Despite getting a late start compared to Amazon and struggling to compete against the e-commerce giant’s supremely popular Echo devices for a number of years, Google has managed to slowly expand its presence in the global smart speaker market of late.
The Nest-branded product portfolio remains leaner and less experimental than the competition’s Alexa-powered Echo lineup, which… might actually explain the recent success of the likes of the Nest Hub, Nest Audio, and Nest Hub Max.
But now Big G is reportedly working on a device with no direct equivalent in Amazon’s hardware backyard, and to be perfectly honest, we don’t know how to feel about it. “Cautiously excited” seems like the best approach for the time being, especially with very few details of substance revealed at the moment.
In a nutshell, 9To5Google’s inside sources claim a new addition to the search giant’s smart display family is likely to be released at some point this year… with detachable tablet functionality. That’s not quite what we envisioned when speculation of a Pixel tablet revival emerged a couple of months back, but it could well be a first step in that direction.
While you can’t currently turn any Echo Show devices into portable slates, this somewhat novel-sounding idea that Google is purportedly thinking of putting into practice in 2022 is actually not entirely new or original.
Lenovo has been selling various 2-in-1 Smart Tab models at various (reasonable) prices for a few years now, although that particular product lineup may not have done much to boost the company’s global sales numbers in the Apple-dominated tablet industry of late.
Of course, we can probably expect the software experience on Google’s first smart display/tablet hybrid to be better, although for the time being, we have no idea if this Nest-branded device will run Android, Chrome OS, or something else entirely.
Given how little we actually know, we highly doubt this… thing will be (properly) announced, showcased, and detailed at Google I/O 2022 in May. Then again, perhaps a teaser of some sort preceding a full launch in late summer or fall is not out of the question.
As some of you might remember, Google is no stranger to the tablet landscape, abandoning the market after failing to turn 2018’s Pixel Slate into a commercial hit. That was actually a 2-in-1 product as well, but this time around, the goal is not to replace your traditional laptop but bridge the gap between tablets and smart speakers.
