Google Unveils Pixel Slate, Its First Laptop-Tablet Hybrid in Three Years (engadget.com)

In addition to announcing new flagship phones today, Google took the wraps off a new premium tablet called the Pixel Slate. It's a Chrome OS-powered slate with a 12.3-inch display that's supposed to be the sharpest in its class. Google claims this isn't just a laptop pretending to be a tablet or a phone pretending to be a computer. From a report: It has a resolution of 3,000 x 2,000 -- i.e., a pixel density of 293 ppi, which Google says is the highest for a premium 12-inch tablet. For reference, the Surface Pro 6 and iPad Pro (12.9 inch) come in at 267 ppi and 264 ppi, respectively. Google was able to make the screen so sharp because of an energy-efficient LCD technology called Low Temperature PolySilicon (LTPS), which let the company pack in more pixels without sacrificing size or battery. In fact, the Pixel Slate is supposed to last up to 12 hours on a charge, which is impressive for its skinny 7mm profile. [...] What stands out about the Pixel Slate is the version of Chrome OS it runs. When docked to a mouse or a keyboard accessory with a trackpad, it runs the regular desktop interface most people are familiar with by now. Disconnect peripherals, though, and it switches automatically to tablet mode, which is optimized for touch. In this profile, the home screen features icons for installed apps, much like the app drawer on Android phones. You can split the screen between up to two apps or drag and drop browser tabs to place them side by side. The Pixel Slate will be available with an Intel Celeron or Core M3, i5 or i7 processor, and 4GB to 16GB of RAM at a starting price of $599. The keyboard will cost an additional $200, should you wish to buy one, and the pen accessory will similarly cost $99.

Comments

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a real piece of shit!

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's perfect for creimer?

Re:Wow

[jellomizer]

So what grand new innovative technology had you came out with?
It is easy to insult a new product. Then just get grumpy as all the new stuff coming out isn't meeting your idea of what new technology should be.

The Desktop PC in the 1980's and 1990's had killed the grand scheme of people seeing a Mainframe future.
Now mobile is over taking out PC Future.

It seems we take a take a step back when a an emerging technology gets to a point of non-trivial useful ness.

While mainframes were getting more and more powerful. However when the 32bit PC the 386 onward. With Megs of Memory started to come out people found that the expensive mainframe (And Mini-computers) which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars or more can be replaced with PCs which only cost a couple thousand of dollars (Slightly more then the Dumb Terminals hooked up to them) and gave collectively more power then what the mainframe did for most type of jobs.

Mainframes are still around however they are more focused on more selective tasks, while server farms are running on PC hardware. And most home PC's are running with excess power to spare.

So now we have mobile technology. With specs that rival mid-range PC's and have enough power to handle most of of our actions. That and they are sized to fixed in our pockets loaded with sensors and devices. Where in many ways mobiles biggest draw backs are OS limitations (from Apple and Google) preventing us from ourselves by putting whatever software we feel fit (Because most of us (not necessarily me the writer and you the reader ) will find a way to install malware).
However if we could install whatever software we wanted including coding compilers. Then combine it with a larger screen and a keyboard so we can perform prolonged work on such a device We really don't need a PC anymore for most of our work.

PC will not die though. As there are things that a Modern higher range PC can do that Mobile devices will not be able for a few years. Mostly due to not caring about battery life and power requirements.

Re:Wow

[Aighearach]

Sounds like a real piece of shit!

Indeed! I assume it gives away all your personal information, and google lies about all their privacy terms.

It seems that their efforts to avoid regulatory interest don't fit well into an overall public relations strategy. After giving away my personal information, and then lying about it (by omission from their regulatory filings as a public company) they really have no position to even ask to be trusted with anything at any level.

The only way for Google to restore user and investor confidence is if the government arrests the executives involved for making false filings to distort the stock price. Anything less leaves the company without even the possibility of being trustworthy.

Chrome OS is actually LUDDITE software!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome OS looks like it runs modern appy app apps, but if you try to app the apps while apping other apps, you find out that it actually runs LUDDITE Linux instead of a modern appy apperating app like Appdows 10 S!

Apps!

Gonna BOMB!

[Anonymous Coward]

Le Stinko!

Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[TomR teh Pirate]

If you make accessories too expensive, you end up putting yourself in the price range of real laptops running Windows while holding no real competitive advantages. No thanks.

