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Art et designTranscription
00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here.
00:05Ok, I'm going to make myself sound really old here just for a second.
00:08But about 10 years ago, there was a vibrant ecosystem of a ton of different tablets.
00:15There was all kinds of tablets.
00:17There was like iPads versus Android tablets, all these fights going on.
00:20There were small screen tablets, big screen tablets, and all the Android tablets were
00:24sort of anchored by Google's family of Nexus tablets.
00:28So we had the smash hit Nexus 7 and the cult classic Nexus 10.
00:34But then Google kind of got a little bit lost with Android tablets and Chrome OS tablets
00:38a little bit in there for a bit, and they made a few bad ones in a row, and then they
00:42just gave up.
00:45Like they literally just gave up.
00:47Stopped making tablets.
00:48But something else that's picked up a whole bunch of steam since then is a new product
00:51category, smart home displays.
00:54So Google bought Nest, and we've seen this Nest Hub, and the Nest Hub Max came out,
00:58and this is a growing category every single month.
01:01So at some point during all of this, Google probably thought, wait a second, we're making
01:05all these smart home displays, and what is a smart home display?
01:08It's basically just a cheap tablet.
01:12So what if we just made a cheap tablet that could turn into a smart home display?
01:19And so that's how we got this.
01:21This is the Pixel tablet.
01:23So I've been using this tablet for a few weeks now, and look, it's not amazing or
01:28super premium or high-end or exciting, and neither are any of the other smart home displays,
01:35but I do want to talk about it.
01:36It's also a little bit interesting and underrated in how important this tablet could be to other
01:42tablets.
01:43So let's talk about it.
01:44So as a tablet, this thing is pretty simple.
01:46I really like the soft touch finish on the back.
01:48This is the porcelain color, and it hides fingerprints really, really well.
01:51Feels solid in the hand.
01:53It's actually made of metal, but you honestly could never tell just holding it thanks to
01:56this coating, but it's very basic.
01:58Single camera on the back corner, volume buttons with the inset fingerprint reader
02:02that doubles as a power button up at the top.
02:05There's a set of speakers on the left and right that sounds okay, but really doesn't
02:09have much bass at all, and the USB-C port is on the left-hand side.
02:13It's not too big, it's not too heavy, and on the front is an 11-inch 2560x1600 60Hz
02:19LCD display with bezels just thin enough to hold it and not be a problem.
02:23And the display does not get particularly bright, and it's not the fastest thing in
02:27the world, but it is running the same Tensor G2 chip as the Pixel 7s.
02:32But I just, I cannot call this tablet fast.
02:35Not sure if it's underclocked or what's happening here, but it behaves very much like a basic
02:41mid-range Android tablet.
02:43And that's because that's basically what it is.
02:46This is a $499 tablet, and it comes with the dock in the box that you can buy separately
02:53if you want to, if you want an additional one, for $130.
02:57So I would say, tame your expectations here.
03:01Like, it works, and it does what it's supposed to, but I would just, I would say, tame your
03:07expectations.
03:08So this speaker dock comes in the box, which I think is super cool, and it's actually
03:12the only way to charge the tablet that comes in the box.
03:15There is no USB-C cable in here.
03:17It's just the dock, which has a barrel connector that connects to the wall.
03:21And the dock is basically, it's just a speaker in a box, really, with some pins.
03:26Super simple.
03:27The pins kind of retract a little bit when you touch them, which is cool, but basically
03:30the premise is, there's some magnets in the dock, as you can see here with this magnet
03:35paper, and there's some magnets in the tablet, which you can also see here with this magnet
03:39paper.
03:40And so when you line those up and connect the dock to the tablet, it just pops right
03:44onto those pins, and the pins carry both power and data.
03:47So now it's charging, and the audio quality should be improved because it's now using
03:51the speaker in the dock.
03:53It works pretty darn quickly, too.
03:54Thankfully, it's not Bluetooth pairing or anything.
03:56It's just literally a physical connection for the data, so it's just like connecting
04:01like an iPad to a keyboard.
04:02It just works right away.
04:04It holds it at a pretty good angle, too.
04:05It's basically straight up and down.
04:07It looks just like a Nest Home Hub when you put it on the dock like that.
04:11Magnets are pretty strong.
04:12You can just pop it off with one hand if you want to.
