Google unveils new Pixel 3 smartphone, adds tablet Pixel Slate in challenge to rival Apple
The Pixel 3 costs US$799 and larger sibling Pixel 3 XL costs US$899; the new Pixel Slate tablet runs the Chrome OS laptop operating system and costs US$599
Alphabet’s Google unveiled on Tuesday the third edition of its Pixel smartphone, a Google Home smart speaker with a display and its first tablet computer.
The company’s Android software has gone from being an also-ran to the brains of most of the world’s smartphones, and Google topped Amazon.com in smart speaker sales in recent quarters.
Pixel phones, though, have been a tougher sell, garnering less than 1 per cent of the global market by shipments in Google’s first two years of trying, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, and launching with glitches.
The Pixel 3, priced at US$799, and larger sibling Pixel 3 XL, priced at US$899, mark Google’s latest entries into a phone line-up it hopes will someday be as popular as Apple’s iPhone.
The new Pixel Slate tablet runs Google’s beefier Chrome OS laptop operating system rather than Android and is priced at US$599, putting it in competition with Apple’s iPad Pro tablet series.