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Yes, the new Google Chromebook Pixel is relatively pricey—especially for something that’s not a “real” computer—but it does what it was designed to do really, really well.
The case is constructed of anodised aluminium and is surprisingly light given its full-size keyboard. The lid lifts and closes with a single finger. When closed, a thin LED strip glows blue before the system goes to sleep. It’s a nice touch, albeit functionally useless.
The 13-inch, 239ppi capacitive touch display running at 2560 x 1700 resolution is gorgeous and bright. The capacitive Gorilla Glass is fast, responsive, and accurate. It provides a natural compliment to the laptop’s silky smooth touch-pad which itself makes it feel like I’m swiping over velvet.
With vents hidden along the back edge combined with a 32GB internal SSD, the Pixel is incredibly quiet. The I/O ports—a pair of USBs and an SD slot—are intentionally unmarked on account that most everybody can discern the difference without looking for an icon.
An Intel i5 chip provides more than enough power to Chrome OS. The system boots in about 15 seconds, instantly awakens from its sleep state, and shows no signs of lag when running multiple apps—even with multiple web pages running.
The OS itself may be seen as restrictive—standalone programs are a no go—but for those of us that use our laptops primarily as on-line terminals rather than traditional desktops, these limitations are hardly noticeable.
The reason this will flop is simple: People that are this retarded don’t know enough about the internet. You wouldn’t spend this much (last time I checked they were nearly a grand) on a glorified netbook if you had any sense, you’d get a high end laptop instead. Anyone that buys this isn’t likely to know about google drive, evernote, wunderlist or indeed any other of the online tools that actually make this thing (halfway) worth buying.
Price and the fact that you need high speed internet speed will eventually fail this product. My area tops at 1.8 mbps, thank f**k for that BT.
Yeah, I get MUCH faster than that, even at busy times and use Google Docs, Chrome, Drive etc extensively, but I still wouldn’t touch this thing with the proverbial barge propulsion mechanism.
What’s the need for an i5 in something that just runs a browser? Im not against the concept of a ChromeOS at all but it seems like overkill? Surely they’re better off putting an ARM chip in it and making it run forever?
You’d be surprised. I put Chromium OS on my netbook running an Intel Atom thinking it’d run great since it’s “just a web browser”. But the truth is, it ran way better than Windows, but it was still an unpleasant experience. Maybe that’s just Atom – I’ve put almost every OS under the sun and nothing can make it run decently.
Google have the power to optimise the hell out of it though? I’m sure it could be done! Also I’ve just seen the price on this thing and they have got to be joking haven’t they? I’ve never seen anybody use or even hear about them and they want to charge $1300?
I’m not justifying them charging $1300 for a Chromebook, that’s ridiculous. The problem with Google products is that I never see them advertised anywhere, so no one knows what a Chromebook is!
If they stuck a real OS on this it would sell. I say a real OS because Chrome OS just isn’t real for me as its dedication to the internet makes it just a google tech showcase rather than a real product.
I expect by tomorrow evening there’ll be 40 comments praising Google’s new net book browser thingy.
If it was half the price (lulz), had a touch screen and could run Android apps I’d have one.
Sorry, it does have a touch screen. Shows how much attention I pay to these articles before commenting. Ahem.
Well, frankly price is always the selling variable. If this goes up for sale with a £200 price tag this will outsell Windows Surface.
I think at £400 it would be selling like the proverbial hot cakes but the cost they’ve released is almost like they don’t want to sell it.
Google may know web search and maps but they’ve got a lot to learn when it comes to retailing physical products based on the Nexus shortages and this pricing.
Very true, I hope they don’t let this happen again, specially once Glass comes out. Problem with the Chrome book is the constant dependency on internet connection. Even a Chrome book with Jelly Beans on them is a better alternative to their current offer imho.
The price is kinda justified seeing as they know they won’t shift many to really pay back the tooling cost for all that lovely lovely aluminium.
Its an engineering exercise, nothing more in my opinion.
But what was the Nexus 4? They’ve sold over a million without spending anything on marketing and they’re not making a profit so they’ve cost their hardware partners money in lost sales.
I think we’d all like them to build an actual product that satisfies consumers on all fronts, including price.
