Google officially released the new Pixel Tablet this week, a tablet designed for home and family. She can play several roles at the same time, including that of keeping the children busy – at the risk of seeing the parents lose control.
Quebec parents, at the very least. Because the parental controls that Google offers to its North American customers are not all offered in Quebec. Go find out why.
The Pixel Tablet marks at least the third attempt in ten years by Google to break into the digital tablet market. This time, the Californian company offers an 11-inch tablet with a sober technical sheet, but with a rather original design. No affiliation with the Nexus sold between 2013 and 2016 nor with the Pixel Slate, in 2019, which went completely unnoticed beyond a few Android and Google enthusiasts.
Never mind. Nobody really imposes itself, apart from Apple, in this market. And anyway, sales are leveling off for everyone.
The iPad continues to dominate the digital tablet market. Apple has been selling it for over a decade. Other tablets that take different forms exist despite everything. Samsung sells its Android-based Galaxy Tab in several formats. Amazon sells very cheap Fire tablets. Microsoft is trying to impose Windows 11 in this market with its Surface tablets.
There was a craze in the first years of emergence of this market, but for at least five years, it has stagnated. Either consumers have decided to keep their tablet longer than expected, or their big screen phone is enough for them.
At home !
Google probably had a good idea when it sold its new tablet with a stand – included in the box – that turns the device into a dynamic photo frame, a connected speaker and a digital assistant with touch and voice control (your choice). It better beats its $700 retail price. The base is magnetic: when you place the tablet on it, you feel the click which confirms that the recharge is activated. As the tablet is systematically brought back to its base, it avoids misplacing it between the cushions of the sofa, or elsewhere in the house.
On its base, the Pixel Tablet continues to function as a tablet. It can also be transformed into a terminal for Netflix and other digital services, a video call station or a control center for home automation accessories (compatible with the Google Home platform) that your home may have.
Its 12 hours of video playback time when unplugged makes it pretty versatile overall. Its 11-inch screen has far more pixels than a phone’s, an overabundance that only a handful of apps on the Play Store app store exploit.
It’s that Android is primarily an operating system for phones, not tablets. Google promised 50 of the most popular apps at launch, but otherwise it’s slim. It will still improve in this regard, both in terms of games and entertainment.
It must be said that Google will also sell the Pixel Fold in the United States, a phone with two screens, the larger of which folds up. But when it is deployed, we hold in our hands the equivalent of a tablet, there too.
We will undoubtedly see more and more applications appearing on the screen of both the Fold and the Tablet. Note all the same, since it’s part of the subject, that Android applications such as the Duty are already fully displayed on the screen of the Pixel Tablet.
And in Quebec?
The Pixel Tablet is, in a nutshell, a tablet designed for family entertainment at home. It’s simple.
But it’s also surprisingly complicated. In any case, the parental settings that Google includes in its services make it all tedious, if not frustrating for parents concerned about the digital literacy of their kids. This is unfortunate, given that the Pixel Tablet is able to manage several different users at the same time, precisely so that the whole family can benefit from it. Even its voice assistant distinguishes everyone’s voices.
Supervising the use by children of this tablet, or of an Android phone, requires going to the settings of the device, in the Family Link application — designed for this purpose — and on the website Google Web, where the information of all Google accounts is centralized. Often, the only solution offered is to close the child’s account, including their Gmail account. It’s absurd.
Also, YouTube Kids is not available in Quebec. This video app offers entertaining and educational content. Above all, any inappropriate video is excluded from the platform. Many Quebec parents deplore the fact that Google does not offer this application available elsewhere in Canada.
Asked by The duty, Google could not explain why this is so. But while the company is launching a tablet in the country for family use, it may be she who will pay the price for this shortcoming.