Google Pixelbook review
Google's back in the laptop business, with
this, the Pixelbook [not the "Chromebook Pixel" -- oops!] As you can see, it is a beautiful, well-made
aluminum laptop, with a high resolution touchscreen that you can flip around into a tablet mode. The question for this review isn't is it any
good, because it's very good at being a Chromebook No, the question is Is it worth spending $1000
on this Chromebook? And there are other questions! Can it replace a MacBook
or a Windows laptop or even an iPad Pro? To answer those questions, we need to talk about the software. Chrome OS, especially with Android apps, is
more capable than it's ever been. I can use it for my job, for 90 percent of the stuff I need to do.
And I'm also lucky enough to have other computers
around for when I need to finish that last ten percent And everybody's ten percent is different. For me it's video editing. For you, it might be a great Mac app or a really powerful Excel spreadsheet Or a dope iPad game I do believe that Android apps are going to get better at filling those gaps over time But it's going to take awhile I wouldn't buy this in the hopes that the situation is going to get better in the next few months, or even the next year. But today, now, this machine is much more powerful than most people think.
Web apps on Chrome are great, You can use
them separate windows instead of tabs and split screen them. Many of them work offline. Then there are the Android apps. You might have heard that they have been running in Beta on Chrome OS for awhile And that beta hasn't been, well, any good at all.It's been terrible Now that beta is over, the situation is better,
but its still a little tricky.
Now they're out of beta on this machine and I can report that they are better But the situation is, well, a little bit tricky Really, the main thing I've run into is that it's weird to have two versions of the same app. Slack, for instance, has a great web app but
in tablet mode the android app is better. So you end up kind of juggling them in an
awkward way. But not all Android apps are this nice.
Most don't have freely resizable windows. The good news is that running them doesn't
bring the machine to a halt like it used to on other chromebooks. Some of that, I'm sure, is that this thing
is very powerful, but a lot it is bugfixes. We should talk about some other chrome os
changes.
The Google Assistant is here, get to it by hitting this button or by saying Okay Google There's also Google search, of course Just like on the Pixel phone, it's integrated
with the on-device search There's a new launcher that's nicer and does
a slightly better job of helping you distinguish between web and android apps. There's also this pen, the Pixelbook pen. It's a hundred bucks and the battery in it
should last about a year. You can do usually note taking stuff, even
use handwriting recognition.
It's a full wacom stylus, so you can do a
bunch of drawing tricks with angle and pressure. But that stuff only works in a few apps, ones
that are updated to support it. In those apps, the lag is barely noticeable. In other apps, it's pretty bad.
Hopefully they'll get updated. Anyway, I'm not really a stylus guy but my
colleague James Bareham is. He says it feels better than the Apple Pencil
on the iPad. The difference is that the iPad Pro and Windows machines have way more software If the software support were there for it,
that fight would be much more interesting, but as it is the iPad or a Windows Machine
really does has the edge on pens.
The other thing the Pen does is help with
image searches. You can just hold this button down and circle
stuff, and the google assistant will search for the thing you circled. If you have a pixel phone, you can turn on
instant tethering. Heck, if you have any recent android phone
you can unlock this computer with your phone's fingerprint sensor.
But not everything in the software is rosy. The files app can be a little twitchy, for
example. And tablet mode is just annoying. It's fine for reading or watching a movie,
but you can't do split screen at all and a bunch of android apps are clumsy at best when
you switch over.
This isn't as good at managing Windows on
your screen as, well, Windows So yeah, Google has some more work to do there. Let's geek out about hardware You'd think there's only so many ways to make
a laptop, even a convertible one like this. But Google has managed to make the Pixelbook
look and feel unique. More than unique, actually, from a materials
and build quality perspective, this feels every inch like the thousand dollars it costs.
It's made out of aluminum, with a glass screen
and this glass shade behind the lid, which makes it look like like it belongs next to
the Pixel phones. It's also sturdy as hell, with zero flex. It weighs just about two and a half pounds
and is a little under half an inch thick. The industrial design is also unique, with
these squared off edges and symmetrical elements.
It's just really nice. There are a bunch of details here that are
smart. Like the palmrests, which are made of silicone
and feel better than metal to rest your palms on. I'm hoping they won't get grimy, but if they
do I bet they're easier to clean than the fabric on Microsoft's Surface devices.
The clever bit about those palm rests is that
when you're using it tablet mode, they act like anti-skid feet. They also do a good job of keeping the keyboard
from touching the screen when it's closed. Look at this little gap here. And the keyboard is also great.
It has more key travel than a Macbook without
being too much thicker. I should also point out that it is backlit, which is a stupid thing to point out But a lot of Chromebooks don't have that, which is super annoying The mouse is also really great. It's matted glass and it's got a nice click. But I will say that it's a little annoying
that when the laptop is closed you can squeeze right there and click it.
