On Tuesday, Google made the Pixel C available finally. After announcing it in September and saying it would be available “later this year”. The Pixel C is available now for $499 in the US and £399 in the UK. Now the Pixel C is a pretty unique tablet from Google. It’s the first tablet that Google manufactured themselves. It’s also the first convertible tablet from Google that runs on Android. There’s a lot of firsts here with this tablet, including USB Type-C. On Wednesday, the Pixel team took to Reddit to do an AMA, where users and potential buyers of the Pixel C can ask questions about the new tablet and see what Google might have planned in the future. There was some talk about Android N, as expected. The team also stated that the Pixel C would be supported in AOSP.
Now the Pixel C is not a Nexus. The main difference between Nexus and Pixel is that Nexus is built by their partners, and Pixel is built by Google. The team did confirm that the code for the Pixel C is open sourced and maintained in AOSP. Additionally, they confirmed that the tablet will get updates each month. Much like the Nexus devices get their security updates. So we might see some custom ROMs for the Pixel C – as long as enough developers buy the tablet.
Speaking of custom ROMs, the team also confirmed that the bootloader is unlockable “to enable booting an alternate OS”. So for those of you that want to buy the Pixel C to tinker around with it, you still are able to do so. A few other features the team touched on was the Chrome OS Style recovery via USB, that is not implemented and didn’t mention if it was in the works. They did however, mention that DisplayPort via the USB Type-C port is coming soon. As it’s something the team is actively working on.
The Pixel team has some pretty big plans for the Pixel C to become a really powerful convertible device. Having DisplayPort included is a pretty big deal. And it appears to be a software limitation as the hardware is already there.