Much like its predecessors, that didn’t last long. A Pixel Slate arrived in 2018, with a shift to Chrome as Google’s preferred tablet operating system.

The Pixel C was released the following year, amid a shift to first-party hardware after years of partnerships. In 2012, the company partnered with Asus on the Nexus 7 and Samsung for the Nexus 10. After an initial reluctance around hardware makers porting the mobile OS to a larger form factor, Google began trying its own hand at Android tablets a little over a decade ago. We won’t relitigate why the operating system has struggled to catch on with tablets the same way it has handsets - but we can definitely say it’s not for lack of trying.

The company excels in good, innovative hardware, while its tablets are split between three operating systems: Android, Windows and Chrome. Lenovo is the other major Android tablet maker in the top five Amazon is in fifth, but Fire OS doesn’t really qualify by most measures. They’ve also pushed the company off its Android dependence into its homebrew, HarmonyOS. That’s not surprising on the basis of hardware quality, but the company’s much-publicized struggles with the U.S. Huawei is actually in third at around 7% of the market. Things drop off precipitously from there. 2 behind Apple - accounting for nearly a quarter of all shipments in Q1 2023, per IDC. The Galaxy maker has secured a consistent No. Samsung, for one, has managed to carve out a decent market for itself in the space, courtesy of nice hardware and heavy Android customization. No need to sugarcoat it, the history of Android tablets is rough.

Shimeji maker android