As for the screen, it's a 12.3-Inch display
with 3 by 2 aspect ratio and the resolution is 2400 x 1600. It's really good, responsive to touch, and
sharp. The bezels here, though, are a little bigger
than I'd like. There are other convertibles with smaller
bezels, so I don't buy the standard line that they make it easier to hold in tablet mode.
So sure, your thousand bucks pays for the
design, but it's also paying for high end specs It has a proper Intel Core i5 7th-generation processor, 8 gigs of ram, and 128 gigs of storage. That's way more than normal for a chromebook,
but you'll use it for Android apps, downloaded movies, and so on. Like several recent machines, it runs that
powerful processor without any fans and if you are a crazy person you can spend up
to 1650 to get 16 gigs of ram and a faster processor and way more storage.. And as for performance: it's a screamer, With
Chromebooks, I usually have to give this speech about how you measure them by how many tabs
they can run before they bog down.
Not a problem here. This runs Chrome better than any computer
I've used at least one that isn't some fifteen hundred dollar plus pro machine. I mean, that's how it should be with this
machine, but I'm glad to report that it is. Google is claiming ten hours of battery life,
but I'm not quite getting that.
It's possible actually it's true that
I have been pushing this machine pretty hard. But I wouldn't trust this thing past seven
or eight hours unless you're being careful. Luckily, it charges super fast. And because it uses standard USB-C, I was
even able to eke out some extra time on the airplane with one of those in-seat USB ports.
Speaking of airplanes,
this is what laptops should be now Apple, good on you for refusing to put a touchscreen on your laptops And Microsoft, good on you for making a traditional laptop. But this is just so convenient, especially when you're on an airplane, that it should be the shape of laptops from now on. Look, I get it there are a million things
the Mac is better at than this. Same goes for Windows and the iPad pro.
They hit that last 10 percent of what you
need more often. But this thing is good at being simple. It's always up to date, and its very good
at doing Chrome things. Here is what the Pixelbook is: a supercomputer
for web apps, with a side of Android.
I am not going to tell you if that's worth
a thousand bucks to you And I'm not going to tell you that it can replace your current computer But I am going to tell you that Google is
closer than it's ever been befoe to even saying that it's possible For a platform that's only six years old,
that's impressive..
this, the Pixelbook [not the "Chromebook Pixel" -- oops!] As you can see, it is a beautiful, well-made
aluminum laptop, with a high resolution touchscreen that you can flip around into a tablet mode. The question for this review isn't is it any
good, because it's very good at being a Chromebook No, the question is Is it worth spending $1000
on this Chromebook? And there are other questions! Can it replace a MacBook
or a Windows laptop or even an iPad Pro? To answer those questions, we need to talk about the software. Chrome OS, especially with Android apps, is
more capable than it's ever been. I can use it for my job, for 90 percent of the stuff I need to do.
And I'm also lucky enough to have other computers
around for when I need to finish that last ten percent And everybody's ten percent is different. For me it's video editing. For you, it might be a great Mac app or a really powerful Excel spreadsheet Or a dope iPad game I do believe that Android apps are going to get better at filling those gaps over time But it's going to take awhile I wouldn't buy this in the hopes that the situation is going to get better in the next few months, or even the next year. But today, now, this machine is much more powerful than most people think.
Web apps on Chrome are great, You can use
them separate windows instead of tabs and split screen them. Many of them work offline. Then there are the Android apps. You might have heard that they have been running in Beta on Chrome OS for awhile And that beta hasn't been, well, any good at all.It's been terrible Now that beta is over, the situation is better,
but its still a little tricky.
Now they're out of beta on this machine and I can report that they are better But the situation is, well, a little bit tricky Really, the main thing I've run into is that it's weird to have two versions of the same app. Slack, for instance, has a great web app but
in tablet mode the android app is better. So you end up kind of juggling them in an
awkward way. But not all Android apps are this nice.
Most don't have freely resizable windows. The good news is that running them doesn't
bring the machine to a halt like it used to on other chromebooks. Some of that, I'm sure, is that this thing
is very powerful, but a lot it is bugfixes. We should talk about some other chrome os
changes.
The Google Assistant is here, get to it by hitting this button or by saying Okay Google There's also Google search, of course Just like on the Pixel phone, it's integrated
with the on-device search There's a new launcher that's nicer and does
a slightly better job of helping you distinguish between web and android apps. There's also this pen, the Pixelbook pen. It's a hundred bucks and the battery in it
should last about a year. You can do usually note taking stuff, even
use handwriting recognition.
