The Google Pixel C Review
by Brandon Chester & Joshua Ho on January 25, 2016 8:00 AM ESTCamera
A tablet's large display can make it one of the best viewfinders in the world. While many still see tablet cameras as a mostly pointless feature, they do see a great deal of use among certain subsets of tablet users. Like most tablets, the Pixel C sports an 8MP rear-facing camera sensor with 1.12 micron pixels and a 1/4" sensor format. To see the specifics of the Pixel C's cameras along with a comparison to the Nexus 9 check out the chart below.
| Camera Specifications | ||||
| Google Nexus 9 | Google Pixel C | |||
| Front Camera | 1.6MP | 2.1MP | ||
| Front Camera - Sensor | OV9760 (1.75µm, 1/5") |
IMX208 (1.4 µm, 1/5.78") |
||
| Front Camera - Max Aperture | F/2.2 | |||
| Rear Camera | 8.0MP (3280 x 2460) |
|||
| Rear Camera - Sensor | IMX219 (1.12 µm, 1/4") |
|||
| Rear Camera - Focal Length | 33mm eff | 32mm eff | ||
| Rear Camera - Max Aperture | F/2.4 | |||
As always, the first comparisons puts the Pixel C against other devices when taking photos during the day, followed by tests done in the dark, which ends up being heavily influenced by the quality of a tablet's ISP and photo processing.
| Daytime Photography Scene 1 |
The Pixel C doesn't perform very well in this test. It wouldn't surprise me if Tegra's ISP was still to blame, as was the case with the Nexus 9. Compared to the iPad Pro, which has essentially the same camera capabilities as the iPad Mini 4 and iPad Air 2, the image is quite disappointing. There are issues with autofocus on the Pixel C which cause problems with achieving a sharp image, along with color noise in the frame despite the photo being taken in the day at base ISO. While I think tablet cameras should only be used in a pinch, when you're selling one for $500 it's not acceptable to lag so far behind your competitor's $399 mini tablet. This is something Google and NVIDIA need to work on if Tegra SoCs are going to continue being used in Pixel and Nexus device
| Daytime Photography Scene 2 |
In this second scene the Pixel C was able to lock its AF, and as a result there are no issues with bluriness. Unfortunately, the color noise in the frame is still present and there's generally just less detail than the photos taken with the iPad cameras. Color noise is something that's very distracting, and the fact that Google is having problems eliminating it in the daytime is very concerning.
| Low Light Photography Scene 1 |
| Low Light Photography Scene 2 |
Moving on to the low light testing, we see that the Pixel C has an enormous amount of color noise across the entire frame. The Nexus 9 suffers from this as well, and it appears that the ISPs in Tegra X1 and K1 ISP struggle with doing things like hot pixel compensation in low light, as in the dark areas of the photo there are obvious bright speckles of pixel noise. In comparison we have the iPad Pro, which is essentially equal to the Air 2 and Mini 4 as far as image quality is concerned. It produces a much sharper image with very little color noise and relatively fine grained luma noise. The Pixel C simply isn't competitive here.
| Low Light Photography Scene 3 |
This next low light scene echoes the results of the previous one. The Pixel C lags behind the iPads as far as detail and noise is concerned.
| 1080p30 Video |
The Pixel C can record 1080p video at 30fps. This is in line with most tablets on the market. Unfortunately, the video is encoded using the H.264 Baseline profile with a bitrate of 14Mbps. This is yet another Android device using a profile aimed at applications like encoding real time video for streaming and easy decoding for very low performance devices, and I continue to wait for a smartphone or tablet that will buck the trend and be competitive with what Apple is offering in this area. For comparison, the iPad Pro records 1080p30 video using the H.264 High profile at 17Mbps, and the difference in quality is noticeable to say the least. On top of that, the Pixel C's video ends up suffering from some processing issues, including contrast which is too high, which reduces the detail in dark areas.
