Google has announced that abandon tablet manufacturing. No more trying to compete with what Apple or Microsoft offer with their iPad Pro and Surface Pro respectively. Therefore, there will no longer be a second generation of your Pixel Slate. Although it is not that there are many users who are going to miss it.
Goodbye to the Pixel Slate, the Google tablet
At the end of 2018, Google introduced its Pixel Slate. A tablet that together with Chrome OS and a keyboard that could be put on and taken off, sought to offer a alternative solution to both iPad and Surface Pro. It wasn't a bad idea, its design was attractive and at the hardware level it wasn't a bad product either, but the user experience wasn't convincing.
In numerous analyzes that were made of the device, the reviews were not positive. It didn't work properly, Chrome OS felt insufficient, better apps were missing and, along with the delays, everything seemed to indicate that it hadn't been a great idea. Still, Google did it, bet on the product and unfortunately it backfired.
Hey, it's true…Google's HARDWARE team will be solely focused on building laptops moving forward, but make no mistake, Android & Chrome OS teams are 100% committed for the long-run on working with our partners on tablets for all segments of the market (consumer, enterprise, edu)
- Rick Osterloh (@rosterloh) June 20, 2019
Rick Osterloh, head of the hardware division within the company, has now confirmed that indeed stop making tablets. In this way, the teams assigned to these projects are relocated and the company will focus its efforts on laptops with ChromeOS and the PixelBook, which as a hardware product does seem to be a more solid bet for the future.
However, current users of a Pixel Slate will continue to receive software and security updates, but if someone was waiting for a second generation that would solve the problems of the first, they can forget about it. What's more, as we said, it has been known that two new products in development have been directly canceled this week.
The latter does not imply that other manufacturers stop launching tablets based on Chrome OS. After gaining support for this type of device, brands like HP or Acer do seem to launch their own products. Let's see how they turn out.
What is clear is that the hardware business is very complicated. Google has not yet found the key that allows it to gain weight in the market. Their Google Pixels are very good phones, but they don't achieve that great sales pull either. What's more, neither the smart speakers nor the rest of the Google Home/Nest products are standing out.
Due to the financial muscle capable of handling Google, that it does not work out is not a big problem. But for the user, killing proposals like Pixel Slate all it does is reduce confidence in the face of future bets. Hopefully now all that effort can be better focused on making traditionally designed phones and laptops based on Chrome OS that prove they can be relevant to hardware issues also.