The concept behind the Pixel Tablet is so obvious that it feels like this should’ve existed for years: a tablet that’s also a smart display. When you’re done catching up with Secret Invasion on Disney+ or Jack Ryan on Prime, it pops into a dock and enters a “hub mode”. Now you can control it with a quick “Hey Google”, and it doubles as a digital photo frame, plays music, and oversees other smart devices.
After testing, we can confirm that this isn’t a novelty. By combining a tablet with the station Google solves two issues we often have with these devices: storage and charging. Thanks to the dock, the Pixel Tablet gives you a reason to keep it around. No longer will your slate end up inside a drawer or on your bedside table for days while the battery dwindles.
And with the addition of user profiles (a feature that’s glaringly absent from the iPad), each of your housemates can have their own settings, background photos and apps, too, which makes this feel ideal if you’re the sharing type. But does it do enough to justify the price, and is it better than a dedicated smart display such as the Nest Hub Max?
We’ve been using the device to find out.
Google Pixel Tablet key specs
- Display size: 10.95 inches
- Resolution: 1600 x 2560 pixels
- Processor: Google Tensor G2
- Battery life: Up to 12 hours
- Cameras: 8 MP rear, 8 MP front
- Weight: 493 g
- Charging: USB-C, Wireless (up to 15W)
- Software support: Five years
- Colours: Porcelain, Hazel
- Storage: 128GB, 256GB
Google Pixel Tablet design
Google opts for simplicity with the Pixel Tablet’s design. For good reason: it has to look just as good on your lap as it does on your kitchen counter.
We like the white bezels of the model we tested – it blends in with our kitchen and living room decor. And the matte textured back panel adds grip when it’s in our hands (so there’s less of the slippiness we face with the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro smartphones)
Don’t expect to plug lots of extra accessories. There’s a single USB-C port for charging – and that’s it. We’ve been using it for streaming and entertainment, and aside from a 3.5mm jack (sorry, wired headphone fans) we don’t need much else. We do like that the power button doubles as a fingerprint sensor, but it’s a shame that there is no face recognition, which could have been useful for spotting the individual users without having to tap a password every time.
On the dock – which will look familiar to anyone who has seen a Nest Hub – it looks just like a smart display. That’s no bad thing. The magnetic connectors are strong – you can tap and swipe without worry – but the device did (at least twice) stumble and hit the surface when we tried to remove it. Using both hands helps, and thankfully there are two silicone bumps on the bottom of the tablet for protection.
Google Pixel Tablet display
The 10.95-inch display is bright, colourful and responsive. Swiping and tapping on apps and websites is one of the high points. Yes, it’s limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and it’s not OLED, but it still feels smooth to handle. Also, with an LCD display there’s less risk of “burn in” that OLEDs are prone to over time. After all, on the dock, this screen is on a lot.
Scrolling is lag-free, and the display overall works well for YouTube, Netflix or doom scrolling on Twitter (or is that X now?). We mostly used it indoors and connected to the charging/speaker dock, but we took it to the office for a day and found that even in brighter conditions the display looks crisp and the brightness is more than adequate.
Google Pixel Tablet hub mode
Pop it onto the dock, and it automatically enters a hub mode. It’s the reason you’re considering the Pixel Tablet in the first place, and, for us, it’s what ends up setting it apart from other slates like the Samsung Tab S8, or Apple’s forever-dominant iPad line-up.
It resembles the Nest Hub’s UI design – a minimal screensaver replaces your normal app home screen (we set ours to show art work but you can also use any snaps saved to Google Photos), with a shortcut to the smart home control centre. It’s familiar smart display territory.
The process of magnetically snapping the tablet to the dock doesn’t get old, but you should know that this is a tablet with smart display features – and not (we repeat, not) a full-on upgrade to the Nest Hub Max.
The audio quality isn’t as booming, there are zero gesture controls, there’s no mic-off switch for extra privacy and there’s no sleep sensing mode that tracks your sleep health based on motion and sound it senses throughout the night. It also doesn’t have “Continued Conversation” – which makes chatting to the voice assistant more natural as you can follow up or add detail to your questions without having to repeat the “Hey Google” command every time.