04:15I'm just glad that this comes in the box and isn't an additional $130.
04:21First of all, the charging speed is up to 15 watts, which is not that fast.
04:27It's a tablet battery, so it's pretty big.
04:29It takes a while to charge.
04:31And then the speaker in here is not that great.
04:34I would say it feels on par with like the Nest Hub Mini at best.
04:40So the speakers in the tablet are, like I said, they're fine, but they really lack
04:44a lot of bass.
04:45And then when you add it to the speaker dock, you're getting like 20 to 30% more volume,
04:50but it's mostly just adding the bass back.
04:53But it's not super loud.
04:54Here, I'll give you a little sample.
04:58Not a ton of bass, right?
05:05All low end.
05:07And it's quick, too.
05:08It's immediate.
05:09I'm going to turn it off.
05:10Back to the speakers.
05:11But it's not the loudest thing in the world.
05:14Honestly, I guess it's fine.
05:15This dock cannot be used as a Bluetooth speaker or anything else when the tablet isn't attached.
05:21But honestly, I don't think you'd want to.
05:23It basically just sits there and is waiting for the tablet to be attached to it.
05:27What's funny, though, is it does help with the battery.
05:29So the battery life on this tablet was decent for me, but it did have particularly weak
05:33standby life for some reason.
05:35It would drop like 10% overnight sometimes, which could be a bug.
05:38So either way, the idea is when you're done using it, you can pop it onto the dock and
05:42it is literally just a smart speaker now.
05:45Now, if you really wanted to, you could buy another one and put it in a different room.
05:50And then when it's in the kitchen, per se, it'll show you certain things.
05:54When it's in the bedroom, it'll show you other things.
05:57But it is $130 per dock.
05:59And I'm now starting to think that that's the more overpriced thing among this bundle.
06:05So just know what you're getting into there.
06:07But I think really what I realized is this docking feature, it's cool, but it's not the
06:11most interesting part of this tablet for me.
06:13It's the headlining feature because it's the cool thing that it does.
06:17But as I was talking about, there was this whole tablet ecosystem like 10 years ago.
06:23And seeing what Google does with the software for this tablet could give us a window into
06:29how Google can anchor Android tablets again going forward.
06:33So I was really curious about the software.
06:35So here's what I found.
06:36Number one, I really like the new dock, the software dock.
06:40So the home button at the bottom, you can swipe up at any time and all the same gestures
06:44work like normal, but there's a new gesture where you just grab the bottom bar and swipe
06:49up just a little bit.
06:50And that brings up a dock, which is the exact same order of whatever apps you had in your
06:54home screen dock.
06:55It also shows up in multitasking.
06:57And then from there, you can switch to a recent app or initiate multitasking by dragging something
07:02to half the screen to get two things going at once.
07:05It works great.
07:07It's simple.
07:08I use it all the time for going back and forth between two things quickly.
07:11So I really like that.
07:13Then number two, multi-user support is so sick and the iPad should seriously be taking
07:19notes on this.
07:20So anytime you want, either from the notification tray or from the lock screen or anywhere that
07:24you see that profile picture for your account, you can switch users.
07:28When you set up a new user at first, you basically go through the whole setup process as if you're
07:33setting up a brand new tablet.
07:35And then that second person can sign into their apps and set up their home screen and
07:40their widgets and everything.
07:41And you can switch back and forth by logging into each one, literally just with your fingerprint.
07:46It's exactly as simple as it should be.
07:48It could also totally be like one person's personal profile and business profile.
07:52So you never get the two confused or I don't know, just a profile for your burner accounts,
07:57whatever you want to make it.
07:58The point is tablets are often used at home and by families that have more than one person.
08:04So the ability to just like log into your kid's account and not have them worry about
08:09accidentally buying $30,000 of, I don't know, Minecraft credits or something.
08:14It's a pretty obviously great feature.
08:16And then number three, of course, hub mode.
08:17This is the mode that sort of pops up when you get it onto the dock that they had to
08:22build of course, because they turned this into a smart hub.
08:24I kind of end up just using it like a smart hub.
08:28A lot of the time that it's on this dock, I don't touch it as much.
08:30I just use voice controls, which all work.
08:33And then I have a clock here.
08:34You can do like a photo gallery type thing or rotating pieces of art.
