Google Pixel Slate Review: a solid case for the death of Android tablets | Technology

Pixel Slate is Google's latest attempt to create a high-end tablet, built this time around Chrome OS rather than Android, and it's even better.

Google had already made tablets, the last pixel being about as good as an Android productivity tablet, ie: far from being as good as a PC .

But Google has another operating system, Chrome OS, which started as a simple Chrome browser. It is now a lightweight but powerful operating system with support for Android and Linux applications.

The Pixel Slate is Google's attempt to show that Chrome OS can be used both as an operating system for entertainment tablet and as a serious work tool.

Simple design

On the outside, Pixel Slate is about as simple as tablets. The front has a 12.3-inch high-density LCD monitor, crisp and beautiful, as powerful as on high-end notebooks.

A relatively large and uniform frame frames the screen and houses a top webcam and a pair of quite powerful stereo speakers left and right. The Gorilla Glbad 5 screen finishes with an aluminum case, comfortable to wear for long periods.

Flip the tablet over to find that the dark blue aluminum back is strangely devoid of lines, marked only by a discreet "G" logo in the upper left corner and a camera on the top right.

The bottom of the tablet has a magnetic connector that allows it to slide into the keyboard case, while the power button located at the top left also serves as a fingerprint reader and works well.

The Slate Pixel screen is 7mm thick, 1.5mm shorter than Microsoft's Surface Pro 6, but 1.1mm thicker than the new 12.9-inch Apple iPad Pro. The Google tablet weighs 726 g, 50 g less than the Surface Pro 6, but nearly 100 g more than the iPad Pro. The Pixel Slate is thin and light for a PC, but bigger and heavier than most multimedia tablets.

Characteristics

• Screen: 12.3-inch 3000×2000 Molecular Display LCD (293 dpi)

• Processor: Intel Celeron or Core m3, i5 or i7 (8th generation Y series)

• RAM: 4, 8 or 16 GB

• Storage room: 32, 64, 128 or 256 GB

• Operating system: Chrome OS

• Camera: 8MP front facing and 8MP rear camera

• connectivity: Wifi ac, Bluetooth 4.2, 2x USB-C

• Dimensions: 202 x 290.9 x 7mm

• Weight: 726g

Hardware

The model tested included an Intel Core i5 processor (8200Y) at 1.3 GHz, 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.

The interest of Chrome OS is that it offers a good experience of inexpensive and low-end hardware. Give it relatively powerful components and it flies absolutely.

The Core i5 version tested has managed everything you can do with Chrome OS with confidence. No amount of Chrome tabs brought it to an badysis. Heavy-duty web applications, such as content management systems and other tools, have stolen. You can run as many extensions as you want with Chrome without having a noticeable impact on performance.

All Android apps were running as fast as on a modern smartphone, including games such as Shadowgun Legends, although the tablet reaches about 50 ° C at its peak and is very hot to the touch.

The battery life was excellent for a tablet, with a dozen open Chrome adhesives alongside various chat, imaging and multimedia applications, with a ten hour charge between each charge.

By opening the machine at 9 o'clock in the morning, the Pixel Slate would last through the hottest work days while still maintaining enough charge for a movie on the way home.

It recharges via one of the USB-C ports located left and right and took about two and a half hours to fully charge flat during its use.

Chrome OS

At first glance, the mouse and keyboard-based operating system seems like a strange choice for a tablet, but in recent years Google has pushed Android application integration and made many touch-oriented adjustments. .

Chrome OS on Pixel Slate offers two modes: a desktop experience enabled when you connect a keyboard and a mouse, and an Android-style tablet mode when it is used alone.

Attached keyboard

As an office, Pixel Slate behaves like any modern Chrome OS device. A shelf at the bottom of the screen displays the icons of your pinned and running applications. A "launcher" button similar to a boot menu is at the bottom left and an equipment bar on the right with a notification alert similar to Android. Applications open in the form of windows and can be organized as you wish.

Press the launcher button to display a search box and AI-based application suggestions for what you might need at that time. Swipe up or tap the up arrow to see all your apps, or start typing to find an app, file, or search the web. This is a familiar experience for anyone who has used Windows 10 or MacOS.