I don't really use the cameras on tablets, but the Pixel C is another offering that just isn't remotely competitive with what you get on an iPad, or even on a tablet like the Galaxy Tab S2 which is on par with the iPads for still images, and still much better than the Pixel C for video recording. With this trend of poor image processing on Tegra devices Google may want to work with NVIDIA to improve that part of their SoCs, or adopt an external ISP to do processing, because the current solution just isn't working.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
122 Comments
View All Comments
Laxaa - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
It seems to me like the Pixel C was released a year or two too early.versesuvius - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
Adding a keyboard to an ARM device is just adding insult to injury. ARM devices are never going to be useful beyond what they were intended to be in the first instance, which is content consuming devices. Their advantage, which is size and power consumption, is also their limitation. If any company tries to sell an ARM device with a keyboard, one can be pretty sure that that company is pretty much at the end of the road. Disabling four cores of the processor on the top device from the company, while pushing a keyboard on buyers, just says it all. It says that the buyer was not going to do anything useful with it anyway, that is with this device from this particular company anyway.hMunster - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
How can you appload the battery run time and lament the size and weight at the same time?10basetom - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
So the final grade for the Pixel C is a C. Final grade for Android tablet ecosystem? D-Lolimaster - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
How can you release a tablet without SD reader, come on.This tablet would be perfect for reading my collection comics&manga, I don't want to rely on the internetz just for reading purposes.
Demigod79 - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
A couple of years ago I attached a keyboard case to a Nexus 10 and tried to use it like a laptop. It failed. Even though the Nexus 10 supported keyboard navigation and mouse input I found it difficult to anything really productive, and having a keyboard cover on it limited its functionality as a tablet. The Pixel C seems to be a modern-day rehash of my failed experiment with the Nexus 10 and I can very well imagine how using it would be (that is, very bad).The thing is, I had thought Android tablets would gradually evolve and grow, incorporating desktop features like expanded storage and windows apps. The latter was something that I particularly desired ever since using Samsung tablets that had pop-up apps. I thought this was the future and hoped Google would adopt and expand it to incorporate all apps. Frankly, I never thought tablets should have tablet versions of apps. In my opinion, running one app at a time was largely due to the limited screen space available on a phone, which obviously didn't apply to tablets. I thought the natural thing to do with a tablet was to run those phone apps in separate windows, not have bigger versions of those apps. I dreamed of the day when I would be able to run multiple Android apps at once like I did on my laptop.
I waited in vain for Google to incorporate windows apps, and then last year I got fed up and bought a Surface Pro 4 instead. It was the best decision I had ever made. Not only can the Surface Pro 4 replace my laptop (haven't touched it since) it can also replace my tablet since I can run Bluestacks (Android emulator) on it. Best of all, I can finally run Android apps in a window like I've always wanted to do. Add in the ability to run desktop applications as well as desktop games through Steam and it easily ranks as the best mobile device I've ever bought. I have given up on Microsoft for a while but it now seems to be the future (Android had the potential to be the future but Google squandered the opportunity, and now they are relegated to creating lame products like the Pixel C).
deppman - Friday, January 29, 2016 - link
I agree, although I prefer Ubuntu as my general purpose OS since it is more appropriate for my needs.Have you seen Jive's Remix OS? It's pretty much what you describe, and it's run by ex googlers. I expect Google to buy them out because the evolution is so obvious and correct. It's my guess that internal political BS is what has happened here. If they simply added windowed ART apps to chrome OS - or windowed apps and a full chrome browser build to android, they'd achieve pretty much what you described.
IMO, they are missing a wonderful opportunity to unseat MS as the primary desktop OS by not resolving this obvious elephant in the room.
Nisthar - Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - link
Hi Guys, This is a contest hosted by one of the members in my site. He needs a review on Lenovo k4 note + AntVR headset. You can view the contest http://reviewill.com/contest/2 . You may need to register to apply for the contest. The requirements for the contest would be mentioned in the contest description written by him. The winner will recieve $150.Ways to earn money in the site:
1. You can earn through referring your friends. You will get $1 for every 10 users that you refer. The referrals should be verified.
2. You can earn big money through cpa offers.
3. You can post interesting stories through quickpost.
4. You can get 100% user written custom reviews on any brands, companies, movies, etc.
Sign up: http://reviewill.com/register
Sorry if it disturbed you :)
alexlaoe - Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - link
Runs very well. Just bought one and I love the beauty behind the design.https://open.spotify.com/user/artistm/playlist/1RC...
Rc1138 - Sunday, January 31, 2016 - link
Despite my love for big tablets I can't bring myself to like this device. Making a "productivity" tablet is just too early for android. I have a really old nexus 10 and it's nand perfomance as well as overall stability(touch,wi-fi and apps) is several times better than this halfassed powerhouse. The only thing I like about Pixel C is battery perfomance(both battery life and charge time) because nexus 10's charge time equals it's web browsing time(roughly 7 hours). I can't think of a targeted group this tablet is aimed for because for the same price you can buy a really sophisticated surface 3