The reason that Pixel C was so uncharacteristically good for a google tablet is that the usual suspects in the Android team had basically no part in designing it and making it. It was a ChromeOS team project meant to run ChromeOS, until the 11th hour when an edict forced it to run android. This can be seen in many ways, including in the way it boots, the existence of the standard chrome ec, etc...

>Instead they quit making Android tablets until the subject of this article was released.

Which is why I jumped on the Pixel Tablet when it came out. The Android tablet scene kinda sucks. I guess the Samsungs are good, but I'm not interested in their custom OS bloat and they're also pricey.

Again, the iPad is still the king here, no doubt. But this tablet is the best Android one I've used.

I opened up the hood of a car once and there was loads of empty space inside there. Why are they not filling up every cubic inch of the engine compartment with more pistons, or making the compartment water-tight and then filling it with even more petrol to increase the car’s range? Admittedly I don’t know a single thing about car design, but surely all of that empty space is an indicator of poor design right?

Have you seen an engine compartment of the Tesla? It's empty! So much empty space. Am I paying for this space? Oh no!

There's nothing that's a mess about the inside of this tablet, it's just not filled to the brim with stuff that it doesn't need. That's normal, good design.