But our biggest gripe with using it as a smart display is that because the tablet contains sensitive information it will usually have a password. This means that if you try to access any apps that store personal or location data (like Maps or Contacts) you’ll have to tap in your password every time before it opens. That’s good for security – but not good for a seamless hub experience.
Google Pixel Tablet camera
If you’re expecting the sublime camera experience of Google’s Pixel phones to carry over to the tablet, we have disappointing news. While fancy editing modes like Magic Eraser and Unblur are here, the 8MP lenses on the front and rear hold back the image quality. Results are passable at a glance, but the images don’t hold up to scrutiny.
Do we care? No – because we don’t use a tablet for taking photos. Trust us – while the setup is fine for bright conditions, your smartphone is better. That 1080p resolution is fine for video calls, however.
Here are a handful of pictures that were taken using the Pixel Tablet’s rear camera system. None have been edited or altered in any way.
Google Pixel Tablet sample photos
Google Pixel Tablet software and performance
Zipping around the apps and menus is fast and smooth. Like on the Pixel phones, the Android 13 software here is free of bloatware and we like the Mac-like taskbar that appears when you swipe up.
We downloaded some of our must-haves – Spotify, Netflix, Prime Video – and found most to be well optimised for the larger screen size. And unsurprisingly, Google’s own software – Chrome, Gmail and Google Docs – always looks fantastic, too. The one exception is Instagram, which remains stubbornly terrible on tablets.
This runs on the same speedy processor as the Pixel 7 Pro (Tensor G2) and we’ve encountered no issues with our apps or any bugs.
Google Pixel Tablet battery
You’ll get up to 12 hours of constant use from the Pixel Tablet, but in reality it’s tricky to put a number on the battery life because it is constantly on and off the station. When it’s docked, the tablet is automatically refuelling – meaning it’s never once been under 50% during testing.
After one day of low-to-moderate use – checking emails and watching videos – it dropped from 100% to 78% – but went back to full in roughly over an hour when we put it on the dock at home (a health mode locks the maximum to 90% to help the cell last longer).
Thanks to the dock, running out of battery just isn’t a concern unless you do heavy gaming or forget to set it on the dock when it’s not being used.
Google Pixel Tablet drawbacks
There are times when the Pixel Tablet has an identity crisis. Is it a tablet? Or is it a smart display? By combining them, Google makes compromises on both sides. At £599, it’s a bit too expensive as a standalone mid-range Android tablet, but it’s also not as focused as a dedicated display. You can’t buy the tablet on its own separately from the dock, either.
The dock is the big draw, but once you remove the tablet it’s a paperweight – it doesn’t play music and you can’t cast to it from your phone, which we feel is a big missed opportunity and that could have helped justify the cost.
When docked, the tablet’s audio is solid, but we found it lacking when beside an Amazon Echo. Our smaller (and significantly cheaper) Echo Dot has a slightly fuller sound too. For a £600 device, we’d expect better – especially given that the Nest Hub Max has a better speaker setup for a third of the price. That said, the sound quality is good enough for most users, and we often found ourselves using wireless buds anyway.
Unlike the iPad, the volume buttons don’t adapt to the position you hold the tablet – a small but noticeable feature that you may miss. And while it shines for entertainment, it’s poor for productivity – there’s no keyboard cover or stylus support at the time of writing.
Google Pixel Tablet verdict
We love the Pixel Tablet despite its quirks. The docking station not only gives it some features of a smart display but means you’ll never have to worry about running out of battery again. It is more versatile than dedicated smart displays – it runs full Google apps that you get from the Play Store – and it excels as an at-home slate for entertainment.
It is not an upgraded Nest Hub Max – despite its appearance – and due to the lack of a keyboard case or stylus it’s also no good for home workers or artists.
The price is high (you can pick up both a 10th Gen Apple iPad and an Apple HomePod mini for the same price) and there’s no option to cut the cost by picking up the tablet separately from the dock – but we do appreciate that nothing else provides the hybrid experience of the Pixel Tablet, and the base price may come down in the near future.
