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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.
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.
Just like Google+ and all those other now forgotten Google things you bought into.
Except this one actually has a dollar price.
Typical accessory scam.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why not do true UHD resolution (3,840x2,160) so I can watch movies on it without scaling?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"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.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
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.
Just like everything else Google
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.
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...
My bad - I got flipped to Canadian store.
So the real difference is $170.
In other news, Canucks are being fleeced for their electronics......
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.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
One could also make the argument that Google's video is realistic while Apple's is delusional.
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.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
We live in a world where an $85 leather wrapped rock sold out. Why would you think people wouldn't buy an overpriced computer?
One could also make the argument that Google's video is realistic while Apple's is delusional.
Not so much.
Here is a non-Apple review showing silky-smooth EDITING of 4K video on the LOWEST of the current iPad line, the 2017 iPad 9.7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The point is that no one actually does it.
I edit video on an iPad, and it works really well.
What you are missing is the very real world of iPhone filmography and high-end capture apps that really wring quality from the sensor. On the iPad Apple has provided very powerful video editing tools... tons of people use them and Apple shows people using them in ads very realistically, as I have seen others do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And it has no headphone jack. Fail.
So I still have nothing to replace my ancient Nexus 10 with that is reasonable. I don't want a narrow screen (want large 16:9 video). I don't want to spend as much as a laptop. I don't care about a keyboard (that is why I want a TABLET). I don't care about pens. But I do want a headphone jack, very long battery life, and lots of storage (32GB *free* minimum). Closest thing in years now seems to be the Samsung Tab S4- but that means very expensive and questionable Android updates. Hmm...
Ok, so let's do a quick price comparison.
Picked the same configuration for both - i5, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage
All prices are in US$, 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.
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.
The point is that no one actually does it.
Translation: *I* don't do it; so nobody else does, either.
Thanks for playing, Hater.
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.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The screen resolution is a downer. Nobody wil make software that fits that oddball aspect ratio
Put down the koolaid.
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...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No SD card slot = no purchase.
Put down the koolaid.
Put aside the Hate.