Google Pixel Slate & Home Hub Not Coming to India Anytime Soon

Google Pixel Slate and Google Home Hub launched at Google’s main event in New York. Not coming to India anytime soon

Google Pixel Slate and Home Hub will not be coming to India anytime soon.

(Photo: Youtube/Google)

Google has launched its version of Surface Pro running Chrome OS called the Pixel Slate, and also a smart home device with video support dubbed Google Home Hub at its annual hardware launch event in New York on Tuesday.

Though the main highlight of the event were the two Pixel smartphones, the company is also looking to push its other consumer products into the market this year.

Though the Pixel Slate and the Google Home Hub won’t be coming to India anytime soon, it is still interesting to see what the company is offering its consumers with these devices.

Google Home Hub

The new Google Assistant enabled devices Google Hub is primarily a screen that let’s users interact with it and as Google said that it helps create “a more helpful, thoughtful home,”. The additional benefits of this hardware is that it will help the users see the responses from Google Assistant rather just hear them.

Well, at least privacy concerns won’t be an issue with the Hub.

The Google Home Hub.(Photo: Google)

The biggest surprise and a perplexing omission that many found to bemusing is the absence of a camera on the Google Home Hub. Competition devices like the Amazon Echo Show and even the recently launched Portal by Facebook come with a lens attached for video calling. It’s a big miss on the Google Home Hub. 

In terms of specifications, the Home Hub features a 7-inch LCD touchscreen display, a “full-range” speaker, and a two mics. It also offers Bluetooth 5.0 support for connectivity.

The company has also made some changes to services like Google Search, YouTube, Maps, Calendar, and Photos to make them compatible for the Home Hub.

Google also introduced the Google Home View feature for the hub which lets users interact with different home appliances and smart home devices connected to Google’s ecosystem.

Users will be able to control their smart home apps while they are mobile through the Google Home View app.

Home Hub appliances will be accessible through mobile. (Photo: YouTube/Google)

The event also showcased how the Hub will interact with Google Photos and can be used as a photo frame. A very expensive one at that. The Google Home Hub has been prices at $149 in the US market.

Google Pixel Slate

Another hardware introduced at the event is the Google Pixel Slate which is nothing more than a detachable Chrome OS tablet. This time around the Pixel Slate has been launched with a keyboard which is ergonomically user-friendly and a stylus touted to be more efficient.

This big 12.3-inch display ain’t no bunny in terms of hardware as it comes with an 8th Gen Intel processor that can go up to a Core i7 paired with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

The Pixel Slate comes with a 8-megapixel camera on the rear and the front.(Photo: Google)

The Pixel Slate is offering front-firing stereo speakers with 8-megapixel front and rear cameras. The company touts the display to be faster and more efficient than a traditional LCD.

For security and accessibility, the Pixel Slate also comes with a fingerprint sensor built into the power button.

Along with this, the company is also offering a backlit keyboard and also a Pixelbook Pen which was introduced last year.

The Pixel Slate has been launched at a starting price of $599 and will go up to $1,599 for the higher specced variant. You’ll have to shell out an extra $199 for the keyboard and $99 for the Pen. Looking at these prices and Google’s track record, we’re confident that the Pixel Slate is unlikely to hit the Indian market.