Now you can buy a Pixel Tablet stripped of Google apps and services

Murena is a company that's built a business around selling smartphones and cloud services that put a focus on privacy. Instead of making its own phones, Murena takes existing Android phones and replaces the operating system with a de-Googled version of Android called /e/OS.

Now the company is expanding into tablet with the new Murena Pixel Tablet. It's basically a Google Pixel Tablet that ships with /e/OS instead of Android. That means it ships without the Google Play Store or other Google apps and services. While some people mind find that this makes the tablet more difficult to use, folks who put an emphasis on privacy may consider it a benefit worth paying extra for – and you do have to pay extra to get the Murena Pixel Tablet. It sells for $549.

By comparison, an ordinary Google Pixel Tablet has a $399 starting price for a model with 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and no Speaker Charging Dock. At the moment Google's tablet is even cheaper than that because it's on sale for $299.

In other words, you could save a lot of money by purchasing a stock Pixel tablet, unlocking the bootloader, and installing /e/OS on your own. But there are a few advantages to buying a device that ships with the operating system pre-installed.

One is that you don't need much technical knowledge to get it up and running since everything should be preconfigured. Another is that a Murena Pixel Tablet comes with a 2-year warranty and if you run into any problems you won't have to convince the company that they're due to the unofficial software running on the device. And perhaps the biggest reason is to support the continued development of /e/OS as an alternative to Google's regular Android software.

The version that ships with the Murena Pixel Tablet is based on Android 13 and should be compatible with most third-party Android apps. But it doesn't include Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome, or even Google Search. And it doesn't connect to Google's servers for time, domain name recognition, or GPS services.

There are some privacy-focused alternatives installed by default, and the Murena includes 1GB of free cloud storage space for its Murena Workspace service which offers privacy-focused email, contact, calendar, and storage features as well as a cloud version of OnlyOffice.  Customers can also pay for additional storage.

From a hardware standpoint though, the Murena Pixel Tablet is identical to an entry-level Google Pixel Tablet. It has the same 10.95 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel IPS LCD display, Google Tensor G2 processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, 8MP front and rear cameras, and 7,020 mAh batteries.

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal * If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it. Join 9,549 other subscribers