever people at google, i'm sure at least one of them figured out that people will buy things if they're both good and cheap. Google made a decision to stop selling cheap tablets.
- simula67 7y agoI think it was just to showcase Android on tablets.
- robin_reala 7y agoMy company at the time gave every staff member a Nexus 7. There was a ~50% failure rate after a year. Not a bad machine apart from that, but it soured me on Google hardware for the next half s decade.
- CannisterFlux 7y agoNot on the same scale but I had my Nexus 7 replaced twice due to failure while under warranty, then the 3rd time it failed shortly after the warranty ran out. They all failed the same way, just refused to charge any more.
- cbm-vic-20 7y agoI still use my 2013 Nexus 7 every day.
- izzydata 7y agoI do as well. I've been waiting for a refresh, but it looks like that will never happen. It's the perfect size for media consumption for me. I don't want a phablet so it is difficult for me to combine my phone device with my media consumption device.
- Goronmon 7y agoYou're lucky, mine died within a couple years.
- artimaeis 7y agoI was a huge fan of the Nexus 7 -- it's the device that changed how I looked at personal computers. I bought myself one, and ones for a couple of family members. Within 3 years they were all unusably slow. Kept them going for a little while with some device resets, but eventually we just all had to give up on them. The family has been on iPads ever since and even the oldest of the bunch still run great (much thanks to iOS 12's perf improvements). That's the whole story on how I got sold on Apple hardware.
- ThatPlayer 7y agoSimilarly, my iPad 3 from the same year as the Nexus 7 1st gen sees more use than my 2nd Gen Nexus 7. Also the microUSB broke and I resorted to wireless charging after 2 years, which sold me on wireless charging.
- kenhwang 7y agoGoogle bricked my 2013 Google I/O special edition Nexus 7 a month after they gave them to us. Can't say I had much confidence in Google devices after that.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
- osrec 7y agoWith the advent of larger smartphones, I use my tablet less and less. I know they're not great now, but perhaps foldables will kill tablets all together? It may actually be a smart move to unbloat the product lines a little.
- simonh 7y agoiPad sales aren’t going anywhere. Apple sells twice as many tablets as they do laptops.
- ulfw 7y agoMy iPad Pro is my favourite portable device that I wouldn't want to give up. Definitely not a feeling I have about my Macbook nor my iPhone.
- ezequiel-garzon 7y agoWhy would you say you don’t have that feeling about your iPhone?
- ulfw 7y agoForm factor I suppose. I just don't use my phone for as many things as my iPad (which I have always with me, with LTE). iPhone I use for short messages, google maps and quick email read-throughs and taking photos. That's about it. Maybe streaming songs. Any Android phone can do the same, some even better (Huawei Mate 30 Pro cameras e.g.) iPad can do all the above, plus much better web browsing, reddit, video/youtube viewing, photo editing, email and writing in general (with Apple Smartkeyboard), etc. It works with touch, pencil and keyboard and just feels like my personal device.
- lostmsu 7y agoIf you carry iPad around, why keep iPhone? Why not something like Galaxy Note? Or one of 7 inch phones if pencil is optional?
- muro 7y agoI love my pixel slate, best tablet/laptop I ever had. Such a shame. The screen is great, the keyboard is surprisingly good and it's awesome to be able to ditch the keyboard for a while when reading docs etc. Linux and Android apps mean I can run android studio and e.g. Lightroom (android version) as well as many games. I got back to playing some DOS games in dosbox. It's fast, light and very well manufactured.
- sahaskatta 7y agoThe keyboard design was quite poor compared to the Surface Pro in my opinion. It felt wobbly when carrying around too as it didn't magnetically keep the bottom part of the keyboard snapped to the display when shut closed. I also don't feel it was light by any means. It weights almost a full 3 lbs with the keyboard attached. That's heavier than the Dell XPS 13 and much heavier than a Surface Pro 6.
- muro 7y agoThat's possible. I switched from a MacBook Pro 15 and the slate is much much lighter and has a much better keyboard. Perhaps lowest bar.
- metal13 7y agoYou pretty much described me. There's a ton of software glitches, but I have a tablet that I can code on (running Linux), answer emails, run every Android app I need, and weighs far less then a laptop. Though I got back into NES games, not DOS (yet!)
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoFWIW, I love my PixelBook, and it's become my number 1 dev machine (runs the full Jetbrains suite, Postgres, etc. from Crostini), plus I just flip the screen all the way around and it turns into a tablet. Selfishly I hope this just means Pixelbooks get more love.
- Causality1 7y agoGoogle's tablet dreams died when they killed the Nexus line in favor of Pixel. Instead of making devices 95% as good as other flagships at half the price, they became the market-leader when it came to overcharging.
- pureliquidhw 7y agoIsn't the Pixel 3a exactly that?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- josteink 7y agoYes. 4-5 years after they abandoned their loyal Nexus-customers.
- ulfw 7y agoChromeOS/Android hybrids must have confused people
- iamnotacrook 7y ago"ChromeOS/Android hybrids must have confused people" It's not confusing at all. "It's a laptop and it can run android apps". It doesn't get any simpler. It's harder to explain to people why you can't run android apps on, say, a windows laptop.
- ulfw 7y agoHaving a Chrome web app for something and an Android app on the same device can get confusing for some users. Especially if the web app and Android app have different levels of functionality.
- muro 7y agoIt's the same on phones, other tablets and for many apps also on windows and mac OS. You can use a native app or open a browser.
