TheGoogle Pixel Tabletis the first tablet the company released in years, and while it has some issues, it’s generally a good entry for the race to thebest Android tabletsout there. Google had quite a weird approach to the device’s launch, though, with the company first teasing it more than a year before it finally graced the markets. It’s possible that there were some last-minute changes or other hardware issues involved, as a teardown has revealed that the device is unusually empty inside.
We’re used to seeing phones and tablets packed to the rim with all the necessary hardware to make them run as fast and smoothly as possible, but the Pixel Tablet seems to do fine with fewer components,as Android Police alumnus Ron Amadeo spotted, writing for Ars Technica. With the display removed, you can see two big batteries in the middle and more components sprinkled around them, but there is also a lot of space left where you can right through to the white inner back plate. Ron goes as far as calling it “half empty.”
It gets even weirder when you inspect some of the components more closely. There are clearly visible cables running from board to board, something you’d usually see in a desktop PC or a laptop at best rather than an ARM-powered mobile device. A few of the components are apparently also simply added to provide more structural rigidity, with multiple foam blocks strategically placed around the device to make it less hollow. This suggests that Google could have added a much bigger battery or a better cooling system to offer longer battery life or more performance. Given the $500 launch price, even when you consider the included $130 dock, it also isn’t exactly a budget device where you would expect to see things like that for cost-cutting reasons.
It’s possible that this extra space was reserved for another model,the rumored and never released Google Pixel Tablet Pro, which could have provided these exact benefits — on top of getting a different dock, too.
At the same time, we have to remember that the bigger devices get these days, the fewer components they actually have left to fill up the available space. Apple iPads, like the iPad 10 that launched at a comparable $450 price point, are made up of some empty space, too, asiFixit showed off in one of its teardown videos. The iPad is still much more densely packed than the Pixel Tablet, with no obvious cables running from component to component.
This begs the question what went wrong with the Google Pixel Tablet, or what the driving force behind these design decisions were. As we all know, the Pixel Tablet was first teased a year before its actual launch, so it’s possible that Google had a different interior design idea initially that it had to scrap for some reason, possibly with some more advanced processor and a bigger battery that would have incurred a price point deemed too high. The company might have also planned to release a smaller size Pixel Tablet and decided to switch for a bigger device way later in the design process than usual, only fitting in a bigger battery and display instead.
Google Pixel Tablet
The Google Pixel Tablet may be mostly empty inside, but that doesn’t change any of its other qualities. It’s a good home-first tablet that offers rudimentary smart display functionality, and that might make it more worthwhile than a dock-less tablet for many people.