Tablet form

Grab the tablet alone and the interface switches to look like Android, the launcher becoming the home screen filled with applications and folders. A back button appears at the bottom left and the overview button at the bottom right.

Tap an app from the home screen to launch the application in full screen. The dock remains at the bottom of the screen with the applications blocked and running. Tap the overview button to zoom out and see running apps on a screen that looks like the multitasking view of MacOS or Android, which lets you switch to another application or to run two applications side by side in a split screen.

Scrolling with your finger is very fluid, as are animations, while larger tactile targets and familiar gestures make you feel more like a mobile tablet. But it's still full Chrome, not a reduced mobile version, giving you the best and most powerful browsing experience on any platform. It's a joy to use.

Android apps are a bit more mixed. Most work like a real Android tablet, but some have flaws, such as Citymapper and Wire, that refuse to work in landscape mode.

Netflix works well, but it even has features such as not recognizing an Ethernet connection like wifi, which means you have to uncheck "download only on wifi" to store the programs offline.

Sky's Q application also hangs during streaming and periodically returns you to the media selection screen. Regarding the support of Android applications on Chrome OS, the work is still in progress.

Pixel Slate keyboard

The Pixel Slate keyboard offers one of the best typing experiences I've used, with backlit keys, solid displacement, good feel and good spacing. All that's missing is the delete and ignore media buttons, but these are minor issues. The wide, smooth and responsive trackpad is good too.

The keyboard attaches to the bottom and back of the Slate via powerful magnets, keeping it in a relatively wide range of viewing angles – far better than most other folding folio style tablet holders .

Unfortunately, when it is closed, the keyboard slips against the screen, which could scratch the screen and you would seem less rebaduring in case of transport.

Pixelbook pen

The Pixelbook pen is the same pen that was launched with Pixelbook last year, with Google Assistant features and a solid on-screen writing experience with low delay, tilt and pressure.

It's a little thick and unbalanced for my taste, but it is useful for signing documents or making quick sketches. I do not think it's a must buy with Pixel Slate, but I'm not trying to use it to illustrate or design.

Unfortunately, there is nowhere to reliably attach it to the tablet or folio keyboard, so the risk of loss is high.

observations

• USB-C ports handle a large number of devices, including external monitors, storage and headphones with an adapter (there is no headphone jack)

• Chrome OS lacks spell check in most Android apps, and no autofill application uses applications such as LastPbad.

• The balance point of the Pixel Slate is in the middle of the tablet. It is also where warm components give the tablet a fresh feeling while holding it.

Price

The Google Pixel Slate is available in different processor and memory configurations starting at £ 549 with an Intel Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage or £ 649 for 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.

Versions with Intel eighth generation processors start at £ 749 with a Core m3, 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, £ 969 for a Core i5, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and a maximum of 1,549 £ for a Core i7, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

The Pixel Slate keyboard costs £ 189 and the £ 99 Pixelbook pen.

For comparison, the Microsoft Surface Go starts at £ 379, the Surface Pro at £ 879 and the Apple iPad Pro at £ 769.

Verdict

Pixel Slate is a very convincing argument for the death of Android tablets. Turning the desktop experience of Chrome OS as a desktop into a mobile and user-friendly operating system brings together the best of both worlds in a neat package. At least in theory. Most work really well. But it's hard for Android apps to see what works and what does not work.

If you need essential things and you do it mainly in a browser with additional software such as Evernote, chat applications or the like, Pixel Slate is a concentrate of productivity in portable mode. The keyboard folio is an indispensable purchase, which adds £ 189 to the cost of the machine.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the tablet experience on the Slate Pixel. There are quirks, some applications require a bit of work and there is only a few elements missing from the standard Android experience, but it is wonderful to have a desktop computer perfectly suited to touch, Chromium. Pixel Slate offers the best navigation experience among the most powerful of all devices.

Chrome OS is still running and you may need a full Windows PC, but what Pixel Slate already offers is worth buying if you want to be at the cutting edge of technology. Do not expect that all apps and games offer the most successful experience, despite the high price.

Advantages: long battery life, best navigation experience, good screen, good keyboards, frequent software updates, USB-C

The inconvenients: Some applications behave strangely, Chrome OS still can not do everything a Windows PC can do, expensive

Other critics

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