While Google's smartphones have done pretty well, its Nexus branded tablets have tapered off in the last few years. Especially, last years Nexus 9 was kind of dud, but then that has been the trend of the tablet market as even the iPad has seen dwindling fortunes in the last few years. It is clear the tablet market is moving towards productivity focussed devices, which have a lot of horsepower and a keyboard. Something like Microsoft's Surface line of tablets, which have done pretty well off-late. Earlier in the month, Apple also paid heed to this trend when it unveiled the iPad Pro.
A report on the Android Police alleges that even Google wants a look in on this market and later in the day at its event in San Francisco, the company will showcase a product called the Pixel C. Notably, the Pixel branding is something Google has reserved for its premium Chromebooks based on the Chrome OS. However, the report claims that the Pixel C will be based on Android Marshmallow and will also come with a keyboard.
The focus for this product will be on productivity. It will allegedly have a 10.2-inch display with 308 dots per inch, which means it will have a very high resolution (sharp) screen. It will also be perhaps the first product in the market to be powered by Nvidia's X1 quad-core processor, which also integrates its Maxwell graphical processing unit (GPU) and 3GB RAM. This processor was showcased earlier in the year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada and so far there have been no products that have used it.
That said, the use of the new Nvidia processor is very much in the realm of reality as Google used the Nvidia K1 processor in the HTC made Nexus 9 last year. The tablet is also said to come with a USB-Type C connector and will have a light-bar which is a design hallmark of Google's Pixel Chromebooks.
The interesting thing out here is that for the Pixel line of products, Google takes end-to-end control of the product as there is no third party manufacturer involved.
Either way, if Google launches this product later today, we can officially say that the tablet market is interesting again. Apple's iPad Pro will launch in November and will come in tow with a smart keyboard, tons of computing power and also a stylus accessory. On October 6, Microsoft is expected to announce two new Surface tablets with Intel's latest Skylake processors and a redesigned keyboard. With all this happening the tablet market could be in for a revival especially with its new found focus on productivity over the initial fad of consumption that the original iPads propagated.
0 comments:
Post a Comment