Re:Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[Kjella]

If you make accessories too expensive, you end up putting yourself in the price range of real laptops running Windows while holding no real competitive advantages. No thanks.

Well $99 for a pen is pretty normal... but $200 for a keyboard is crazy. I mean it starts at $600, if you go for the base model that's 1/3rd of the cost. For that you get the screen, CPU, GPU, memory, storage, wireless etc. and then $200 just to have keys... Surface takes $129 for a type cover, Apple $169 so ~$150 would be in line with the competition. I know they make money back on accessories but when you make Apple look cheap you have a problem.

Re:Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[Luthair]

If you look also, the 599 is for a Celeron with 4gb of ram.... no thanks.

Re:Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[DarkRookie2]

You cant even run Chrome on that

Re:Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[rtb61]

You have never tried a high end individual key illuminated keyboard, still seems really high but the keys feel so good and it's really pretty in a darkened room and programmable G1 infinite super fast right button mouse click that doesn't count as a double click, so useful in so many 'er' applications.

Ahh the cute little privacy invasive pixies er pixels, two microphones and two cameras to here and see everything going on and just to make sure, a fingerprint scanner on the power button. It is just me or does this device smell more of George Orwell's 1984 than a mythical create of folklore, a corporation that cares about it's customers and does no evil.

I do not suppose there is a manual hard wired off button for the microphone and cameras, now wouldn't that be silly :/.

Re:Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

> real laptops running Windows while holding no real competitive advantages.

Only if you don't care about screen quality, resolution, 3:2 aspect ratio and the wacom pen. If you do the cheapest competitor is the surface pro + type cover + pen, which is quite a bit more expensive and comes with windows.

Re:Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[tigersha]

You know that $129 Type Cover is backlit? And it is actually a pretty good keyboard that includes a good trackpad. The keyboard is much better than Apples latest ultra flatpack keyboards. And Apple's prices only for a keyboard.

Re:Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[tigersha]

Christ. Chrome is slow on my Surface Pro that has 16 GB of RAM with an i7!

Re:Those accessories are prohibitively expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

My thoughts exactly when i saw $200 keyboard and nothing mentioned that makes it special, so sell me a $25 keyboard for eight times that?! No thanks.

With Google's Long term Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like Google+ and all those other now forgotten Google things you bought into.
Except this one actually has a dollar price.

Re:With Google's Long term Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone have a curated list of Google products that have either failed or been removed from the market?

Looking far a curator other than Google, of course.

Re:With Google's Long term Support

[Desler]

Google graveyard.

Re:With Google's Long term Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you! A true public service.

Re:With Google's Long term Support

[GrumpySteen]

Nobody actually bought into Google+ and nobody cares that it's going away.

The accounts that were created were the ones Google forced people to create to sign up for YouTube and other services that they actually did want and people dind't use them. Even Google admitted that 90% of all recent logins to Google+ last less than 5 seconds. At best, those are people who clicked the wrong icon in the Google menu, but it's more likely that it's just a bunch of bots.

Google hasn't forced anyone to buy Chromebooks to use YouTube, on the other hand, so the people who bought them did so willingly. They've sold surprisingly well despite the fact that you can buy a cheap laptop that does more for the same price. It's a profitable product line for Google they like their profits. They'll keep making them as long as people keep buying them in sufficient volume to keep the profits going.

Re:With Google's Long term Support

[Anonymous Coward]

I used it for a while. I stopped after I realized that no one used it and I was wasting my life away on social media. Since then, I've closed all kinds of accounts that I had such as Facebook and Twitter...

I guess the only 'social' things I do anymore are linkedIn and whatever the fuck Slashdot is considered.

Re:With Google's Long term Support

[tigersha]

Slashdot? I dunno, Antisocial?

Google

[Anonymous Coward]

So does it spy on you?

$200 for keyboard

[postmortem]

Typical accessory scam.

Re:$200 for keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

We should have the accessory scam day on Memorial Day weekend, since MatressUSA is closing.

Re:$200 for keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. $199. You see the prices are beautiful and symmetric: the pen is $99, the tablet itself is $599. Why have realistic prices when they can be so beautiful? /s Puke

Re:$200 for keyboard

[R3d M3rcury]

Is it just a bluetooth keyboard? I mean, I have no problem with Google charging $200 for a keyboard, as long as I can also use my $35 keyboard. If I feel so inclined, I'll buy Google's.

But if Google's keyboard is the only one that works with it? No thanks.

