Customer Ratings & Reviews

The Pixel Slate is a great step in the right direction when it comes to Chrome OS hybrid tablet/laptop alternatives. I found the Chrome OS interface a bit confusing and does require some time to learn the functionality of the OS... I didn't find it to be as fluid as other interface like Android and PadOS then again this is truly a hybrid OS. Be prepared for a learning curve that is very achievable. The built quality is top notch with a high quality look and feel. Display is a high res (comparable to the iPad Retina display), speakers are much better than the iPad Pro (I believe there's a dual setup on the Pixel), battery life is up to par with comparable devices (10-11 hours with my prefer settings). 128GB is enough to download plenty of movies ahead of time for long trips/getaways. WiFi speeds are very fast (would be better if it had an LTE option as well). I truly believe the Pixel Slate is a great entertainment tablet, productivity can be done but it will also require a bit of an adjustment. Sadly, the keyboard ($199) and pen ($99) are separate and third party accessories are hard to come by. Overall, if you're invested in the Google ecosystem, this is the perfect iPad Pro substitute. Thanks.

I expected a lot considering the price but it does not measure up to its high price. Its good points are the exceptional screen and lightening fast processing. The bad begin with screen sensitivity - it doesn't like fingers and misses a lot of finger taps. It does very well with google's $100 stylus - if you want to carry a pole. When at the far end of the house, it has trouble with wifi connectivity. I still use my old Galaxy Tab Pro at that end. Just an asides, all of our cell phones maintain wifi also. If you plan on using the slate as a reader in a reclined position, I suggest you get a pair of rubber gloves. The unit is quite slim but the back panel could pass as an ice rink. Home and back buttons are located at the very bottom left of the screen making it difficult to use while attempting to hold the tablet. I ordered the optional keyboard which makes it very easy to use the tablet except that now you have a laptop. I should have returned it but procrastinated and missed that window. A final thought about the design, it is sleek and very attractive. The design team did a great job save that I struggle to hold it. Can't say the same about the stylus. Seems twice as thick as the tablet and is annoying to hold. I think that design team were former lumberjacks. There is of course no way to store it with the tablet and I would fear confiscation by TSA should I try to board a plane with it. I wish they had taken a que from Samsung and built it to store in the tablet frame.

I purchased this on sale during the holiday season, and I will say it was worth the price of roughly half off. However I am dumbfounded by the amount of bugs the Slate has. Many Android apps crash, or cause a system crash. I have had bluetooth pairing issues. The touch screen can get laggy and unresponsive. The onscreen keyboard is atrocious. You'd think the company that created the fantastic Gboard keyboard, would migrate over the features to ChromeOS. That is NOT the case. When I turn the tablet on, and it asks for my PIN, sometimes there is a popup that blocks some numbers. You can't get around it! Periodic flickering issues. More unexplained reboots/crashes. Font sizes in Android or Linux are not carried over from ChromeOS, so they default to super tiny. The list goes on and on. And yet I'm keeping it. Here's why. I can work through these issues and I feel more will get resolved with time. I also didn't spend that much, so it's a "toy" for me. Not a necessity. Using Chrome browser is phenomenal! You get the full desktop experience in a tablet. Unmatched and far superior to an Android browser. Access to Android apps, when they work, is truly a bonus. Access to Linux (beta) has great potential, and another techy tool to play around with. The screen is stunning! Watching any media is fantastic. And speakers sound full and all around really good. Bottom line, I'm using this for viewing content. I won't be using it for productive tasks at this time. I am disappointed Google has so many bugs on this device, but if it wasn't for them supporting ChromeOS on this device for another 6 years, I wouldn't have bought it. Second Bottom Line. Only buy this if you get a great deal. Not a good deal. A great deal. And know what you're getting into.

I am a big Google fan and have a Google ecosystem at home. I bought this device because I was looking for a tablet that would work well with all of my devices. I have mixed feelings on the device. It works well for what I use it for, but I do not think I would buy it again. If you primarily plan to use this device as a laptop and most of your computing will be through Google Chrome, I recommend buying this. If you are big on apps and plan to download and use all of your favorite applications, do not buy this device. Just about every application I have downloaded does not work well on this device. The reason why is the app developers have not developed android apps to work on a tablet. This causes the apps to show up on the screen looking like they are the size of a cell phone with black borders filling the remaining area of the screen. This forced me to delete most of the apps and use Chrome for everything. If you are looking for a tablet to use apps, keep looking.

I went all in on this device, bought the tablet and both the Google Folio case and the Brydge Bluetooth keyboard. I wanted to use this as ny meeting and travel computer, both portable and powerful. So to the review, hardware is amazing, great screen, fingerprint reader, slim, great speakers etc, oh but for the software it would be a slam dunk. The software is simply not ready and the best example of this is Hangouts meeting a Google developed product, that if used on this device will literally use all the resources of the tablet until it’s unusable and you need to reboot. This is one of many examples and for the price this should not be the case

