The Nexus 7 was Google’s only great tablet, and it has never tried to replace it
Enlarge / Someone poking at a 2013 Nexus 7, Google's last (and possibly only) great tablet. (credit: Google)
Well, here we are again-Google is trying to make an Android tablet happen.
The company has released a brand-new Pixel Tablet to show off some of the tablet-centric optimizations that it has added to recent versions of Android while also maybe-possibly coaxing app developers in the direction of actually using those tablet-centric features in the first place. If it feels like you've been here before, it's because we've been here a bunch of times since the iPad came out in 2010.
Maybe the new Pixel Tablet is the one that's going to put Google's first-party tablet efforts on the map. I don't know! I can only look at high-profile failures like the Pixel C and Pixel Slate and guess. But the Pixel Tablet's launch did get me thinking of the one Google tablet I actually retain some affection for and the last great tablet that the company helped to make: the second-generation Nexus 7 from 2013.