- rrix2 7y agoHaving to log in twice to Pocket was annoying, for example. The Android app couldn't even log in using the browser's session if I recall, since it presents the Firefox oauth in an Android web view
- chimeracoder 7y agoThe last Android tablet Google made was the Nexus 9, released in 2014. It was also the last tablet I bought. The ChromeOS hybrid laptop-tablets are absolutely terrible - both the software and the hardware are miserable to use. I wish Google would just release a refreshed version of the Nexus 9. It's really all I want in a tablet.
- farmerbb 7y agoGoogle also released the Pixel C tablet in late 2015, which was a massive improvement over the Nexus 9.
- chimeracoder 7y agoFrom my experience, I disagree that it was an improvement over the Nexus 9. The Pixel C was originally intended to be a Chrome OS device, but it was changed at the last minute because (IIRC) Chrome OS wasn't ready for the "hybrid" devices. And it shows, via lack of polish in the overall experience.
- jasonvorhe 7y agoStill, the Nexus 9 was a horrible device right after unpacking it: The UI was slow, apps were OOM killed due to memory pressure after light usage, the back was scratched easily and the buttons felt flimsy. The display was also terrible and not high resolution enough. The Pixel C was so much better: Beautiful screen, built like a tank, everything felt solid and relatively light weight, Android performed excellent on it and with Nougat it was even usable as a true productivity device because of multi tasking. I loved the Pixel C. When I tried to upgrade it to an iPad Pro due to it having reached its EOL, I returned the iPad Pro after a couple of days and kept using the Pixel X, until Google announced the Pixelbook. Then I managed to sell the Pixel C for about 300€ because it still looked prestine and the person who bought it brought it another 2 years of use thanks to some after market Android image.
- alexdumitru 7y agoThe Nexus 9 was awful. It was very slow and lagged all the time. I think it was due to the Nvidia CPU as I've also had a Chromebook with an Nvidia CPU and it's also really slow.
- just_myles 7y agoAs a former nexus owner, good. The thing bricked after a couple of updates. Whereas my third gen ipad and first gen ipad mini work marvelously.
- jessedotexe 7y agoMeh, I've always thought of a tablet as a good idea, but always defaulted to my phone or needed the power of my laptop. I think sleek chromebooks or large phones are the better way forward.
- goodcjw2 7y agoVery sad to see Google bailing out while iPad Pro and iPadOS is going stronger than ever. Honestly, this is the tipping point for me to switch from the Google ecosystem to the Apple ecosystem.
- oarabbus_ 7y agoGoogle just kind of repeatedly fails at things that aren't its core offerings (Glass, Google+, Tablets, Stadia will fail next)
- ncmncm 7y agoIt's kind of their thing, really. Like Microsoft getting the first two of everything wrong. Google gets the second and all subsequent ones wrong, instead. Mostly...
- pjmlp 7y agoGoogle IO game dev track was a joke, versus what gets shown at WWDC or BUILD. Google really doesn't get game development. While Apple and Microsoft make frameworks, IDE tooling, and talk studios language, Google makes PR talks about their cloud services, does some intro level talks about middleware and shows how to do 3D with bare bones FOSS libraries and CLI tooling. Stadia will surely fail if that is all they have to offer to game studios.
- ryuukk_ 7y agoStadia will be a huge success, for studios it is a huge win since that will simply eradicate piracy, no compatibility issues anymore, you basically just target one config, Unity is already in For customers too, you don't need to keep upgrade your machine every X months/years, and you can play on anything
- haunter 7y agoCheckout Xiaomi Mi Pad 4. Basically the Xiaomi-clone of the iPad Mini. And it's perfect, love it so much
- cwyers 7y agoGoogle shot themselves in the face trying to make ChromeOS happen at the expense of making Android tablets that don't suck. Hell, Kindle tablets kinda do suck and they still sell fine.
- thrower123 7y agoI do wonder how many people buy Kindle Fires when they aren't on one of their $40 clearance sales. I've bought three or four of them that way. They are, to be honest, pretty terrible, but for reading in the middle of the night when I can't turn on the light and use my regular Kindle, they beat using my phone.
- Spivak 7y agoWhat's holding you back from the backlit Paperwhite?
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y agoPaperwhite is not a cheap product. Unfortunately there are no cheap alternatives either, I always wonder why Chinese don't clone and manufacture something similar in mass. Is it so hard or e-ink is something that is not manufactured there?
- pjmlp 7y agoIn Europe there are lots of cheap e-ink device clones.
- thrower123 7y agoI really prefer the old Kindles that had the physical paddle buttons to change pages instead of a touchscreen. It's a much better UX, and those things are virtually indestructible.
- WorldMaker 7y agoThe top end Kindle Oasis model has physical buttons again. It's even more indestructible with supposedly good water-proofing added in the most recent refresh. Just below that top end you can still find the Kindle Voyage sometimes on sale (it's a generation behind now, so don't buy it if it isn't on sale) with haptic, capacitive touch that are a decent close second to physical buttons.
- awill 7y agoI have an 8.4" 16x10 tablet and I love it for media consumption. I ride the bus for over an hour each way. It's nice to be able to use the tablet for 2-3 hours a day and not drain the battery on my phone.
- pjmlp 7y agoI own an Android tablet (Asus) but the next one will either be a Windows 2-1 foldable, or an iPad Pro. Because only they understand that the killer feature of tablet is being the new laptops, and not just bigger phones. Also for hobby development on the go, iOS or Windows stack are more fun to use than the whole Studio + J++ + NDK maintained as 20% project.
- antisthenes 7y agoTablets were always the odd device out of the bag. Too big to put in your pocket, and not nearly as productive as a laptop with a keyboard. They were fine as a toy or purely entertainment device for someone in the backseat of a car, but mostly a dead-end as far as tech advancements go.
- pjmlp 7y agoWhich is why I explicitly stated Windows 2-1 foldables or iPad Pro.