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

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Big white objects. The back looks like plastic. A thick profile. There will be a new year in 2023. There is a mobile operating system called Android.

That's all we know about the upcoming Pixel Tablet, which the company teased during its keynote presentation for the I/O 2022 developer conference this week. The tablet is coming to fill out the range of Pixel devices and provide a complete ecosystems in the lineup, according to Rick Osterloh, the senior vice president of devices and services and head of the Pixel program.

I couldn't help but react when I saw the image of the device in the livestream. The back of the Amazon Fire HD 10 is not something that would feel right on the front of the device that was shown off by Google.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

While it has been a few years since a company like Google made a device of its own, the rest of the market has refined their products with sleek, aluminum frames; loud, expansive speaker systems; and trim bezels that make whatever they want. Even inexpensive Chrome OS tablets look more modern than what they have been shown off.

The design doesn't have any resemblance to thePixel line of phones. You can see the connection to the latest iPhones when you see an iPad Air or iPad Pro. I'm not asking for a camera bar on the back of the tablet, but it looks like it could have been made by any company, and it doesn't fit in with the design of the Pixel 6. It looks like a reference design for a client. That's despite the fact that it was described as a perfect companion for Pixel and a next-generation Android tablet.

If the price of the Pixel Tablet is very low, it will not be a problem for the company to compete with the budget Fire tablets from Amazon. In a separate conversation, Osterloh said that the tablet would be more of a premium style product, on the larger size, which indicates to me that it will be small and not cheap.

There is plenty of time for changes to be made here. Which Tensor processor is inside the hardware? How much storage will there be? Is it possible that it supports pen input? Will there be a version with less black? Is there a keyboard accessory that can be removed? The last point is probable since there appeared to be pogo connection pins on the back of the tablet. I am judging its design based on what we know of this year's line of products. The Pixel Tablet will fit right in with the new look of the company, as they shift everything over to a plastic aesthetic again. It wouldn't be the strangest thing I've seen, but it would be an odd turn after embracing premium metal and glass finishes on the Pixel phones.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Hardware won't be what makes the Pixel Tablet sink or swim. It will all come down to the software, which is what Google still has a lot of work to do to prove it cares about tablets. The company will be updating more than 20 of its first-party apps to better support tablets in the coming weeks, and it has gotten support from major third-party apps to actually make tablets versions of their Android apps. I'm hesitant to believe it until I see it.

Despite all that and the long lead time before the Pixel Tablet hits the market, first impressions are important, and based on what we've seen so far, it's hard to get excited for this. It is odd that it chose this hardware design.

Those white bezels are not good.