Google’s Pixel Tablet isn’t its answer to the iPad, but it fills a niche

While we won’t see the Pixel Fold in Canada, the Pixel Tablet is indeed coming here.

Google hasn’t released its own Android tablet since the Pixel Slate back in 2018. Though that tablet was made for productivity and offered Chrome OS, the Pixel Tablet is quite different.

This time, the tablet offers Google’s Android 13 operating system, similar to the latest Pixel smartphones on the market, and oddly, it also features a dock. Google revealed the tablet at its Made by Google event in 2022, and back then, we didn’t know exactly what to expect from the company’s new tablet offering, but ahead of I/O, I checked the Pixel Tablet out.

While I tested out how the device felt in my hand and how it sounded with and without the dock, you’ll have to wait for MobileSyrup’s full review to see if you should drop $699 on the tablet.

The Pixel Tablet Nest Hub

First off, the Pixel Tablet is pretty much a Nest Hub in some respects. It docks on a small speaker base (that comes with the device) and connects magnetically via a POGO connection. It was hilarious watching everyone try to connect the device to the base and accidentally drop it. Once the tablet is on the base, it’s very attached, and I wouldn’t be worried about it randomly falling off, but it does take a little practice to line up. By the end of my two-hour hands-on (where I also spent time with the Pixel 7a), I was an expert at connecting the tablet to the dock.

Once connected, the tablet goes into ‘Hub Mode,’ where it functions like a Nest Hub. If you want, you can set up screen savers, which turn the tablet into a digital picture frame, and connects it with other Nest items in your home. This is also the best way to charge the Pixel Tablet so that it’s always ready to go when you are. Of course, you can also use “Hey Google” to control your appliances or ask the device questions.

When your Pixel Tablet is connected, you can also use the dock’s speakers when listening to music or watching content on YouTube or other apps you cast from your phone.

Google says that the dock’s speakers are four times louder than the tablet’s, but that’s not really the best way to measure quality. In our brief time with the Pixel Tablet, it’s difficult to say whether the sound is a lot louder than a Nest Hub or Nest mini, but it does pack a punch.

MobileSyrup’s Brad Bennett compared the dock to a subwoofer, as you could hear loud, clear bass when the Pixel Tablet is docked. We were in a decently sized room with a DJ playing music, and we could still decently hear the docked Pixel Tablet far away. We played some Afro Beats and the new Transformers: Rise of the Beasts trailer to test out the speakers, and we were impressed — especially by the deepness of the bass.

Tablet Mode

Taking the tablet off the speaker, you get more of a tinny not-so-loud sound from it. Your Pixel smartphone probably sounds less tinny and offers more of a robust package than the Pixel Tablet. You’re definitely supposed to be using the bass if you’re planning to listen to music with the tablet.

When you’re holding the Pixel Tablet horizontally, like you typically would watch content, there are stereo speakers on either side that users can easily accidentally block with their hands — another reason why you want to dock the tablet when you’re watching content.

The tablet uses a nano-ceramic coating, which Google says is inspired by the feel of porcelain. It has a soft matte look and is textured, but it gives the device a more mid-range feeling and reminds me of Pixel ‘A’ series devices. It lacks the premium feel I expected from the Pixel Tablet, and others felt the same way. Someone in the hands-on area asked, “Is this plastic?”

Don’t get me wrong, it felt nice, but it doesn’t offer the premium glass or metal feel other comparably priced devices offer. The Pixel Tablet weighs 493g, which puts it over a pound; still making it surprisingly lighter than I expected considering its dimensions (10.2-inches width x 6.7-inches height x 0.3-inches depth).

Nitty Gritty

The Pixel Tablet features a 10.95-inch display with an LCD panel that offers a 2560 x1600-pixel resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate. The display seems good enough to watch content before bed or while you’re cooking, but it isn’t mind-blowing. Additionally, the tablet sports 8GB of RAM and up to 255GB of storage. There’s also the Tensor G2 chip, which is also featured in the Pixel 7 series, the Pixel 7a, and the Pixel Fold. We didn’t get time to put the tablet through its paces, but in theory, it should offer power similar to the Pixel 7, which also sports 8GB of RAM and the Tensor G2 chip.

There’s also an 8-megapixel front-facing and rear-facing camera on the device that seems good enough for video calls. You can also have access to all the lovely photo-taking and editing tools you’d get on the Pixel 7 series, including ‘Photo Unblur,’ ‘Magic Eraser,’ ‘Night Sight,’ ‘Live HDR+’ and more; however, you’re probably not going to use Night Sight on your tablet.

The Mountain View company hasn’t specifically stated what battery size is featured in the Pixel Tablet, though the company says the device offers up to 12 hours of video streaming, which should be good enough for most plane rides. With that, there’s Bluetooth 4.2 connection, so you can connect your headphones to the device via a wireless connection.

Google says they’ve optimized 50 Google apps for the Pixel Tablet, and it can run multiple apps simultaneously. I played around with split screen and multitasking, and it seemed easy enough, but there’s a lot more testing that needs to be done.

The Pixel Tablet also has three built-in microphones for calls, recordings and Google Assitant, which we also didn’t get to try out during our time with the device.

Google’s new Pixel Tablet comes in ‘Rose,’ ‘Hazel’ and ‘Porcelain.’ We only saw the Hazel variant that matched the Pixel 7 Pro, and boy, was the device pretty. Oddly there isn’t a Rose dock, so if you opt for the pink device, you’re going to get a Porcelain dock, which is a bit of a letdown.

Is it worth it?

The Pixel Tablet costs $699 in Canada, and if you want more docks around your house, you’re going to need to spend another $179 per unit. It’s worth noting that you can’t use the docks by themselves but only when they are attached to the tablet — which seemed like a huge missed opportunity, in my opinion.

Without doing a full review of the tablet, it’s hard to say whether you should be dropping about $700, but I like the idea of the device.

I think it makes sense to have a tablet that can turn into a Nest Hub; however, perhaps I’d want something smaller, with a 7-inch or 8-inch display and have Google drop the price by two or three hundred dollars.

However, I think the tablet still fills a niche of someone who loves to watch content, uses Android and doesn’t want a tablet to serve as a productivity device. In fact, the tablet might be for someone like my mother. She loves Android products and often watches South Korean dramas before bed. She can take the tablet off the dock and watch her shows and, before bed, snap it back into the dock. She already uses a Nest Hub in her room so she can check the weather and set alarms and uses it to intercom with my brother to make sure he wakes up in the morning. Now, she could place the Nest Hub in another room and use the Pixel Tablet both as her content device and her Nest Hub replacement. Having the Pixel Tablet fill both needs instead of having two different products is definitely something she’d prefer as well.

And, at the end of the day, both MobileSyrup’s Jon Lamont and I said that the Pixel Tablet feels like a Pixel device. And that’s not a bad thing, as you’re getting a pure Android experience as Google intended it, and both Jon and I love our Pixel smartphones. However, if you’re not a Pixel enthusiast, you might want to wait for the full review before pre-ordering the tablet.

The Pixel Tablet will be available to purchase on June 19th in Canada for $699.

All of our Google I/O 2023 content can be found here.

Photography by Bradley Bennett.