Google’s ‘premium’ Pixel Tablet positive doesn’t look very premium

Big white bezels. Matte, looks-like-plastic again. Thick profile. 2023. Android.

That’s about all we learn about Google’s forthcoming Pixel Tablet, which the corporate teased throughout its keynote presentation for the I/O 2022 developer convention this week. Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice chairman of units and providers and head of the Pixel program, confirmed to my colleague David Pierce that the pill is coming to fill out the vary of Pixel units and supply a whole ecosystem in Google’s lineup.

But as I noticed the picture of the Pixel Tablet pop up within the livestream in the course of the keynote, I couldn’t assist however react with, “That? That’s Google’s big return to tablet hardware?” The machine that Google confirmed off brings to thoughts the entrance of a Samsung pill from circa 2013 or 2014 with the again of an Amazon Fire HD 10, not one thing that may really feel futuristic and even present in 2023 when it’s alleged to be launched.

While it’s been a number of years since Google has made a pill of its personal, the remainder of the pill market (specifically, Apple and Samsung) have refined their merchandise with smooth, aluminum frames; loud, expansive speaker techniques; and trim bezels that make no matter’s on their vivid, high-refresh-rate screens virtually soar out at you. Heck, even comparatively cheap Chrome OS tablets look extra trendy than what Google has proven off to this point.

The different bizarre a part of this design is that it lacks any similarity to the Pixel line of telephones. When you see an iPad Air or iPad Pro, you’ll be able to instantly see the connection to the newest iPhones. I’m not asking Google to place a digicam bar throughout the again of the pill (or possibly it ought to?), however this pill appears prefer it might have been made by any firm and doesn’t precisely slot in with Google’s Pixel 6, 6A, 7, and even the Pixel Watch. It virtually appears like a reference design a manufacturing facility would possibly slap collectively for a consumer. That’s even supposing Osterloh described it as “a perfect companion for Pixel” and a “next-generation Android tablet.”

Much of this may very well be excused if Google decides to cost the Pixel Tablet extraordinarily low to compete with the finances Fire tablets from Amazon (and hearken again to the one Google pill anybody favored, the Nexus 7). But in a separate dialog, Osterloh stated the pill can be “more of a premium style product, on the larger size,” which signifies to me it would A) not be significantly low-cost and B) not be significantly small.

2023 remains to be a methods away, and Google has loads of time to make changes right here. We additionally know little or no in regards to the {hardware} itself — Which Tensor processor is inside? How a lot RAM and storage will there be? Does it help pen enter? Will there be a model with much less distracting black bezels? Are there removable keyboard equipment? (As for the final level, it’s possible since there seemed to be pogo connection pins on the again of the pill.) I’m additionally judging its design based mostly on what we all know of this 12 months’s Pixel line of merchandise. Perhaps by 2023, Google could have shifted every little thing over to a matte plastic aesthetic once more, and the Pixel Tablet will match proper in with that. It’d be an odd flip after embracing premium steel and glass finishes on the Pixel telephones, but it surely wouldn’t be the weirdest factor I’ve seen Google do.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

And, after all, {hardware} received’t be what makes the Pixel Tablet sink or swim. It will all come right down to software program, which Google nonetheless has a number of work to do to show it cares about Android tablets. The firm did decide to updating greater than 20 of its first-party apps to higher help pill shows within the coming weeks, and it says it’s gotten help from main third-party apps to really make pill variations of their Android apps, too. But that’s a narrative we’ve heard many instances earlier than, and I’m reticent to imagine it till I see it.

Despite all that and the lengthy lead time earlier than the Pixel Tablet hits the market, first impressions are vital, and based mostly on what we’ve seen to this point, it’s exhausting to get excited for this and exhausting to see how Google is doing something totally different than what we have already got with tablets from different corporations. It’s odd that it selected this {hardware} design to construct curiosity in.

And ugh, these white bezels.