Google announced its first Chrome OS tablet, the Google Pixel Slate, on Tuesday in New York. The company said it’ll be available in stores before the end of 2018, without stating an actual date. However, Best Buy might have just slipped it, rather accidentally. The retailer just listed the Pixel Slate with a release date of November 22 before changing it to “Not Yet Announced”.
Google Pixel Slate release date
While the other two devices that Google announced alongside the Pixel Slate on Tuesday, the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL smartphones and the Google Home Hub, are already up for pre-orders, Google chooses to not do so with the Pixel Slate. This is probably because Google is not yet ready with the device, and some hardware and software optimizations might still be in progress. And it was sensible for the company to not state any release date before it’s ready.
Best Buy, however, accidentally spilled the beans, though one can’t say for sure if that’s an official date. The retailer rectified its mistake soon, but not before Kevin Tofel of AboutChromebooks could capture the screenshot.
Kevin also happens to have spotted the Pixel Slate demo units running on the Chrome OS 71 Dev Channel. He noticed some occasional stutters and glitches, but that’s probably because those were pre-sale units with works still to be done. In this code commit, you can see by yourself that the software for Nocturne (codename for Pixel Slate) isn’t yet ready.
The Chrome OS 70, meanwhile, is expected to hit the stable version by October 23. So if the release date of November 22 is real, Pixel Slate developers team will get nearly a month of time to fine-tune the platform for the device. However, if they push it for Chrome OS 71, its stable version isn’t expected until December 11. And that’s possibly the latest release date Google has in mind.
Meanwhile, if you’re thinking of buying the Google Pixel Slate, you’d surely want to check out this keyboard exclusively made for the Pixel Slate by premium third-party keyboard maker Brydge. It costs $40 less but is as good as the one made by Google, if not better.
