It seems like Google has made a 180 degree turn in its big-screen device strategy. In 2018 it announced that its hardware division had stopped making tablets in favor of laptops with Chrome OS, launching the Pixelbook Go in 2019, but this year 2022 it announced that Google was returning to the tablet market with the Pixel Tablet. Well, according to the information Google will stop making its own Chromebooks.
Google launched its first Pixelbook in 2017. Two years later, it launched its second model with the Pixelbook Go (2019). In 2021, Google was supposed to launch a new Chromebook, as it looked like the company was going to renew its laptop line every two years, but that didn’t happen. The pandemic and the semiconductor crisis have been blamed on the hope that in 2022 a new laptop will arrive, but it looks like it won’t happen this year or next.
Google would have canceled its next Pixelbook and closed its responsible team
The information comes from The Verge. A reliable source familiar with the matter confirmed that Google has canceled the next Pixelbook laptop and disbanded the team responsible for its designmoving their employees to other company locations.
The reason for the cancellation of the news pixel book seems to be part of the recent measures of cost reduction within Google. The company wouldn’t find it very profitable to launch a new laptop in its hardware division.
A few months ago, Google was planning on continuing to release new Pixelbooks, as Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh at Google I/O 2022 held in May confirmed to The Verge that they were going to continue to launch new Pixelbooks in the future, but if confirmed apparently, it won’t be in 2023.
Google is now focused on returning to the tablet business, where last May it confirmed that in 2023 it would launch a Pixel tablet, and according to recent leaks, it might also launch a Pixel Tablet Pro which might come with a keyboard so it can be turned into a laptop. Perhaps with the Pixel Tablet Pro, the company still doesn’t see the need to launch a new Pixelbook.
Through | The edge
