Google’s new Pixel Tablet on its default Home screen.
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I’ve been breaking out of my usual wheelhouse and getting hands-on with Google’s new Pixel Tablet for the last few days. It’s in stores now, and starts at $499 for the base 128 GB model. You can also spring for the $599 256 GB model, and at only $100 more, I think it’s a worthwhile upgrade to double your storage capacity, depending on your use case.
It’s been years since Google rolled out a new tablet, and besides the included charging dock and attendant Hub Mode, the company hasn’t tried to reinvent the wheel. You won’t find pro-oriented accessories like you do on the iPad: no stylus, no keyboard, and aside from a matching case with kickstand, not much in the way of Google-designed accessories.
But in my few days of testing, it seems like this might have been by design. And there’s really one kind of consumer Google had in mind for this product, and if that’s you, this tablet may be worth the price.
What’s good
Hub Mode, Hub Mode, Hub Mode. If you’re a consumer who’s already enmeshed in Google’s ecosystem and are interested in a Google Home-compatible array of smart home devices, the Pixel Tablet may just become your new best friend.
The Pixel Tablet’s best feature is Hub Mode, which turns the device into a landing page for your whole life when you click it to the dock.
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Here’s how it works: When you dock your Pixel tablet with the included charging speaker dock, the tablet visually responds and transforms its lock screen into a customizable screen.
It’s the kind of feature that works well if you already have Google Home devices. From the lock screen, you can view cameras, tweak lighting and adjust your blinds, if you’re one of the lucky folks with smart window treatments. If someone rings your Nest or Ring doorbell, it’ll show you who’s at the door as well.
It could work well in the kitchen or family room — somewhere with a lot of people moving in and out — and can feed in alerts about package delivery, running timers or even when your Uber or Lyft is en route.
I opted for Google’s dynamic on-screen clock in the Prime skin. The clock faces are beautiful and manage to be visually engaging without being a needless distraction.
Unfortunately, my smart-home devices are all set up for Apple HomeKit, which made it difficult to see how it fit into my ecosystem. But the functionality that Hub Mode can offer makes it a step up from relying just on your Nest Hub, because it’s portable.
The Pixel Tablet docked.
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You can buy charging docks individually and dot them around your home, moving your tablet(s) from location to location as you go about your day. For example, you could find a recipe from the couch, tote your Pixel Tablet to the kitchen and get to cooking.
Hub Mode also lets you cast video from your phone or computer to the Hub.
Multitasking is also solid, although it definitely isn’t a computer-killer — nor is Google positioning it as one. It’s perfectly adequate for streaming video and weeding through your inbox at the same time, although depending on the angle of the tablet or the optional case with kickstand, your typing experience may vary.
What’s bad
The Tensor G2 SoC processor, new to the Pixel Tablet, offers a snappy experience, but its power felt constrained by some aspects of the user interface, such as a momentary lag when you pull down to access the control panel.
Google’s Pixel Tablet in Chrome.
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Although the emoji background is a great concept and responds to user touch, the lag muted the experience a bit.
This is a tablet that requires you to get used to its shortcomings: Getting the angle of motion precisely right to go to the home screen rather than switching to another app, for example. Some of those weak points, though, are likely my inexperience with Android.
This isn’t a tablet for a power user, either. It’ll help you do what you need to do as far as basic productivity, but don’t expect to be penning a novel or a tablet review on it. It’s a similar story with the twinned 8MP cameras. My colleague and I both felt that the 7MP front-facing camera on an older iPad Pro outshone the front-facing camera on the Pixel, which seemed a little washed out and unusually sharp in comparison.
Should you buy it?
Go for the Pixel Tablet if you think there’s a space in your home and routine for a portable smart hub. Hub Mode is where this device shines, and even little things such as the air quality indicator on the lock screen and the improved speaker quality made my morning routine noticeably better. At $499 for the 128GB model, it’s got more than enough storage at a reasonable price, especially if you’re already integrated into the Google ecosystem.
People walk past an Amazon Fresh store in Washington, DC, on August 26, 2021.
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Amazon plans to close all of its Fresh supermarkets in the U.K., in the latest recalibration of its grocery strategy.
The company said in a Tuesday blog that it’s preparing to close all 19 of its Fresh U.K. stores, “following a thorough evaluation of business operations and the very substantial growth opportunities in online delivery.” Five of the Fresh locations are expected to be converted into Whole Foods stores, Amazon said.
Amazon opened its first Fresh location outside the U.S. in London in 2021, about a year after it debuted the store concept in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Fresh stores offer cheaper prices and more mass-market items compared to Whole Foods, the upscale supermarket chain Amazon acquired for $13.7 billion in 2017. Many of the stores also feature Amazon’s cashierless “Just Walk Out” technology.
The Fresh store pullback in the U.K. comes as Amazon has continued to adjust its grocery ambitions. The company has slowed expansion of its Fresh grocery chain and Go cashierless stores in the U.S. It still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
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At the same time, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items like canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks.
Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
The company on Tuesday also said that it plans to offer same-day delivery of groceries, including perishable items, in the U.K. beginning next year.
The Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD presents its models at the Open Space Area during the IAA Mobility in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, on September 12, 2025.
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BYD has a backup plan if it gets cut off from the Nvidia chips it currently uses in its cars, a top executive at the Chinese electric carmaker told CNBC on Tuesday.