Nexus 4 proves that when the price is reasonable you don’t need wasting money on making adverts that say “If you don’t have iPhone go dig your own grave before jumping off the cliff”
Nexus 4 wasn’t reasonable, it was a frickin’ steal
Second that
The point I was making is they’ve sold hardly any, had difficulties with supply, annoyed customers by going out of stock, had a spat with LG, and all because they decided to price it unreasonably competitively (from Android hardware partners perspective). The phone was never meant to sell in big numbers and was never meant to be a mainstream product.
I agree, it was a great mess by Google but I think Google was caught by surprise. If it was a marketing stunt then they would had never replenished supply stock for that price again and for that reason we should be thankful to Google. Also, the previous Nexus phone by Samsung didn’t do exactly well, even though it was about hundred pound more expensive than N4, still Google clearly didn’t know that they will be sold out on them.
Strangely, if they’d charged £5 more and spent that on marketing the device they would have sold out quicker! They’d have to climb a little further up the pricing model before making the product sustainable. Which is why they probably decided to sit at a semi-sweet spot.
So yes it was never meant to be a mainstream device, as with the Pixel, I think Google are still learning about hardware production and logistics. Maybe they’ll step it up for the next Nexus handset?
Yes, they never aired any sorta advertisement on tv or cinemas and that is a major drawback. They could have sold helluva lot more if they did with added £5 per device!!
It’s a 1280 x 768 at 320 pixels per inch display by the way
I meant the Chromebook Pixel!
D’OH! Sorry about that. Chrome book needs to be Jelly Beaned and price axed drastically.
If only. I’d consider buying it then. It’s almost as if Google don’t want people buying Android apps through a Chromebook and then unifying their App and other purchases with Google Play on their Android smartphone.
Too much work for them maybe? Don’t worry, they’re business getting Google Glass headsets out to developers, because that’s more important! Pah!
Hey, 3 Giz articles in the space of an hour for an over priced/under spec’d, piece of tech. Oddly though I can’t see the Apple logo anywhere.
You mean you don’t like the look of this Mr Else? It says Google on it and everything
(I jest of course)
Not for me, Too pricey.
It looks great and the trackpad and screen sound lovely but at that price I can’t figure out who it’s actually for.
Choo Choo!
Wait, so is it good or not? you’ve just had two contridictory articles here.
Like everything I guess it has it’s good and bad points.
I think it’s good from a technical standpoint but the price makes it a complete no go.
could it look anymore like a cheap Chinese rip of a MBP!
Yes
What use is a 239ppi screen for Facebook and checking your email? This deserves to crash and burn. You could buy two Retina iPad’s for that price and even they would be more useful.
Except you can fire up Google Docs and do some proper work on this thing.
Google’s aim with Chrome OS is to allow you to do pretty much everything you can do with a laptop, but with a more cloud-centric OS.
Not that I’m saying they’ve achieved that yet…
Yeah but as I understand you can edit Google docs on an iPad via the Google Drive app.
If it were that easy, laptops would be extinct. I’m saying that when it comes to doing a decent day’s work, there’s no substitute for a large screen, a WIMP OS and a proper keyboard.
I don’t disagree that laptops are generally much more useful than tablets but I just feel that that kind of screen is being wasted on Chrome OS as very few websites are designed to make use of it and you are limited to what can run in a browser. At least the iPad has retina optimised apps available. I have used an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard, and even though it would seem quite self-defeating it does actually work quite well.
As Google have control over both the Chrome OS and the apps it runs, it wouldn’t be difficult for them to use that higher pixel density. Also, vector elements like text and OpenGL graphics can be rendered in higher detail right from the off.
I know that the iPad + keyboard works ‘quite well’, but would I want to tap out emails, write spreadsheets and word process on it for up to 8 hours a day? Not on your nelly. As I type this I’m sitting in front of two 24″ monitors, so you can imagine what using an iPad feels like to me, particularly when doing tasks like this.
I’ve tried that a few times. It really isn’t a fun experience – Drive is best used for PDFs (or docs you’re only planning on reading, rather than editing) and little else IMO.
32GB SSD? In an £1049 internet laptop? That’s just gonna fly off the shelf
I thought SSDs were as cheap as chips by now, seeing I bought a 120gb SSD 6 months ago for £50.
Vlog talking about Chromebook Pixel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tUyVgV7o54