Re: $200 for keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a Bluetooth keyboard, it attaches to the tablet with pogo pins. The first generation of Chrome tablet keyboards were Bluetooth and the multisecond lag in waking up and reconnecting made them a complete non-starter for most everyone. The real question is whether third party accessory developmers will be able to legitimately use the new pogo pin interface or will they be stuck using Bluetooth only.

Re:$200 for keyboard

[tigersha]

Emmy Noether would be proud of you

"isn't just"

[SuperKendall]

Google claims this isn't just a laptop pretending to be a tablet

It's so much *more* than a laptop pretending to be a tablet!

Ha Ha wording. English always offers such great opportunity for inadvertent hilarity.

Ad video in the article has terrible implications

[SuperKendall]

So I read through the article and at the end they link to a YouTube video ad for the Pixel Slate.

For an iPad a video like that would show HD video editors composing and refining video on the fly demonstrating the power of the device.

For the Slate though, the video basically amounts to "it plays videos real good". Google's vision really is tablets as pure consumption, not creation devices I guess (so then why even make a stylus I wonder??).

I can see maybe getting a super cheap Fire tablet for something mostly non-interactive but not as much as Google is charging for a much less functional device.

Stupid resolution

[Locke2005]

Why not do true UHD resolution (3,840x2,160) so I can watch movies on it without scaling?

Re:Stupid resolution

[OrangeTide]

Because 3:2 is a less cumbersome aspect ratio for a mobile device than 16:9. Physically more compact and lower perimeter and higher screen area.

Luckily bicubic scaling can be done in hardware these days and is fairly cheap and at high resolutions quite effective. You'll have a little box on the device, but maybe the extra 320 lines can be used to let you scroll through YouTube comments or display ads while you watch your slightly downscaled 4K videos.

I do agree that it would be nice if we conformed to some standard resolutions, and VESA tried to convince the computing industry to do this. But I don't agree that near movie screen aspect ratio is the right panel for every situation, the whole 16:9 thing is a bit of a marketing joke because 1.85:1 and 2.39:1 are preferable for movies rather than consumer wide-screen 1.77:1. I like 3840x2880 or 2560x1920 as a good compromise for 4:3, or 3840x2560 for 3:2. Of course getting 3840x2560 into the same space as 3000x2000 pixels is going to have compromises in manufacturing and probably not be as sharp.

More pixels!

[OrangeTide]

More crapware. More forced updates. Merry-go-round of deprecated services (Google+, XMPP, etc)

Android could be really good, technically speaking, if it were device first and cloud second. Google has the ecosystem backwards and essentially we're paying $$$ to host advertising space for Google.

I don't know which is worse, the forking of Android and lack of software updates from second tier Android vendors. Or the official Android branch and Google branded devices that have a problematic amount of garbage and constantly changing UI.

Re:More pixels!

[GrumpySteen]

ChromeOS isn't Android. It can run a virtualized version of Android to let you run Android apps, but the underlying OS isn't compatible with Android (a fact that became apparent when Google tried to implement native support for Android apps and failed).

If you're going to rant about Google's products, at least make an attempt to rant about the actual product you're posting in response to. ChromeOS has plenty of rant-worthy flaws, but you didn't actually touch on any of them.

Re:More pixels!

[OrangeTide]

If you're going to rant about Google's products, at least make an attempt to rant about the actual product you're posting in response to. ChromeOS has plenty of rant-worthy flaws, but you didn't actually touch on any of them.

You realize my comment "Merry-go-round of deprecated services" applied to Chrome equally right?

Anyways, to expand on my original point. I've developed for both, professionally as a system software developer for a hardware vendor.

In many ways ChromeOS is worse at being an operating system than Android. ChromeOS is less rich in terms of cross-application functionality, but that does make it simpler and easier to secure. And Chrome is more squarely aimed at being a dumb terminal that accesses many cloud-based applications, which is you'd think is exactly what Google wants. But at the same time Google tends to severely alter and sometimes EOL's those cloud applications, which I believe is to the detriment of a device like a Chromebook.

I would argue that ChromeOS is a kernel, drivers, and a browser. Data sharing is URL based, that has a certain elegance to it. But Android has a lot more in common with Newton, Palm, or Xerox Star/Alto. In that it's not just a GUI but it's very document oriented in that a data objects type (files, clipboard items, messages, etc) control how it is routed to an application. And applications have a formula state machine built in (if you've done Palm or Newton programming this will seem very familiar)

The business strategy for Android and ChromeOS are similar though, w.r.t. being a platform for advertising. Even if the technical details are different between the two environments. (it's a bit amazing how different two Linux-based environments can be). Although Linux isn't even all that essential to the experience and Fuchsia will soon easily slot into either Android or ChromeOS.

