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The 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

The 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 ago
Google also released the Pixel C tablet in late 2015, which was a massive improvement over the Nexus 9.
- chimeracoder 7y ago
  From 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 ago
    Still, 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 ago
The 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.
- josteink 7y ago
  It had the right form-factor (4:3), good high-res screen and a completely underpowered CPU/GPU. The modem-slow flash-storage sure as hell didn’t help either. I ended up selling mine after little use.
StillBored 7y ago
The entire google OS stack is a mess. Most of the problems that the device manufactures are being blamed for can be traced back to the core model. AKA the idea that the firmware/os/drivers are all bundled together and hacked to work on a given device simply doesn't scale. Its employment for engineers because very security patch, every upstream refactor, requires all those closed source patches to be rebased on the latest version. This might work ok if the underlying technology (linux) didn't change their driver APIs at the drop of the hat, or the device manufactures didn't play throw darts at the soup of ARM interconnects, ram controllers, and devices, everytime they spun a new generation of phones/tablets/chromebooks. Apple can get away with the monolithic model because they have a half dozen fairly similar devices to support. There are android manufactures which have released more devices in the last 6 months. Yah, google is trying to fix that, but without a hard line in the sand with respect to pushing non-core OS/driver functionality into standardized runtime firmware APIs (think powermgmt) and locking down the driver API (userspace or otherwise) and assuring that it takes a long time for API's to be replaced/upgraded/deprecated. The hardware/upgrade story will continue to be a mess.
- rightos 7y ago
  Yeah, Google needs to make this move on Android. If they're just say "okay, if you want Android 10, you need to provide your drivers in this exact ABI way, no more custom software crap, we push the updates", that'd be awesome - basically, use the Windows model. I believe the only reason they didn't do this out of the gate is because device manufacturers wouldn't have signed on for it. Android is establish enough at this point that it's not like many device manufacturers could really step back from it at this point. Treble is a strong step in this direction - but they need to take it farther, open up customization APIs and drop the garbage manufacturers pump into devices. The way Treble is right now it only benefits power users who have their devices rooted - who could update without the manufacturers permission anyways. I wonder if their only hesitation at this point is the mess they're making with ChromeOS and all their other garbage... I think the Android roof was the right one to bet on, massive numbers of users with primary devices running it, but I fear they've done significant damage with their other offerings.
  - 7y ago
askvictor 7y ago
I use a ChromeOS convertible daily and I don't quite get what's so miserable? It works fantastic as a web-browser-centric laptop. Then I can also run Android apps on it (admittedly I don't use that many, but it works great for the ones I use). Sure, you have to hope the particular Android app is optimised for tablet use, but that's the case for any app running on an android tablet.

farmerbb 7y ago

Google also released the Pixel C tablet in late 2015, which was a massive improvement over the Nexus 9.

chimeracoder 7y ago
From 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 ago
  Still, 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 ago

The 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.

josteink 7y ago
It had the right form-factor (4:3), good high-res screen and a completely underpowered CPU/GPU. The modem-slow flash-storage sure as hell didn’t help either. I ended up selling mine after little use.

StillBored 7y ago

The entire google OS stack is a mess. Most of the problems that the device manufactures are being blamed for can be traced back to the core model. AKA the idea that the firmware/os/drivers are all bundled together and hacked to work on a given device simply doesn't scale. Its employment for engineers because very security patch, every upstream refactor, requires all those closed source patches to be rebased on the latest version. This might work ok if the underlying technology (linux) didn't change their driver APIs at the drop of the hat, or the device manufactures didn't play throw darts at the soup of ARM interconnects, ram controllers, and devices, everytime they spun a new generation of phones/tablets/chromebooks. Apple can get away with the monolithic model because they have a half dozen fairly similar devices to support. There are android manufactures which have released more devices in the last 6 months. Yah, google is trying to fix that, but without a hard line in the sand with respect to pushing non-core OS/driver functionality into standardized runtime firmware APIs (think powermgmt) and locking down the driver API (userspace or otherwise) and assuring that it takes a long time for API's to be replaced/upgraded/deprecated. The hardware/upgrade story will continue to be a mess.

rightos 7y ago
Yeah, Google needs to make this move on Android. If they're just say "okay, if you want Android 10, you need to provide your drivers in this exact ABI way, no more custom software crap, we push the updates", that'd be awesome - basically, use the Windows model. I believe the only reason they didn't do this out of the gate is because device manufacturers wouldn't have signed on for it. Android is establish enough at this point that it's not like many device manufacturers could really step back from it at this point. Treble is a strong step in this direction - but they need to take it farther, open up customization APIs and drop the garbage manufacturers pump into devices. The way Treble is right now it only benefits power users who have their devices rooted - who could update without the manufacturers permission anyways. I wonder if their only hesitation at this point is the mess they're making with ChromeOS and all their other garbage... I think the Android roof was the right one to bet on, massive numbers of users with primary devices running it, but I fear they've done significant damage with their other offerings.
- 7y ago

askvictor 7y ago

I use a ChromeOS convertible daily and I don't quite get what's so miserable? It works fantastic as a web-browser-centric laptop. Then I can also run Android apps on it (admittedly I don't use that many, but it works great for the ones I use). Sure, you have to hope the particular Android app is optimised for tablet use, but that's the case for any app running on an android tablet.