Stella Li, executive vice president at BYD, said the company had not received any directive from the Chinese government to stop using Nvidia chips — but if it did, it has a plan B.
“Everybody has a backup. BYD has [a] backup,” Li told CNBC’s Dan Murphy.
Li declined to expand on what the plan is, but she pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic during which there was a global shortage of semiconductors which badly affected the auto sector. BYD had “no issue” at the time because it developed a lot of its technology in-house, he said, so it was able to source alternatives quickly.
Indeed, BYD has sought to have control over large parts of its supply chain, from manufacturing its own cars to developing its own batteries.
“We have a lot of strong … even deeper technology in-house, so we always have backup,” Li said.
Nvidia, whose chips underpin much of the world’s artificial intelligence development, has been caught in the crossfire amid U.S.-China tensions. The company’s H20 AI chip — designed specifically to comply with U.S. export restrictions to China — was first banned, then permitted to be sold in China this year after a revenue-share deal between Washington and Nvidia.
Nvidia designs an entirely different set of semiconductors for cars, however.
One of Nvidia’s systems, Nvidia Drive AGX Orin, is designed to enable cars to carry out some driving tasks autonomously. BYD is a customer of this product.
There is no indication so far that the Chinese government is looking to ban this Nvidia system.
Li said BYD had not been told to stop using any Nvidia products, adding it was unlikely that Beijing would ban the U.S. firm’s auto chips.
“I don’t think any country will do that, because this automatic will kill Nvidia,” Li said. “So Nvidia now is the highest market value company, so if they lose the big market from China … nobody wants to see this.”
Amazon and the Federal Trade Commission are squaring off in a long-awaited trial over whether the company duped users into paying for Prime memberships.
The lawsuit, filed by the FTC in June 2023 under the Biden administration, alleges that Amazon deceived tens of millions of customers into signing up for its Prime subscription program and sabotaged their attempts to cancel it. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing.
The trial is being held in a federal court in Seattle, Amazon’s backyard. Jury selection began Monday and opening arguments are slated for Tuesday, with the trial expected to last about a month.
Launched in 2005, Amazon’s Prime program has grown to become one of the most popular subscription services in the world, with more than 200 million members globally, and it has generated billions of dollars for the company. Membership costs $139 a year and includes perks like free shipping and access to streaming content. Data has shown that Prime members spend more and shop more often than non-Prime members.
Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos famously said the company wanted Prime “to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member.”
Regulators argue that Amazon broke competition and consumer protection laws by tricking customers into subscribing to Prime. They pointed to examples like a button on its site that instructed users to complete their transaction and did not clearly state they were also agreeing to join Prime for a recurring subscription.
“Millions of consumers accidentally enrolled in Prime without knowledge or consent, but Amazon refused to fix this known problem, described internally by employees as an ‘unspoken cancer’ because clarity adjustments would lead to a drop in subscribers,” the agency wrote in a court filing last week.
The FTC says that the cancellation process is equally confusing, requiring users to navigate four webpages and choose from 15 options — a “labyrinthian mechanism” that the company referred to internally as “Iliad,” referencing Homer’s epic poem about the Trojan War.
Amazon has argued that the Prime sign up and cancellation processes are “clear and simple,” adding that the company has “always been transparent about Prime’s terms.”
“Occasional customer frustrations and mistakes are inevitable — especially for a program as popular as Amazon Prime,” the company wrote in a recent court filing. “Evidence that a small percentage of customers misunderstood Prime enrollment or cancellation does not prove that Amazon violated the law.”
A crackdown on ‘dark patterns’
The FTC notched an early win in the case last week when U.S. District Court Judge John Chun ruled Amazon and two senior executives violated the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act by gathering Prime members’ billing information before disclosing the terms of the service.
Chun also said that the two senior Amazon executives would be individually liable if a jury sides with the FTC due to the level of oversight they maintained over the Prime enrollment and cancellation process.
Amazon’s Prime boss Jamil Ghani and Neil Lindsay, a senior vice president in its health division who previously oversaw Prime’s technology and business operations, are named defendants in the complaint.
Russell Grandinetti, Amazon senior vice president of international consumer, is also named in the suit, but Chun argued he had “less involvement in the operation of the Prime organization” compared to Ghani and Lindsay.
Chun also scolded attorneys for Amazon in July for withholding thousands of documents from the FTC and abusing a legal privilege to shield them from scrutiny. Among the documents was a 2020 email where Amazon’s retail chief Doug Herrington said “subscription driving” was a “shady” practice and referred to Bezos as the company’s “chief dark arts officer.”
Representatives from Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Amazon also faces a separate lawsuit brought by the FTC in 2023 accusing it of wielding an illegal monopoly. That case is set to go to trial in February 2027.
The Prime case is part of the FTC’s broader crackdown on so-called “dark patterns,” which it began examining in 2022. The phrase refers to deceptive design tactics meant to steer users toward buying products or services or giving up their privacy.
The agency brought a similar dark patterns lawsuit against Uber in April, accusing the ride-hailing and delivery company of deceptive billing and cancellation practices tied to its Uber One subscription service. Uber has disputed the FTC’s allegations.
Earlier this year, it reached settlements with online dating service Match and online education firm Chegg over claims that their subscription practices were deceptive or hard to cancel.