These are not the Droids I was looking for...rn Google today announced a new addition to the Pixel family of devices — Pixel C. Here C stands for convertible and it’s powered by Android and not Chrome OS. Don’t get too excited and think it’s a new class of device where Android has been optimized for the ‘desktop’ or a merger of Chrome OS and Android. It’s nothing more than a new Android tablet with a dedicated keyboard. Period. I really don’t know what Google is trying to achieve here other than throwing out a device to compete with Surface Pro and iPad Pro. And there are already convertible Android tablets in the market — the ASUS Transformer being one of the most popular ones. What do you get? Pixel C showcases a 10.2-inch screen with 2560 x 1800 (308 ppi) resolution. It has an Nvidia X1 SoC and 3GB of RAM. Pixel C is priced saner than Chromebook Pixels – you can get a 32GB model for ~ $500 and 64GB model for ~ $600. The keyboard is sold separately for ~$150. Similar to the latest Chromebook Pixel, it is using USB Type C for charging and data transfer. To improve voice input Google is cramming 4 microphones in the device. While stock Android always lacked a split screen feature, which allows one to work on multiple apps at the same time, the upcoming version of Android will bring split screen. Will I be getting it? I am typically an early buyer and get Google devices as soon as they are out, but I may skip Pixel C because I really don’t see any value beyond being an Android tablet with a dedicated keyboard. As a writer who spends a lot of time pounding out words, I haven’t seen any decent text editors on Android. Google’s own Google Docs lacks many important features — hyperlinking is still a painful task when working on Google Docs on mobile devices. And I tend to keep all my documents ‘offline’ in a standard format such as .txt so I can save them on my own server and access them from any app. If I have to choose between a Chrome OS powered laptop and an Android powered laptop I will pick a Chromebook. There are dozens of great quality text editors on Chromebooks and you can get full fledged Google Docs through a browser. Other news from today’s event: Nexus: The improvements to the Nexus series of phones look good on paper, but I have been using Nexus since the early days and things like the camera have been their weaknesses – both on the hardware and software side. It’s nice that they announced a Nexus Protection program to cover Nexus hardware as I have a $700 Nexus 6 device sitting on my table with a tiny crack on the screen and I have to pay $200 to get a replacement device — which brings my total cost to $900. Chromecast: The update to Chromecast was neither revolutionary or evolutionary. Personally, I have unplugged all three Chromecasts that I have and threw them in a drawer. They have been replaced by Android-powered Amazon Fire TV Stick. The reason: Chromecasts have started to go rogue and don’t respond to your phone at all. Every single time I played a YouTube video, it lost control over it and I couldn’t stop it. Second, the lack of a dedicated remote makes it extremely hard to control audio — you have to pull out the phone, open the app and then decrease the volume. Things become more complicated if you have to take a phone call during a playback or if you have to walk out — then the show is on its own. As far as Chromecast Audio is concerned I am not much interested in it as I buy only Bluetooth or wireless enabled speakers that also allow me to stream music from ‘any’ bluetooth enabled device. I have music collected over 20 years and Google doesn’t support offline playback via its Google Music to Chromecast so you have to be on the cloud. And for privacy reasons, I am not a huge fan of putting ‘everything’ in the public cloud. In general I am a huge fan of Android and Chrome OS and I buy new devices perhaps more frequently than my wife would like, but for the first time I am not excited about the new Google hardware. Related content opinion These are the most exciting Linux powered devices Did you know that Tesla cars ran on Linux?rn By Swapnil Bhartiya May 22, 2017 4 mins Linux Open Source opinion How Rackspace flew through turbulence in the private cloud Bryan Thompson, General Manager, OpenStack Private Cloud at Rackspace, talked about the second generation of cloud and some turbulence that OpenStack recently experienced.rn By Swapnil Bhartiya May 22, 2017 4 mins Open Source Cloud Computing Data Center opinion How Dell’s Project Sputnik came to life I met and talked to Barton George, the projectu2019s initiator and leader, to understand the backstory. 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