Screen res - BFD

[sootman]

"It has a resolution of 3,000 x 2,000 -- i.e., a pixel density of 293 ppi, which Google says is the highest for a premium 12-inch tablet. For reference, the Surface Pro 6 and iPad Pro (12.9 inch) come in at 267 ppi and 264 ppi, respectively."

So its pixel density is 11% higher than the competition. Big friggin' deal. Each device runs a drastically different OS, and that is what will cause people to buy or ignore each product. It's not like that 11% difference will enable any magical abilities on the Google product that are unachievable on the others.

Honestly, I'm happier about the 3:2 aspect ratio. 16:9 sucks. 16:10 sucks slightly less. 3:2 and 4:3 are better. Good on them for not just going with 16:9.

Expensive

[R3]

Ok, so let's do a quick price comparison.
Picked the same configuration for both - i5, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage
All prices are in US$, taken directly from Google's and Microsof't web stores, no discounts applied.

Pixel Slate - $1299
Slate Keyboard: $259
Pixel Pen: $129
Total: $1687

Surface Pro 6 - $899
Surface Type Cover - $129
Surface Pen - $99
Total: $1127

Will even throw a year of O365 Home to Surface configuration ($79), final total: $1206

Now, is the Pixel Slate *REALLY* worth nearly $500 extra?

Re:Expensive

[Aighearach]

If they charge a reasonable price for it, people will want to buy it.

If people buy it, they will become fans of it.

If people become fans of it, they will get mad when it is discontinued.

This is the natural evolution of Google's product history. They're just trying to stem the tide of disgruntled former fans who hate them now.

So yes, the extra $500 is totally worth it to Google, as long as nobody actually gives it to them.

Re:Expensive

[wangmaster]

Where are you getting your numbers?
i5 with 8/128 is 999
keyboard is 199
pen is 99
for a grand total of 1297

I'm geting my $US from here:
https://store.google.com/produ...

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they justify that kind of price for something that you KNOW they'll pull support on in a few years. And when a Chromebook has support pulled, it's DEAD unless you've already updated it to full Linux or something.

I get the appeal of the cheaper Chromebooks for consumption. I even get the appeal of them for people that want a quick conversion Linux craptop to tote around without fear of it being stolen and having a $1000 hole in their wallet over it. I don't get spending really good laptop levels of money for a Chromebook. It just simply does not compute on any level. It makes my brain melt.

Re:Expensive

[R3]

My bad - I got flipped to Canadian store.

So the real difference is $170.

In other news, Canucks are being fleeced for their electronics......

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

You're paying to not have to deal with the clusterfuck of Windows device management.
I have a Surface Pro and it's kind of a solution looking for a problem. It takes ~15 seconds to boot and every time I use it, it spends 10 minutes doing updates because it's not my everyday device. It also doesn't have enough use ports for a full-fat client and still has the problems that come from trying to run standard windows applications on a touchscreen. I will use it for presentations and meetings, but that's about it.

I wasn't personally impacted by data loss on the Windows 10 1809 update, but one of my co-workers was. She lost about 3 weeks worth of data that was fortunately easy to undelete but holy crap that should NOT happen. It's also my experience that about 1 in 40 Windows 10 Milestone release updates will render a PC unable to boot. I'm tried of dealing with that.

I also have a Google Pixelbook. I won it as a door prize from a seminar I went to. The Chromebook never would've been on my radar otherwise. But the Chromebook starts within 2 seconds of me touching the power button and wakes as soon as I open the lid. Web pages and (most; Snapchat is a dog and AAA-type games are a different story) Android software load instantly. Updates are essentially transparent. It doesn't get hot at all and the battery seriously lasts around nine hours in real-world use. For a persona device, I'd buy a Chromebook in a heartbeat, even if the only thing I really did with it was remote in to bigger computers, read books and write emails.

Re:Expensive

[GrumpySteen]

We live in a world where an $85 leather wrapped rock sold out. Why would you think people wouldn't buy an overpriced computer?

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like you really didn't know what you were buying to begin with and are now complaining about it

Re:Expensive

[TheFakeTimCook]

Ok, so let's do a quick price comparison.
Picked the same configuration for both - i5, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage
All prices are in US$, taken directly from Google's and Microsof't web stores, no discounts applied.