All things considered; I do not recommend this. Maybe I am showing my age a bit but I just don’t see the value for the price of this item, especially when keyboard and pen aren’t included. Use; Easily setup It is fast – it boots and opens apps very quickly, has a very nice screen resolution, excellent battery life – about 12 hours – depending on what you are doing, good speakers with nice stereo sound separation, seems to be sturdily built. Comes with 45W USB-C charger, 6-foot USB-C cable and USB-C to 3.5mm audio adapter if you want to use wired headphones. Has Bluetooth. Fingerprint reader built into on/off button To save battery it dis-connects from Wi-fi when “sleeping”. I was able to attach external USB drives that have NTFS format (same as Windows) with no problem (I tried several different sizes up to 2TB). But since Slate only has 2 USB-C connections you will probably need to buy a USB-C to USB 3.0 adapter. I happened to have a couple lying around for use on my laptop. USB-C connection are “universal” connectors and as such can be used for multiple purposes. You can use to attach a 4K monitor if you have correct connector cable. Issues; Chrome OS is just different enough from Android to be irritating. Keyboard and pen not included for the price. Only 128GB of storage and no easy way to add more internally. Specifically, no Micro-SD slot. This may be due to operator error but swipe up Apps list is not in alphabetical order. 25% of the apps I use on my phone and my old Acer tablet - were unavailable, did not load properly or installed but did not work properly. Maybe future Chrome OS or Store/App updates might resolve the issues but for now this is a deal breaker for me. I am not sure how long Slate will be around/supported. It seems Google has already dropped the cheaper versions - https://app.getpocket.com/read/2617567270. Given its 128GB space limitation, that keyboard and pen are not included and that it does not run all apps installed on my regular Android devices - it is really hard for me to recommend it.

This item is cool. Having a chromebook is becoming more popular these days and it can pretty much do all the basic things you need to do. I am actually surprised on how much I use web apps. If you do your reasearch you are able to find something you'll need via a web app. linux is okay. Its got a very fresh version to it and there is a lot of editing to do to make it work properly. There are a few things that just do not work at all beacuse of the limitations chrome OS has.

If you're a frequent user of Chrome browser and Google services like Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Duo, etc... then the Pixel Slate could be an alternative to a full fledged computer or hefty Chromebook, especially with the recent drop in price. If you do a lot of inputting, though, then best to get the optional keyboard, in which case the Pixel Slate with keyboard lands in the same price range as higher end Chromebooks like the Google Pixelbook. PROs • Excellent screen resolution, though less saturated color than other tablets • Great sound from the small speakers • Battery lasts a full working day • You won’t miss a computer when working in Chrome browser, especially with Google services like Gmail, Photos, etc... • Has two USB-C ports so you can use external storage CONs • Heavier than I expected for a tablet. Would get tiring if you had to hold it a long time. Plus it runs warm when watching videos. • Sections of the screen flicker at times. I noticed this especially on infinite scroll pages like Quora and when watching live TV stream from my cable company. On YouTube and Netflix there was no flickering. • Touch input did not work on every web site. When I was in iCloud.com using the Notes app, only the touchpad on the optional keyboard was recognized, but I could not get the tablet to recognize touch. I don't know if there are other websites that would have the same issue, though all of the Google services worked fine. • The biggest con is when using Android apps. Maybe it depends on the developer, but Android apps don’t seem to take advantage of the larger screen. And in the case of my password manager, 1Password, it didn’t recognize the fingerprint sensor on the Slate and asked me to enter my password to open it. Nor did it autofill my passwords when using Chrome. With the reduced price of the Pixel Slate, I would recommend it if you work primarily in Chrome and especially in Google services, and if you get the optional keyboard. If you do, you will love the experience.

Having switched back to Android last year and using more of Google's ecosystem (e.g. Maps, Drive, Docs, etc.), I've debated buying an Android tablet. However, I wasn't impressed by the options out there. When Google announced its Slate, based on ChromeOS, I made the dive. I purchased the i5 Slate with Google's keyboard. My experience overall has been alright. I use the Slate primarily for watching media, doing work within Google docs, sheets, and slides, and general surfing. My Bose wireless headphones connect without problem. That's something I've had trouble with on Chromebooks. The front facing speakers are amazing! They've got a good umph to them. The screen is high quality and the small bezels make for a great viewing experience. I also like that this is built on ChromeOS. It means I can have multiple logins (e.g. personal and work) and switch between them. I don't like that the iPad doesn't let you have multiple users on a single device. A single charge lasts me all day, too. As I type this review, I'm at 79% battery with 9h51m remaining on the battery. Even though the Slate has been working well, it's definitely not without its problems. There are times where the Slate doesn't recognize they keyboard and stays in tablet mode. The touchscreen isn't always responsive. I can tap an icon or type on the keyboard, and it won't register. Sometimes it will register but fail to carry out its action. For example, if I type the letter "A" it will recognize it by highlighting the key, but the letter A won't show up in the textbox. The screen flickers from time to time. Scrolling on the device's screen shows the lag it has. When I scroll with my finger, there is a delay in the page moving. This is not apparent on my iPad. You can use Android apps in ChromeOS, but they often don't work. There are times where I will close an app but it stays on the screen. If I resize an app to be smaller, it will leave a ghost image of itself where it used to be. Some apps, when closed, will keep running processes in the background. So I found that I primarily use the web versions of apps. For example, I just watch Netflix on its website rather than using its app. I know the Slate exists for a different purpose than the Pixelbook. I find that I'm using the Slate more as a Chromebook than as a tablet. The two USB-C ports make it easy to charge, attach devices, and connect to a large monitor. The Slate easily works with my 27" HD monitor at home. It's replaced my setup with my Macbook. Honestly, for me it makes sense to just buy a Pixelbook. I tried the current Pixelbook but didn't like the bezels. I know, that's pretty petty of me. Part of the reason I got the Slate is because of its screen. Depending if/when Google releases a Pixelbook 2, I will probably return the Slate for it. I've been finding the Slate being my go-to at home and work. I constantly carry it with me in my work bag, which is not something I've done with my iPad or Macbook before. The Slate does everything I need it to do, but my needs are pretty low. For my friends who are tech-forward and always on the leading edge: yes, I would recommend it for them! I think they'd love playing with it, using it as a developer tool, coding with it, etc. But for the everyday user, I feel the issues its had would make them question why they bought it. For the same price, they could have a smoother experience with an iPad. It feels like Google sent out a beta version of the device. Most of the issues, though, seem software related and I look forward to Google making improvements. Overall, I'm happy with what I got but I'm eager to see what else Google releases in the future.