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Comment by Andrew_nenakhov | Hacker News Reader

Well, better late than never.

Many, many years ago when Android 2 was all the rage, Motorola has shipped Xoom tablet with Android 3. That Android version turned out to be a dead end, and the whole line of tablets went nowhere. Next Google's attempt at tablets was Nexus 7 device, which was actually great, esp 2013 version that still lays around somewhere in my office and sees occasional use. But then, Google kind of forgot tablets exist and ignored the category completely. It was left for Samsung and some obscure manufacturers making devices, running apps that are usually not really adapted to tablets. So maybe it is finally time to have nice tablets on Android with stock OS, and maybe a special category for apps adapted to tablets in Google Play.

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I bought many secondhand Nexus 7 2013 devices for peanuts (€100-120 iirc). They were great devices and there was even a version that would take a SIM card so you could use it on the go without WiFi (no calls though) which was a game changer at the time.

Was always disappointed that they didn't stick with the form factor but with more RAM / storage / better CPU.

I think this form-factor didn't stick because it was undermined by smartphones growing bigger and bigger, eventually becoming phablets, which usually have 6"+ screen sizes.

Well, there was the Pixel C in 2015. It was Android based and went nowhere.

Then there was the Pixel Slate in 2018. It was Chrome OS based, and also went nowhere. If you bought a Pixel Slate, a new Google tablet has been five years in the making.

Except that the Pixel Tablet isn't really a replacement. It's back to Android, and this time, no keyboard or pen options in sight.

It says it supports USI styli but not prioritizing it for the price they are asking seems like a bad move in 2023.

Google has no long-term strategy for tablets. Best I can tell, every few years some product owners get together to once again do Google's Big Push For Tablets For Real This Time We Swear and the initiative goes until they get their promotions and then it's forgotten until the next round a few years later.

If you buy this tablet and like it, don't expect a successor. They'll release something completely unrelated in a few years, it might be running Chrome OS, it might have a keyboard accessory, it might have a pen accessory, it might have absolutely abysmal performance[1]. It's a complete grab bag.

And this applies to basically all Google products and services.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOh6d_r63Bw

> Best I can tell, every few years some product owners get together to once again do Google's Big Push For Tablets For Real This Time We Swear and the initiative goes until they get their promotions and then it's forgotten until the next round a few years later

You are 100% correct.

Source: was part of two such pushes while working at goog

You figure google could ever change their ways? Like if enough backlash hit their products? Anything?

It would require a change of leadership. The incentives that make this happen come from the top. Until the board and starts firing some of the top leadership, I wouldn’t hope for much change.

I've got an Android phone but I'd never waste my money nor time on an Android tablet knowing Google are going to lose interest in it in six months.

The iPad was my first Apple product. Was super in the android ecosystem at the time but the Android tablets were just non existent.

I was so impressed by the ipad, which was second hand, several years old, and still getting updates. Ended up switching to an iPhone and Macbook as well.

Feels like Google has been bleeding users for a while by just ignoring tablets for so long.

I hope this docked version does well because I really like the smart home hub meets tablet meets household shared device vision.

I'm hopeful that they'll somewhat keep the tablet form factor working because it'll be used when a foldable device is open; it's just a bit bigger.

I'm not hopeful enough to go buy a tablet, however.

The Pixel C got launched and then more or less ignored. There was a startup / auth big that more or less killed the device off. I ended up getting a full refund for mine. :(

Holy crap, I can only assume someone has done the Monty Python skit of the castle that kept falling into the swamp with Google devices. It was basically impossible for me not to hear that voice in the second paragraph here. :D

I briefly owned a Pixel C and found it to be a buggy mess. Ultimately returned it. Wouldn’t be a surprise if that were a major factor in it being a flop.

> Next Google's attempt at tablets was Nexus 7 device, which was actually great

Until the Android Lollipop update rendered it so laggy it was unusable two years later?

Uhm wasn't the Nexus 7 the tablet that literally bricked itself within a year by the storage degrading to floppy speed?

The 1st gen Nexus 7, yes

https://www.anandtech.com/show/7185/android-43-update-brings...

That's the 2012 model. Easy mistake

I really liked that one, until it stopped working. In my opinion, it was the perfect size for reading and browsing the web. I haven't used a tablet as part of my daily life since then.

No, mine is still going strong. Obviously not running the latest version of Android since it's a decade old, but it's perfectly fine as an eReader or for light web browsing (it does struggle a bit with JS-heavy sites)

>Uhm

So strange to see these fillers typed out on HN and reddit.

>wasn't the Nexus 7 the tablet that literally bricked itself within a year by the storage degrading to floppy speed?

The 2012 version that I owned did precisely that. It was a great device for the time, and it is unfortunate that they discontinued it after just a few iterations.

It's not a filler in this context

>It's not a filler in this context

What is it supposed to be?

A textual version of a vocalization of doubt.

>A textual version of a vocalization of doubt.

Anytime someone opens a sentence in such a way, verbally, it rarely paints them in a positive light. It sounds snarky.

Not a year, I definitely got way more use than that. But yes.

I while ago I got a $300 Nvidia Shield android tablet which had great specs for the price, and they provided OS and software updates for 5 years or so.

Apparently they never made an updated model because the Nintendo Switch came out shortly after and it basically used the same SoC and the Nvidia tablet, so all production went to that.

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