Pixel Slate - $1299
Slate Keyboard: $259
Pixel Pen: $129
Total: $1687

Surface Pro 6 - $899
Surface Type Cover - $129
Surface Pen - $99
Total: $1127

Will even throw a year of O365 Home to Surface configuration ($79), final total: $1206

Now, is the Pixel Slate *REALLY* worth nearly $500 extra?

I notice you didn't put Apple into the mix. Wonder why?

iPad Pro 12.9" with 256 GB Flash (WiFi only) $949
Smart Keyboard $169 (or use the Logitech iPad Pro Keyboard case for $129) https://www.amazon.com/Logitec...

(or use any BT Keyboard, like this $35 one) https://www.amazon.com/iClever...

Apple Pencil $99

Total: $1083 to $1177, depending on which accessories you choose.

Looks like, for the smart shopper, at $1083, the iPad Pro 12.9" handily beats BOTH the Surface Pro AND the Pixel Slate, and even though the all-Apple solution is priced at $1177 ($50 more than the Surface Pro setup, but still $510 less than the Pixel Slate setup), the iPad Pro comes with 256 GB of storage, DOUBLE that of the Surface Pro and Pixel Slate configs used in your comparison.

Seems like, since OSes, App availability, etc. is NOT considered in your comparison, that the iPad Pro is right in the ballpark, price-wise (but with twice the storage), and, like the Surface Pro, is VASTLY less expensive than the SpyMaster Slate...

FYI, pumping that Surface Pro with i5 up to 256 GB of Storage makes it jump to $1299 (plus keyboard and pen), or $1527 total. And for the Pixel Slate, equipping it with 256 GB of Storage takes it up to $1599 (plus keyboard and pen), for an eye-popping total of $1987!!! Meanwhile, the 256 GB iPad Pro system is looking like a gen-u-wine BARGAIN at $1177!!!

But, you can pump your iPad Pro up to 512 GB Storage (unavailable on the Pixel Slate) for $200 more, $1149). Bringing the total for THAT configuration to $1377 (the Surface Pro 512 GB config (albeit with an i7 and 16 GB RAM (and NO battery life!) would be $2127, for a system that honestly can't function as a mobile device, due to battery-life (or lack thereof) of around 4 hours for the i7-equipped system. At that point, just get a laptop and be done with it. Meanwhile, the 512 GB iPad Pro system is still $750 cheaper than the Surface one.

Re:Expensive

[TheFakeTimCook]

Where are you getting your numbers?
i5 with 8/128 is 999
keyboard is 199
pen is 99
for a grand total of 1297

I'm geting my $US from here:
https://store.google.com/produ...

So what? Still significantly more than an iPad Pro system with DOUBLE the Flash Storage.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, is the Pixel Slate *REALLY* worth nearly $500 extra?

It's definitely not, but you have to consider the big drawback to using a Surface tablet: you have to use Windows and endure/risk the continual forced installation of untested updates.

Say what you will about the great panopticon, Google, they don't minimize the wiping of tens of thousands of users' data as insignificant. (700m Win10 devices/100/100 = 70,000.)

Re:Expensive

[Kjella]

My bad - I got flipped to Canadian store. So the real difference is $170. In other news, Canucks are being fleeced for their electronics......

Since you didn't notice I assume this is CAD:

Total: $1687

vs

for a grand total of 1297

Google says 1687 CAD = 1305 USD. So like $8 difference, I think you goofed again...

Discontinued in a year

[JohnStock]

Just like everything else Google

Still not unseating Nintendo

[DarkRookie2]

I mean, there are trying to compete with the 3DS right?
The redesigns they have been putting out lately look like they belong in a child's toy.

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[Luthair]

One could also make the argument that Google's video is realistic while Apple's is delusional.

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[phayes]

Should you wish to be known as someone who lies to himself and others, go right ahead.

I setup the firewalls for a major photo/video studio's different locations around Paris this year. Macs, PC's and iPad Pros were heavily used in production. Not a single Andoid tablet to be found.

Big woop

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, slightly higher resolution.
Such innovation.

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[TheFakeTimCook]

One could also make the argument that Google's video is realistic while Apple's is delusional.

Not so much.

Here is a non-Apple review showing silky-smooth EDITING of 4K video on the LOWEST of the current iPad line, the 2017 iPad 9.7:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[Luthair]

The point is that no one actually does it.

