Limpid Look

Google Halted Making Its Own Tablets

Here’s an interesting little nugget of info to chew on: Google’s decided to step away from its self-made tablets and focus instead on the laptop form.

To be clear, Google hadn’t actually announced any tablet-specific products this year; the last such item that made its way to the market was the Pixel Slate in 2018. But, as I learned today, the company did have two smaller-sized tablets under development — and earlier this week, it decided to drop all work on those devices and make its road-map revolve entirely around laptops instead.

A couple of clarifying points here: First, none of this has any impact on Pixel phones. Pixel phones and Pixel computers are two different departments, and the road-map in question is related exclusively to the latter. (The same applies to the various Google Home/Nest products. What we’re talking about today has absolutely zero impact on any that stuff.)

And second, when Google talks about a “tablet,” it means a device that detaches completely from a keyboard base or doesn’t even have a physical keyboard in the first place — not a swiveling two-in-one convertible like the Pixelbook. The Pixelbook, with its attached keyboard and 360-degree hinge, falls under Google’s definition of “laptop.” Blurred lines, baby.

A Google spokesperson directly confirmed all of these details . The news was revealed at an internal company meeting on Wednesday, and Google is currently working to reassign employees who were focused on the abandoned projects onto other areas. Many of them, I’m told, have already shifted over to the laptop side of that same self-made hardware division.

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