It's a full wacom stylus, so you can do a
bunch of drawing tricks with angle and pressure. But that stuff only works in a few apps, ones
that are updated to support it. In those apps, the lag is barely noticeable. In other apps, it's pretty bad.
Hopefully they'll get updated. Anyway, I'm not really a stylus guy but my
colleague James Bareham is. He says it feels better than the Apple Pencil
on the iPad. The difference is that the iPad Pro and Windows machines have way more software If the software support were there for it,
that fight would be much more interesting, but as it is the iPad or a Windows Machine
really does has the edge on pens.
The other thing the Pen does is help with
image searches. You can just hold this button down and circle
stuff, and the google assistant will search for the thing you circled. If you have a pixel phone, you can turn on
instant tethering. Heck, if you have any recent android phone
you can unlock this computer with your phone's fingerprint sensor.
But not everything in the software is rosy. The files app can be a little twitchy, for
example. And tablet mode is just annoying. It's fine for reading or watching a movie,
but you can't do split screen at all and a bunch of android apps are clumsy at best when
you switch over.
This isn't as good at managing Windows on
your screen as, well, Windows So yeah, Google has some more work to do there. Let's geek out about hardware You'd think there's only so many ways to make
a laptop, even a convertible one like this. But Google has managed to make the Pixelbook
look and feel unique. More than unique, actually, from a materials
and build quality perspective, this feels every inch like the thousand dollars it costs.
It's made out of aluminum, with a glass screen
and this glass shade behind the lid, which makes it look like like it belongs next to
the Pixel phones. It's also sturdy as hell, with zero flex. It weighs just about two and a half pounds
and is a little under half an inch thick. The industrial design is also unique, with
these squared off edges and symmetrical elements.
It's just really nice. There are a bunch of details here that are
smart. Like the palmrests, which are made of silicone
and feel better than metal to rest your palms on. I'm hoping they won't get grimy, but if they
do I bet they're easier to clean than the fabric on Microsoft's Surface devices.
The clever bit about those palm rests is that
when you're using it tablet mode, they act like anti-skid feet. They also do a good job of keeping the keyboard
from touching the screen when it's closed. Look at this little gap here. And the keyboard is also great.
It has more key travel than a Macbook without
being too much thicker. I should also point out that it is backlit, which is a stupid thing to point out But a lot of Chromebooks don't have that, which is super annoying The mouse is also really great. It's matted glass and it's got a nice click. But I will say that it's a little annoying
that when the laptop is closed you can squeeze right there and click it.
As for the screen, it's a 12.3-Inch display
with 3 by 2 aspect ratio and the resolution is 2400 x 1600. It's really good, responsive to touch, and
sharp. The bezels here, though, are a little bigger
than I'd like. There are other convertibles with smaller
bezels, so I don't buy the standard line that they make it easier to hold in tablet mode.
So sure, your thousand bucks pays for the
design, but it's also paying for high end specs It has a proper Intel Core i5 7th-generation processor, 8 gigs of ram, and 128 gigs of storage. That's way more than normal for a chromebook,
but you'll use it for Android apps, downloaded movies, and so on. Like several recent machines, it runs that
powerful processor without any fans and if you are a crazy person you can spend up
to 1650 to get 16 gigs of ram and a faster processor and way more storage.. And as for performance: it's a screamer, With
Chromebooks, I usually have to give this speech about how you measure them by how many tabs
they can run before they bog down.
Not a problem here. This runs Chrome better than any computer
I've used at least one that isn't some fifteen hundred dollar plus pro machine. I mean, that's how it should be with this
machine, but I'm glad to report that it is. Google is claiming ten hours of battery life,
but I'm not quite getting that.
It's possible actually it's true that
I have been pushing this machine pretty hard. But I wouldn't trust this thing past seven
or eight hours unless you're being careful. Luckily, it charges super fast. And because it uses standard USB-C, I was
even able to eke out some extra time on the airplane with one of those in-seat USB ports.
Speaking of airplanes,
this is what laptops should be now Apple, good on you for refusing to put a touchscreen on your laptops And Microsoft, good on you for making a traditional laptop. But this is just so convenient, especially when you're on an airplane, that it should be the shape of laptops from now on. Look, I get it there are a million things
the Mac is better at than this. Same goes for Windows and the iPad pro.
They hit that last 10 percent of what you
need more often. But this thing is good at being simple. It's always up to date, and its very good
at doing Chrome things. Here is what the Pixelbook is: a supercomputer
for web apps, with a side of Android.
I am not going to tell you if that's worth
a thousand bucks to you And I'm not going to tell you that it can replace your current computer But I am going to tell you that Google is
closer than it's ever been befoe to even saying that it's possible For a platform that's only six years old,
that's impressive..
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