Availability?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Acer Chromebook Spin 13 intrigued me and I was considering picking one up, but their announced release "date" (a vague "sometime in September") has come and gone. Now I'd be concerned that they were held back due to problems with the product so I'm not going to jump on one quickly even if they are released sometime in the near future.

Is Google expected to make their tablet available sometime in the foreseeable future? I'd prefer the slightly larger screen of the Chromebook Spin 13, but now that they've sown distrust in their product I'm open to considering something slightly smaller.

Yes they do

[SuperKendall]

I edit video on an iPad, and it works really well.

What you are missing is the very real world of iPhone filmography and high-end capture apps that really wring quality from the sensor. On the iPad Apple has provided very powerful video editing tools... tons of people use them and Apple shows people using them in ads very realistically, as I have seen others do.

Re:Yes they do

[Luthair]

What you are missing is the very real world of iPhone filmography and high-end capture apps that really wring quality from the sensor.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with using a tablet for real work.

Re:Yes they do

[SuperKendall]

It does when they stay on iOS devices for editing which as I explained I have seen people do.

Your definition of "real work" is laughably small compared to what is being done in real life, today.

Headphone

[markdavis]

And it has no headphone jack. Fail.

So I still have nothing to replace my ancient Nexus 10 with that is reasonable. I don't want a narrow screen (want large 16:9 video). I don't want to spend as much as a laptop. I don't care about a keyboard (that is why I want a TABLET). I don't care about pens. But I do want a headphone jack, very long battery life, and lots of storage (32GB *free* minimum). Closest thing in years now seems to be the Samsung Tab S4- but that means very expensive and questionable Android updates. Hmm...

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[TheFakeTimCook]

The point is that no one actually does it.

Translation: *I* don't do it; so nobody else does, either.

Thanks for playing, Hater.

Missing keys

[Tough Love]

Notably missing keys: home, end, page up, page down, delete. Not even an obvious function shift. Going to be a super pain for word processing. Otherwise it's almost a PC, with tight storage and zero expandability. Unfortunately I rate the keyboard a fail for its intended PC replacement purpose.

Re:Missing keys

[Anonymous Coward]

Notably missing keys: home, end, page up, page down, delete.

It's hardly the end of the world if Google handled it well.

A Windows-holic might freak out at the absence of those same keys on a MacBook, but Cmd+arrows cover pgup/pgdn/home/end and Fn+Delete is the same as Del. It's actually a bit weird switching over to Windows once you get the hang of Cmd+arrows.

Re:Missing keys

[Tough Love]

You eventually grit your teeth and tolerate the missing keys. You never get back to the same speed, you now need two hands to do these functions which in many cases are even more common than regular text. You can apologize for it, but that doesn't magically transform it into a decent keyboard for PC replacement. So, fail. This thing is really just another media consumption and texting device.

Meh, the screen

[fubarrr]

The screen resolution is a downer. Nobody wil make software that fits that oddball aspect ratio

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[Luthair]

Put down the koolaid.

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[Anonymous Coward]

> Google's vision really is tablets as pure consumption, not creation devices I guess ... which is why they are pushing running desktop linux apps on this? And the wacom pen? And muliple keyboards?
It seems you are reading quite a bit too much into one ad.

No SD card slot?

[rephlex]

No SD card slot = no purchase.

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[Anonymous Coward]

I know real video producers. Not one would ever edit a video on an ipad. Are you fscking kidding me??? People edit videos on ipad to send a video to Grandparents of their kid trying to take its first steps.

First, Les Parisiennes are not exactly.....tech savvy. But we'll give both them and you the benefit of the doubt because they are a Major Photo/Video studio since of course most places that specialize in one specialize in both, right? So if Paris does it of course it must be the way the world does it. Let me guess you're French as well? (Belgian here).

Second, Most artists I know, yes, sorry, not "major photo/video studios", who have used macs for years have been asking me if they can replace their macbook. Price to performance is continuing to decline in the Apple world...Oh, you use photoshop cloud? Sure. Oh you use vectorworks? Well, Windows.

Name me one piece of software that works 'better on mac' or is mac exclusive that ACTUAL PROFESSIONALS use.

The only real benefit of a mac is if you already know a mac and your team knows mac. Thats it.

Re:Ad video in the article has terrible implicatio

[TheFakeTimCook]

Put down the koolaid.

Put aside the Hate.