Google also confirmed a few more details about the Google Pixel Tablet, which will arrive sometime next year, at its event where it officially unveiled the Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, and Pixel Watch.
There is one feature about the new tablet that really intrigues me – it can magnetically attach to a dock with built-in speakers, and I find that fascinating as well. In fact, it’s such a great idea that I’m surprised that it hasn’t been accepted by Amazon yet, if not by any other company.
As one of the best features on tablets, audio quality isn’t exactly one of the most raved-about – rather, it may be one of the most important weaknesses of any tablet. When working with a device that’s thinner than a pencil, there’s only so much you can do.
Even Amazon, which offers a Fire tablet smart home control panel, makes a tablet charging dock with a built-in speaker, but the majority do not have any. One of the only ones I could find was what I found to be the Lenovo Smart Tab M10 Plus (AED 841, Amazon (opens in a new tab)), which has a docking station that has twin 3W speakers in it.
There are two options for you to buy tablet online in UAE, you can either have a large tablet that has good audio quality but can’t be moved anywhere, or you can have a large tablet that you can move but has poor audio quality.
The Amazon Echo Show 10 or the Google Nest Hub Max may appeal to you if you’re looking for a large tablet or smart home display with excellent audio – but the problem with these devices is you have to use them in one place. It’s a good thing I am not going to speak about the audio quality of the Echo Show 15; I hope that with the Fire TV upgrade, it might support Bluetooth speakers as well.
A tablet that’s portable, but also features great audio quality (though docked), Google’s Pixel Tablet seems to offer the best of both worlds.
In addition to its ability to do pretty much everything a Pixel phone can, the Pixel Tablet will also be powered by Google’s Tensor G2 chip. If docked, however, Google says that you can use it as a digital photo frame and give easy access to smart home controls from your gadget when it is docked. You can already control your lights and your thermostat with a control panel that looks similar to the one you have on Google’s smart displays. This will let you adjust the brightness of your lights, change the thermostat, and control a lot of other features. The Google Assistant can also be used hands-free with this new feature, according to Google.
In terms of how Google intends to present all of this on the tablet, nothing here is particularly different from what you already get with the best smart displays.
Whether the Google Pixel Tablet will feature the same digital pan-and-zoom technology as the Nest Hub Max remains to be seen – specifically, whether it will track your movements automatically while you’re on a video call. It would be a real mistake for Google not to include a feature similar to that found on the Echo Show 10 and the iPad Air (with Center Stage).
Aside from the Pixel Tablet, I’m also curious to see whether the Nest Hub Max will be replaced by the Pixel Tablet since both devices look pretty much the same – except that the Nest Hub Max’s display cannot be removed.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon includes a dock on its smart display next fall. I believe this company has already come pretty close to this goal with its Wireless Charging Dock (AED 186 for the Fire 10 HD version(opens in a new tab)) – however, it is lacking speakers at the moment.
As long as there is a place for small smart displays, such as the Echo Show 5 and Lenovo’s Smart Clock, it may be difficult to sell them – no one wants to sit and read by their bedside with a 10-inch tablet – but for tablets prices in Dubai, a dock/charging stand seems to be a no-brainer.
Many of the charging docks with speakers that came with the iPhone and iPad were kind of clumsy at first. There are still some docks available today, but they aren’t as common as they once were. The idea of a smart home and smart speakers had just begun to emerge, so using a tablet as a hub wasn’t even an option when they launched, because they came when the idea of a smart home and smart speakers was still in their infancy. As the Google Home app (and other technologies like HomeKit and Alexa) have improved, it may be that its time has finally come again.
