They were defeated at their own game... Android was out of control the moment they allowed manufacturers to modify the OS, producing products that are no longer upgradable after buying them (the low end sector is seen as buy and throw).
Google quits selling tablets
201–210 of 330 posts
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#202Good riddance! It’s not like they have actively been developing Android to support tablets. In fact, it is the other way around. The older versions had better support for tablets. Even Nexus 9 was a half hearted attempt at best — and the rest is history. Google’s lack of interest in nowhere more evident than their own apps — many of them were just scaled versions of phone apps. And if Google is not bothering to optim…
Maybe it is just me but Android got gradually worse over time, bloated with useless features that are the first thing that I turn off on my new devices usually. It is still impossible to find certain basic functionality in the setup, which drives my nuts every single time I have to find them. It would be worth to visualise how much effort is to turn off spell correction on different mobile devices and use change othe…
On my android phone (Nokia 3, fwiw) that example is trivial: pull down menu, settings, search "spell", "spell checker", "off".
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#203My Chromebook that runs Android apps has replaced any need for a tablet for me. It is lighter than my bug laptop but still can get a lot done and if I want I fold it into tablet mode and I'm set.
This is not a serious solution at the time I tried this several months ago. Most of the apps I downloaded for Android were not optimized well for a Chromebook with text/window sizing, prevented resizing of the windows and were downright buggy(not registering presses and sometimes would even crash.)
It's improving at a rapid pace. The more users run Android apps on Chromeos, the more devs are being forced to fix issues in that form factor to avoid 1 star reviews. My Pixelbook runs all the Android apps I'm interested in perfectly, including games like Hearthstone.
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it is just me but Android got gradually worse over time, bloated with useless features that are the first thing that I turn off on my new devices usually. It is still impossible to find certain basic functionality in the setup, which drives my nuts every single time I have to find them. It would be worth to visualise how much effort is to turn off spell correction on different mobile devices and use change othe…
On my android phone (Nokia 3, fwiw) that example is trivial: pull down menu, settings, search "spell", "spell checker", "off".
Yup, exact same on my S7.
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've found Windows very frustrating to use on non-Surface tablets and somehow the tablet mode is even more so. IIRC, opening the on-screen keyboard makes you lose focus on whatever window it was you wanted to type in.
How would the onscreen keyboard function if it worked that way? I don't think you remember correctly, and it doesn't do that. The tablet mode is weird though, I gave up on using it. :(
You tap an icon on the toolbar to open it which loses the focus. Then, once it's open, you can switch between the two without losing the focus. You could leave it open but then you lose half the screen to a keyboard without a number row.
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#206I have a Huawei Mediapad M3. Lovely tablet that I use more than my iPad. Huawei is on a roll with hardware.
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#207The mid level tablet market died in a race to the bottom. Looking on aliexpress or taobao, you'll find dozens upon dozens of cheap tablets with CPU's from allwinner or rockchip, a few gigs of ram/flash and a not that great 8-10" screen for Completing against these are a few Samsung models that have their highly customized variant of Android, and Apple holding the premium ground with iOS/HW quality/price/performance,…
Apple's newest full form-factor iPad is only $300, and often is available on sale for ~$270. I think that's made a big difference.
This, plus the effect the second hand market has. You can pick up older-gen iPad Air's for $180.
The top brand tablets (e.g. Apple) will keep their performance really well. They don't struggle from laptop's getting filled with crap and slowing down, which used to happen for most computer users, or struggled to keep battery life as much as many laptops. And they never struggled with the phone upgrade path of 2 years due to a better camera, new battery and fashion.
The second hand market allows you to pick up pretty cheap tablets which are useful for all intents and purposes of most people owning a tablet. (bigger-than-phone consumption device of netflix, news, magazines, books and a spotify remote).
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Samsung Chromebook Plus satisfies my needs for a tablet: mainly media consumption (web browsing, YouTube, reading long articles, and watching movies). I have a Samsung Chromebook Plus, and I absolutely despise it as a tablet. Compared to my Nexus 9 (which is still kicking), it's a far inferior device. My primary uses for my tablet are watching video and reading comics. It manages to fail at both of those two things…
I almost only use my Nexus 9 for Netflix/Plex in bed and a few ebooks now and then. Not sure I want to replace it with something that does more than that, buy some expensive replacement and still only end up doing the Netflix in bed thing would suck. I hope there still are some cheap (Xiaomi maybe?) tablets out there when that day comes.
If all you want is Netflix/Plex and books then Amazon’s Fire tablets are great. I have one I mainly keep in the kitchen so I can watch TV while cooking and it’s been great, although I’m tempted to get one of the newer models for Alexa support.
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#209In think 8” tablets are a good form factor for content consumption (ebooks, movies, some games) but Android tablets always fall short even then. You need a good screen, especially for text. The 2015 iPad Mini 4 is still much better than any similarly-sized Android tablet.
To be honest most of the time I used my tablet was for reading stuff online. I sold it and bought a Kobo eReader instead. I push articles I want to read later to Pocket and read them there instead. My only wish would be to see a decent eReader with an email/calendar client to read my work emails on it and see my schedule. I looked at the reMarkable but despite its impressive annotation capabilities, it doesn't have a…
I use a 12.9” iPad Pro for most tablet purposes which is superior for me for everything except ebooks. It’s perfect for comics and PDFs and many games and it’s my laptop replacement when I travel (as an Old I prefer a real desktop computer, not a laptop, for day to day work).
I agree that an ereader is ideal when compared with a small tablet; the Kobo Aura One is the perfect size and aspect ratio (7.9”, 4x3) for me but it doesn’t sync sideloaded books, and is a bit slow, and has no hardware buttons. But it does have Pocket as you mentioned which is pretty nice. A few reading-focused apps would indeed be welcome on ereaders.
Overall Android had an advantage over iOS at first in its support for multiple phone sizes. But this just doesn’t scale well to tablets. You need separate human-designed tablet apps just like you can’t hope to have automatic layouts that scale between phones and desktops. I think Apple’s support for different sizes of screen is actually better than Android’s now, with different compact and normal portrait and landscape modes. The ironic thing is that a decent iPad layout for an iPhone app doesn’t need to take longer than an afternoon.
Re: Google quits selling tablets
#210I loved my nexus-7, and the 2nd gen nexus-7 even more. Inexpensive, pure android, decent hardware spec, and a usefully larger display than a phone. Anyone know of a current table that avoids the adware, crapware, and 3d contact managers where each card flies around in 3D? I just want android with the current security updates and 7-9" display.
I still use my Nexus 7 (2nd gen) as my main tablet. That thing is a trooper. It's my book reader, Chromecast runner, Sonos controller, etc. It's big enough to comfortably watch Twitch on. It fits in my back jeans pocket so I can easily bring it with me, which lots of tablets including the ipad mini don't. I'd love to find a modern replacement for it, ideally just a little bit bigger.
I would do the same, but as of this year battery recharge times of my Nexus 7 tablet got longer and longer until it died by running out of battery while charging. Hardware doesn't last forever. It will be missed.
The article is correct that tablet replacement rates are low. But that's not zero. And there is a lack of modern replacements.
I've been looking around but I expected there to be a "this years model" with a new-ish processor, high-res screen, USB-C and a recent build of Android.