The Google Pixel C Goes On Sale
by Brandon Chester on December 8, 2015 4:58 PM EST
Today Google has made their Pixel C tablet available on their online store. Google announced the Pixel C at an event in September, and at the time the only thing that was known about the launch date is that it would be in time for the holidays. While Google has certainly cut it close by launching it in the second week of December, they have managed to launch the tablet in time for buyers to purchase it as a gift. Below you can view all the relevant specifications of the Pixel C.
| Google Pixel C | |
| SoC | NVIDIA Tegra X1 (4x Cortex A57 + 4x Cortex A53) 2 SMM Maxwell GPU |
| RAM | 3 GB LPDDR4 |
| NAND | 32/64GB NAND |
| Display | 10.2” 2560x1800 IPS LCD 1500:1 contrast 500 nit brightness |
| Camera | 8MP Rear-facing, 2MP Front-facing |
| Diameter / Mass | 242 x 179 x 7mm, 517 grams |
| Battery | 34.2Wh |
| OS | Android 6 Marshmallow |
| Other Connectivity | 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1, USB Type-C |
| Accessories | Google Pixel C Keyboard: $149 |
| Price | $499/$599 |
Most of the Pixel C's core specifications were known at the time of the launch event in September, but today's launch comes with some additional info such as the battery capacity and amount of RAM. As we already knew, the Pixel C is powered by NVIDIA's Tegra X1 SoC, which is the first time that it's showing up in a mobile device. While we have seen Tegra X1 in the NVIDIA SHIELD TV, it'll be interesting to see how it performs in a more thermally and power constrained scenario.
Paired with the SoC is 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of NAND. As far as connectivity goes you get 2.4/5GHz 2x2 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, and a USB Type-C connector. Based on what we've seen with the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P this is likely still using the USB2 protocol, but until we review it we can't make any definitive statements.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Pixel C is its display. It's a 2560x1800 IPS panel, which has an aspect ratio that is approximately equal to the square root of 2, which happens to be the same ratio used for the A series paper used in most countries around the world. This should make the display well suited to displaying documents that have been digitized and viewing web pages, but not as good for video playback.
Of course, the big selling point for the Pixel C is the keyboard accessory. Like the Surface Pro 4 and the iPad Pro, the Pixel C is Google's take on a tablet that targets users who want to be productive. While I didn't have much time to play with the keyboard at Google's event, the use of magnets and the ability to set the angle of incline anywhere from 100 to 130 degrees without any sort of kickstand seemed like a very novel hinge implementation, and I'm interested to see how well it works in actual use.
The Pixel C is available now on Google's online store. Both the 32GB and 64GB models are in stock and ship within a few business days. As noted above, the price for the 32GB model is $499, while the 64GB model is $599. The keyboard accessory adds an additional $149 onto the base price. In Canada it seems that there aren't any available online yet, and I'll be checking to see if that status changes in the future.
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melgross - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
Ugh! Don't waste your money. The new model starts at $899 without a keyboard, and uses the M3 which is much weaker than the A9X used in the iPad Pro. The Pro 3 is even worse with the old i3.Speedfriend - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
Who cares about the iPad Pro, it is just a toy. Now I can play Angry Birds even faster. You can't even adjust the angle it sits at when you use it with a keyboard.xthetenth - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
And yet both chips are entirely adequate to enable the huge variety of use cases that justify the Surface line and indeed modern tablets beyond the oversized phones not worth a price tag outside the bargain bin.id4andrei - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
The A9x is not faster than Core M Broadwell, let alone M3. You meant to say it's faster than Atom.lucam - Friday, December 11, 2015 - link
Its much faster than Core M Broadwell, in CPU and GPU wise.V900 - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
Seriously?!? This is THAT expensive for you? Are you living in Uganda, or merely so cheap that you survive off complimentary condiments?500$ for a quality piece of hardware is by no means out of reach even for people who make 30-40K a year.
Just forgo one of the POS 400$ AMD laptops you're gonna go get, and get this instead.
Or get a second hand iPad, since that option offers the most bang for the buck.
I suspect you're trolling, since the rest of your comment is just too stupid to take seriously: From the 90$ 3GB cellphones you're describing, to your critiquing one of the fastest CPU/GPU combinations currently in the market.
Don't get me wrong, good trolling attempt, but next time try a little less hard...
Oh, and FYI: The bezels are there to make it more comfortable. I don't know how troll fingers would work on a tablet, but us humans tend to need a spot to put our thumb on. Bezels that are too thin also makes swiping uncomfortable.
xthetenth - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
The Pixel C is very expensive for what it provides because it's a very lopsided product. It's a very high quality oversized phone with a very high quality keyboard, but at the end of the day it can do what phones do and that's it. A Surface, even a Pro, justifies its price better by making much better use of its large screen to open up a huge variety of and by being very thin and light for an actual solution to all use cases (as opposed to the tablet and laptop Mac fans seem to love carrying around).It's yet another Google release of an expensive premium variant of something with such limits to its possible uses that the hardware is wasted on making it too expensive for what it can do.
dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
X1 is outdated? Seriously, what shipping A72 SOC are you referring to? Outside the A9X the X1 is as good as it gets right now. In other words, on Android the X1 is as good as it gets right now.As for the PPI, it's a tablet. This may come as a shock to some people, but modern tablets have far lower pixel density than modern phones. This isn't exactly a new paradigm we're dealing with here. The PPI is fine, it's in line with other recent high-end tablets.
Agree that the price is pretty high though, both the tablet itself and keyboard accessory. Unfortunately tablet accessories in general are usually really expensive for what they are, keyboards in particular. They're trying to compete at the high-end, but apparently they don't know how to do that. Their products were more compelling and successful when they just avoided the high-end market altogether.
syxbit - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
The A72 is shipping in the $100 Fire TV 4k.Benchmarks show the CPU is faster than X1. But GPU is much worse
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/amazons-201...
dragonsqrrl - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
Wow, had no idea that thing even existed. I have to admit the results are pretty disappointing. The GPU performance is terrible, like you said, and the CPU performance isn't much better than the A57, certainly not anywhere close to enough to render the X1 "outdated". I realize the results are limited (only geekbench) but it doesn't look promising from a performance standpoint. When I first saw the single-core results I just assumed that the A57's in the X1 were clocked higher, but nope, they're both 2 GHz. Overall the A72 scores 5% higher, but there's actually about a 5% regression in integer performance. There must be some sort of a bottleneck on that SOC... right? I mean, I realize the A72 is supposed to improve efficiency, but with practically no improvement in IPC? If so it's going to be totally obsolete vs 2016's lineup of custom ARM v8 cores.