Like a lot of you, at each event like MWC or IFA, I hope Sony has a “one more thing” surprise for us and it’s the Xperia Z5 Tablet. Announced on March 2nd, 2015, the Xperia Z4 Tablet is one of the most profound modern devices Sony has ever made. Sleek, lightweight, and powerful but none of that does the tablet justice.

Its gorgeous 2K screen sits on top of an effortlessly thin 10.1 display that’s easily the best Android tablet ever built. Though not as functional as an iPad Pro, if there were to be an Android version of it, Sony had already built it. Whether you wanted to entertain yourself or get work done, the Xperia Z4 Tablet was the right choice. No surprise though that with little marketing from Sony and almost no real support from Google who never took tablets serious with Android, the Xperia Z4 Tablet didn’t sell well which could explain why we’ve never seen a Z5 Tablet. But as it turns out, perhaps the issue is less about what Sony.

Android Police's tablet traffic, 2011-2016. Android tablets are basically dead. pic.twitter.com/35pI1SSXhy

— David Ruddock (@RDR0b11) October 13, 2016

What the above graph shows us is that the Z4 Tablet launched at the tail end of Android tablet usage. Since then, tablet usage, which coincides with new Android tablets, has been steadily declining. Part of it is surely related to the advent of bigger and bigger phones like the Xperia Ultra and Galaxy Note series which have eaten away at sales of smaller Android tablets. But I think that’s only part of the story and that a majority of this decline can squarely be put on Google’s shoulders who never took tablets seriously.

Of all the tech products out there, using Android tablets has to be by far one of the worst experiences possible as the OS has never been optimized for them. Instead, it’s always been about stretching the Android OS to accommodate the additional pixels. This in turn has led to little excitement from consumers who expect additional functionality out of their larger device, and there’s little incentive from OEMs to do anything new when Google itself clearly doesn’t care.

A little birdie a long time ago had told me that Sony had quietly moved all their engineers from tablets to phones but I held hope that there might be some skunk work project that would eventually lead to the Xperia Z5 Tablet. That above graph kills all hope of any tablets ever going out from Sony again.

Discuss:

Would you have liked to see an Xperia Z5 Tablet?