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Google quits selling tablets

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281–290 of 330 posts

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#281

If there was a decent tablet made in the last 4-5 years that cost less than $250, I'd probably get it... my last one was the Nvidia Shield Tablet, which was nice, if a bit heavy, and the battery quickly stopped taking a charge... I haven't even turned it on in over a year. Before that was the Nexus 7, which was great, until OS updates made it run like a dog. In the end, the shield has had better support than most, bu…

Huawei mediapad was going for 220 brand new last year with a 2k screen and monster battery.

Seems like it's all gone though

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#282
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2-5 seems surpring. Samsung rarely supports their products and constantly shits all over them with custom crapware.

Chromebooks have no room for manufacturer involvement with the software. Afaik, assuming based on public references, if you want to make a Chromebook, you use Google's reference design for the motherboard, pick a compatible CPU, design your own keyboard (but use a Google approved controller instead of a normal one), design your own case and pick a display, put everything together, use Google's firmware and use Google…

Sounds like they learned their lesson from Android.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#283
post #4

I 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 got a Samsung Galaxy Tab A from Costco for $220...10" (9.7?) screen, decent processor...not totally vanilla Android but close. I've been very pleased with it.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#284
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 12.9"iPad Pro is one of the few pricey electronic devices I've found myself buying and then not really using. I had a lot of ambitions for using it for instructional-type drawing but I didn't really get that going. And it's just too big and heavy to use generally. And I say this as someone who really likes its smaller sibling, especially when I'm traveling. But the big iPad now just sits on a stand in the kitchen…

The 12.9” is rather large, I certainly use it less than I anticipated because of it since it’s not particularly friendly to hold for expected periods. When I eventually upgrade I might consider getting the 10.5” model as a result - though I enjoy the larger screen still for certain activities like reading replica newspaper and magazine subscriptions.

I like the 10.5" more for most purposes although, as you say, every now and then the larger screen is useful. If it's just flowing text I'm reading, I actually prefer the Kindle Paperwhite but the iPad is sufficiently more versatile that that's what I almost always bring when traveling.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gets security updates (ChromeOS devices are great for this compared to the dumpster fire that is Android security) Enjoy that while it lasts. I have a chromebook that recently notified me it won't get any more updates, after four and a half years. That beats a phone, but it's pretty terrible by laptop standards. You can expect a laptop or desktop with any other OS to be good for a decade or more.

Can you run Linux on it instead? Not to excuse Google - but there's little incentive for a company to maintain devices past a certain point when there's no financial or regulatory requirement to do so. I'm not sure Windows 7 being supported for a decade was intentional, but we'll see what pans out with Windows 10's incremental model.

I guess I’m old fashioned, but I highly recommend getting an x86 netbook and putting linux on it. They still exist, and are basically chromebooks with the crazy google bios removed.

For instance the acer 11” cloudbooks run linux well.

You can disable secure boot. However, if you want chromebook style security without google or the centralized PKI, you can purge the ms keys and enroll the bootloader of your choice without special signing from the distro.

You can also manually enroll the distribution’s keys, I think, but I don’t see any practical reason to do that.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#286
post #12

Good 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…

In a lot of cases a scaled (or just small) phone app is good enough. But... overall.. I think the tablet category is just not a very big one. I had an iPad and an old 7" nexus. When they died, I didn't replace. Phones got bigger and better. We got better at thumb typing and comfortable holding screens close. Reading on a tablet for example, is not that different to a phone these days and a (cheap) dedicated reader is…

Lost a ton of pictures on a Nexus 7, any idea if the battery is replaceable? Charging does nothing...

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#287
post #253

I am not surprised. What we think of today when we say "tablet" is a first-class computing device and I am of the opinion few people want a plurality of such devices in their life. This is due to what I call the "yet another application platform dilemma." At some saturation point, few people want the mental burden of adding the care and feeding of another device to their life. Few people want to manage numerous devic…

FINALLY, someone who had the same idea as me. I've actively looked for ways to do something like this and even considered setting something like this up in a quick and dirty way (by abusing X forwarding over the internet across devices; probably the closest I'll get to making this system work without modifying every program on my computer).

The sheer inefficiency of getting my email on my phone, laptop, PC and tablet across several apps without any of them communicating between them is driving me mad.

I have an overpowered gaming machine in my room and a slow, old Samsung tablet near my bed. If I want to read something in bed, I'll have to suffer through the slow Chrome browser with all of its lag and lack of hardware accelerated decoding while there's a machine with incredible graphical power available _right there_. I'd love to turn my tablet into a thin client for my PC, but that requires a mix of slow or unstable remote desktop apps.

In my mind, this concept would also have other devices help with the workload. For example, when my server is busy running compilers, my laptop can kick in and help out with some of the work by doing the Javascript for my tablet. This makes the work more complicated, but combines the power of my collection of personal devices into a single platform.

I really hope someone or some company can help the world move this way. It's been done before in part back when thin clients were the latest hit and after the last few years, responsive design has been normalized to the point combined systems like these have a real chance of becoming the next thing in computing.

Sadly, I fear the moment this becomes popular the general population will just pick a cloud-based solution so they don't need to set up an application server, which gives companies like Amazon and Google even more power and data then they already have.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#288
post #58

Microsoft seems like the only company that understands tablets right now. They should be more like computers, not more like phones. There's also a pretty great argument that given all of our phones are absolute powerhouses nowadays, phones should also be less like phones and more like computers. I'm hopeful Microsoft can also move to spur on this change; maybe soon the market will be ready for the return of Windows P…

The downside is that being "more like computers" usually means "more complicated". iPads on iOS 11 have gotten so overloaded with gestures and other crap that I don't think I'll buy them for personal use and relatives anymore.

I really think there's a market for dumb-but-simple media consumption devices that the tech "elite"/press doesn't appreciate.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#289
post #35
post #12

Good 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…

I admit that I haven't paid much attention. But the whole revamp of the UI framework into Fragments was precisely to let app developers support both phones and tablets. Why do you say older versions of Android had better support for tablets?

Keep in mind that Fragments happened while Rubin was still nominally in control of Android.

Once the civil war between him and Pichai had a clear winner (after all, for a while both ChromeOS and Android were poised to push into the same market), the tablet elements were depreciated rapidly as as Duarte was free to assert more control.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah I love my iPad Pro 10.5

Yes. But I think the gist of the point is you're in the fringe, the minority.

I’ve owned every other generation iPad since launch. The iPad Pro 10.5 is something special. Keyboard cover, screen size, split view, effortless portability... they add up in a way that has significantly changed how I use it. I rarely use my MBP away from my desk anymore. Aside from work requiring Xcode, Smart Keyboard cover + ssh client + tmux works surprisingly well (for me) for away-from-desk dev work.
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