08:40And of course, the smart home display controls are available at the bottom corner, but it
08:44just kind of lives like that.
08:46I have it in the kitchen most of the time.
08:47Nice.
08:48Oh, this is also fun fact.
08:50The first tablet that has Chromecast built in as a target, so you can use it as a target
08:54to Chromecast things to it.
08:58I would never do that, but you can do that.
09:00So then number four, last but not least, is the app situation.
09:05This is something we talk a lot about with Android tablets, and there was a lot of promise
09:08with this version and with this tablet that there would be a whole bunch of new tablet
09:12optimized apps and that that experience would be meaningfully different.
09:18And it's not.
09:19Well, I guess you could say it's a little bit true.
09:21So Google can say that their own apps are now all optimized and take full advantage
09:27of the larger display.
09:28So, you know, you can be confident anytime you open a Google app on this Google tablet,
09:33it's going to look great.
09:34And that's awesome.
09:35But for all of the rest of the apps that make the world go round, all the third party
09:39apps, all the stuff that you probably are thinking about when getting a tablet that
09:42you're going to use, there is no meaningful difference in that situation right now.
09:47So a lot of them are still big phone apps, I would say.
09:52Instagram is still a giant phone app.
09:54Twitter is still a giant phone app.
09:57Tesla is still a giant phone app.
09:59Expedia is still a giant phone app.
10:01Cash App is still not optimized.
10:03Neither is TikTok.
10:04It still kind of looks weird.
10:07SoundCloud is like half optimized, I guess.
10:10Pocket Cast is also halfway there, looking like a giant phone app.
10:14Overdrop Weather is still a blown up phone app.
10:16And the list goes on and on.
10:18They have this thing where you can double tap the space to the left or to the right
10:21to move it over to the side to make it more one handable.
10:24But I mean, yeah, that's it.
10:26It's just a big phone app.
10:27The app ecosystem for Android tablets is still to this day, even now that this has arrived,
10:32it's still the biggest weakness of an Android tablet.
10:35And the incentive, it's got to be on developers, of course.
10:39But most of their incentive is to be as simple and streamlined as possible.
10:42And if you can just make one iPad app that covers all iPads, you'll do it.
10:47But if you can make one tablet app, it won't necessarily work on all Android tablets.
10:53So the incentive is still kind of tough.
10:54Well, actually, there is one app that Google can say that they got optimized before the iPad.
11:01And that's the calculator.
11:04They did do a full scientific, not scientific, but a full on calculator.
11:08There's a history over here to the side.
11:10There's the readout which you can change the size of, light and dark theme, all this stuff.
11:14It's pretty good.
11:17Your move, Apple.
11:18Some other little random things that didn't quite fit into the full review.
11:21When it's docked on the charger, it default charges up to 90%, not 100%.
11:25But I do think that's smart.
11:26It preserves the battery life overall.
11:28There's also no headphone jack on this tablet, just so you know.
11:31And then in case you were wondering, the camera quality is very much in line with the rest
11:35of this tablet's hardware.
11:37Pretty mid.
11:38It's good enough for basic video calls and document scanning, but nobody's shooting any
11:43movies on this thing.
11:44At the end of the day, though, my conclusion is this.
11:47Two-in-one devices are typically, they're funny because they're always slightly worse
11:52at one of the things that they're trying to be.
11:55This is a two-in-one device.
11:57It's a tablet, and it's a smart home hub.
12:00So I was wondering as I got it, what is it going to be compromised at?
12:03Is it worse at one or worse at the other?
12:05Turns out it's a decent, cheap Android tablet, and it's a slightly below average speaker
12:13dock, home hub.
12:16But that's fine.
12:17These two things are close enough together and are simple enough that it makes sense,
12:21at least.
12:22I would personally love a super high-end version of this.
12:26I'd be so down for like a 120 hertz, super fast, nice premium tablet that also could
12:32dock whenever I want on a nice speaker and become like this high-end boombox thing.
12:37But I also know that that would be super expensive and would have a much, much smaller target
12:42demographic and probably wouldn't sell enough to exist well.
12:45So this is the thing that makes sense.
12:48And I think it may actually sell a decent amount, and we'll see how it does.
12:53Until the next one, thanks for watching.
12:56Catch you in the next one.
12:57Peace.