- Hey, what's up, MKBHD here.
So this new Pixel tablet is really interesting.
I got to spend about an hour with it
before this announcement
and I've come away both knowing that I don't need one,
but really liking it anyway,
so welcome to this first hands on
and first impressions video.
Also, feel free to check out the Pixel Fold impressions
which also has gone live today.
It's an $1,800 folding phone from Google.
Pretty crazy, I'll link it below,
but also make sure to get subscribed
and stay tuned because we have a video
of something a little more exclusive coming up
also from Google that you probably haven't seen yet.
But this tablet, this tablet is $499,
so really competitively priced
and it basically has one killer feature.
You kind of probably already know where I'm going with this.
So design wise, it's pretty simple.
Pretty basic with this aluminum enclosure,
but fully coded in this soft touch finish
that's really nice.
It almost doesn't even feel like metal anymore,
which is funny.
It's also pretty lightweight.
There's a single eight megapixel camera on the back
and a power button that doubles
as the fingerprint reader at the corner.
Overall, it looks like a pretty normal tablet, right?
So what's the killer feature?
Is it a software trick?
Is it the screen?
Is it a stylist?
Well, you see those four pins down at the bottom
of the tablet right below that Google logo on the back?
Those are power and data pins that line up
with these four pins
on this dock that's included in the box, sick.
So with the power of magnets,
this tablet slaps onto the back
and basically becomes a Google Nest Hub Max more or less.
So this is the thing they gave us a teaser of
at the last IO and honestly, it's as awesome as it looks.
It works great.
There's enough magnets that there's
like a pretty firm pressure needed to take the tablet
off of the dock, but when you put it back on, it grabs it
and holds it firmly in place and through those pins,
it instantly starts charging at 15 watts
and connects to the larger speaker inside the dock.
So that's upgraded audio
over the tablet's built-in speakers.
So a couple things on this.
First of all, I'm kind of surprised
that we hadn't seen this earlier.
We have seen a couple more basic versions of this.
There was a Lenovo tablet a while ago that would like dock
into a speaker, but I'm glad to see Google
actually flushing out this idea and doubling up on its use.
They told me something like 80 plus percent
of tablet use happens in the home.
So for those other 20%
when it's just sitting around your home,
it makes sense to just like pop it onto a dock
and now it's this nice polished nest hub display.
But then also I'm pretty pumped about the dock
actually being included in the box,
but do note it is the only charger included in the box.
So there is a USBC port on the side of the tablet
but there isn't any like USBC cable
or wall brick to plug straight into the wall.
So the only charger is the dock, which is fine,
but if you have another USBC cable, it will charge via wire,
but then the dock itself, it does not charge via USBC,
it charges with a wall wart to this like barrel charger
so just so you know.
Also theoretically, I guess you could go out
and buy a couple more of these docks and put them
in other places around your home if you just wanted to.
I'm not actually sure what the price
of just the dock would be yet
if they're gonna sell that individually.
I'll ask, I'll put a little update up here
if Google's able to answer by the time I post this video.
But it seems like, yeah, one in the living room,
one in the bedroom could be a thing,
but then when you pop the tablet onto the dock and lock it,
it activates what's called hub mode
and basically it just becomes a Google Nest Hub.
And so it can do any of the things that a nest hub would do.
It can be a digital photo frame if you want it to be.
It can be of course a smart home control panel,
which is what most people want a home hub to do.
There's also some smart settings in here
about not letting you into all of your other apps
when it is your family's screen.
That's why you lock it to enable this mode,
but then when you're using it as your personal tablet,
you unlock it and have access to everything.
Oh also, they made this pretty unique case that has
a wire stand that holds it up like surprisingly firmly.
But since it's just a big circular wire,
it has enough room to slap it
onto the dock and not be interrupted.
There's no extra magnets needed
so they don't have to take the case off
to dock it, pretty smart.
Either way, I'm just thinking like
this is basically doubling up the functionality
of the tablet.
The Nest Hub Max that's on sale right now is like $230.
So hey, if you're gonna spend 500 bucks on a tablet
and you also get that device out of it, it's kind of cool.
The rest of the tablet honestly, pretty mid.
It's just very average, like there's not too much
crazy other stuff going on with the specs.
I think the spec for the display
probably tells the whole story about the rest of the tablet.
This is an 11 inch 60 hertz LCD display.
It's 2560 by 1600
which is pretty solid and very reasonable brightness
for using it around the house and indoors.
Nothing too crazy, 500 nits.
It's gonna be perfectly fine for watching videos
or movies on the couch or even handing it to a kid,
which is what a lot of people do with tablets nowadays,
but it's not trying to compete at the high end
like a workstation high refresh rate iPad type of thing.
Fun fact too though,
you can also get one with a black bezel.
They've showed all these teasers of the ones
with white bezels and I was always commenting
on that on the podcast,
but turns out the porcelain color and rose color
have white bezels, but the hazel colored one
has black bezels so you at least have that choice.
There is also a Tensor G2 chip inside
so the same chip we've had
for half a year in the Pixel Seven line.
There's eight gigs of RAM and either 128 or 256 gigs
of storage and a 27 watt hour battery
which I believe will translate to
right around 7,000 milliamp hours.
The eight megapixel camera on the back, it's super basic.
It doesn't even have a portrait mode.
That's not really the focus of this device.
The cameras are more just for being able to do simple photos
and video calls like you'd find on a nest hub.
I do wonder if you could use this tablet while docked
as a security camera.
I'm not sure,
I didn't get to try that or find that during my demo time,
but I'll definitely be digging around
for that sort of stuff in the full review.
But I also said this
in the Pixel fold impressions video,
which is it's an Android tablet still
and it's been a minute since we've had a real hit
of an Android tablet probably for Google,
it's been since the Nexus Seven.
And so this one has a pretty clear value proposition
of the killer feature of it being two devices in one,
but then you still have the software question
which is like
what are you actually gonna do on this tablet?
Now, I think with a middle tier media tablet like this,
people probably won't be asking that question as much
but still for me,
I just wonder like what about multitasking?
What about split screen apps
and all the other things you expect out of a big screen?
So I think Google's being smart
about intentionally not starting
with some crazy $800 premium tablet
because that's what people will be asking
and immediately starting to try to do
with a powerful high-end tablet.
But with this one, you just cover the basics
like side by side split screen multitasking is here
and even optimizing Google's 50 plus apps for tablets,
they've talked a big game about this
so they have multi column layouts
and they don't just look like stretched out smartphone apps,
which is good.
They're really responsive to the size of the screen.
So this tablet will benefit
from all the improvements that also went into
the $1,800 Pixel Fold, which is pretty cool,
but yeah, I think for a $499 tablet,
it settles nicely into the mid-range.
Oh, actually here we go, quick little update.
I just got an email back saying Google
will be selling the dock separately from the tablet
if you want another one for $130.
If you think about it like that, it's pretty good value.
500 bucks for the tablet
and the dock means you get about 370
for the tablet and 130 for the dock.
That's pretty cheap, it's pretty good.
I'm curious what you guys are thinking.
Let me know in the comments if you think you'd be interested
in getting one of these, but more importantly,
what do you wanna see in the full review
when we get one here and test everything
cause we're gonna do it.
Okay, that's been it.
Thanks for watching.
Catch you in the next one, peace.
(upbeat music)