Owner of a last-gen Pixel here. I don't see myself upgrading any time soon, but as far as refreshes go, this one seems to address most of my complaints, namely:
- More RAM
- Better battery life / charge time
- USB-C ports
Here's what I'm not sure if it will fix:
- Overheating (original Pixel gets HOT on the top-left corner where I'm guessing the CPU resides)
- OpenVPN support (ChromeOS does not support simply loading a .ovpn profile--I have to do some hacking from the command-line to get it to work)
- Longer warranty (1-year limited is all that is provided with the previous model--and since these are directly from Google, you can't get an extended warranty through the retailer)
- Weight (Love the metal slate look, could be lighter, however; based on the specs it seems like not so much)
And finally, the things that Google will never fix, and you should simply be aware of ChromeOS's limitations:
- Lack of apps
I will say, however, that in the past year, Crouton, which allows you to sideload a linux partition onto the device, has come a long way, to the point that you can actually have an Ubuntu chroot running in a tab inside ChromeOS as though it were just another window/app. It has proved incredibly useful for running things like Sublime or Eclipse without having to do the complete environment-shift that was required some time ago.
Price is still a little high, however. I feel like those looking for a high-quality Linux laptop could probably get an Acer Aspire for cheaper.
Jesus, designing a usable ultrabook must be very difficult.
We have one contender from California, but their ideology has them offer just a single USB-C port. Now we get the competitor from Mountain View, who have rightly recognized the need for more than one fucking port when that's how you charge the damn thing, and what do they decide?
What most people have missed is that USB allows charging and data over the same port. So you can easily get a power adapter that has a charging tip which has on the same cord another USB-C port (socket) which you can plug into your display chain, or port replicator or what not.
In Apple's case I fully expect they will make it so that when you plug your Apple display into your laptop it also charges it since the charger is permanently connected to (or built into) the Apple monitor/display.
That's because you're supposed to store all your data on Google servers (this is not sarcasm).
For 1000 USD however this is ridiculous. Just go DELL or Asus or similar. The XPS13 is excellent for example, come with proper ports, disk space, is light, is fast, has long battery life, has great screen, etc.
Getting an Apple or Google ultra-light laptop just because they're big, rich, trendy companies doesn't seem like a great idea this year. Maybe they'll catch up next year.
Google's marketing strategy for the Pixel isn't geared towards the "hacker" and developer type, it's more geared towards students and people who solely use their computers for simple web browsing and document processing. Offering 1TB+ of online storage is enough for all your office/school documents and all the photos you could ever want for the average person. If Google were making hardware only for developers and the hacker type, you bet they'd put more local storage in it and make it more "offline" friendly.
Neither Apple nor Google, when designing these ultrabooks, really seem to consider 'usability' a top priority in the way the typical HN user would define the term. They seem like fashion accessories first, brand adverts second, and general purpose computers... somewhere further down.
Of course i'm one of those cranky old dinosaurs who likes cords and ports and who doesn't particularly like 'the cloud' so obviously it's not for me anyway.
I see this as a slightly more flexible docking station. I don't mind having a hub on my desk. Connecting one cable when I return the laptop to my desk would be amazing - currently it takes 3. I need peripherals frequently - but only at my desk.
Well yes, I think designing an ultrabook probably is difficult. I mean, you have to cram a lot of powerful components into a very small computer. You've only go so much space, so something's gotta give.
if you use a hub as a charger i don't really see a problem. At home i have a usb hub and outside i don't even use usb.
One cable ought to be enough for a portable device.
Well, you just store all your data on the NSA cloud from your NSA terminal.
To your point about he MacBook one port. They do offer a rather smart "splitter" dongle at $60-$90 that allows you to charge while I/Oing other data when that uncommon scenario uncommonly arises.
I just don't get the whole Google approach. They think far higher of their "OS" than is warranted. They should have been selling this thing as a loss leader at around =<$800. I don't know too many people ... as in none ... who want to spend $1k on a Google "OS" machine.
I don't really understand the appeal personally. At this price level you could get a dell xps.
ChromeOS seems brilliant at a few hundred bucks, especially for kids & elders who get the browser/video/text experience, without the complexity, bloatware, viruses etc of a windows environment.
But at $600 or $1000, there just seem to be better windows alternatives, to me at least. And above that you get into OS X range. ChromeOS just doesn't seem to provide the environment where you really need beefy specs (e.g. compiling large code or editing large videos), so if it's just consumer-type stuff, I'd rather have a 2014 Macbook Air 13' at $800-900 at Best Buy, or a Dell XPS, than this.
Would love to hear from peoples usecases and experiences. I think there's a genuine usecase for people to put linux on it, or SSH into something else, but for your average straight up consumer, why the pixel and not something else? I understand the low-price Chromebooks, the higher price is hard to grasp for me.
> What's in the box: Chromebook Pixel; Universal Type-C Charger, 60W; Quick Start Guide
So the new MacBook isn't the only USB-powered notebook anymore. It does, however, appear to have two type C ports, along with two type A ports (USB 3.0), headphone, and SD card. The type C port also supports display out (up to 4K).
It also has a "regular" processor (Intel® Core™ i5 Processor, 2.2GHz or Intel® Core™ i7 processor, 2.4GHz) and "up to 12 hours" of battery life; but it weighs 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) to Apple's 2.1 lbs.
I'm not sure why this is better than the cheapest macbook air?Similar battery life, similar processor. 4gb more memory, smaller hard drive. And the cheapest pixel is $100 more. What do I get for that $100? For me the downsides are: can only use apps from the chrome web store, no unix command line (maybe it exists and I don't know?).
I'm really happy someone is trying to compete, but not sure why I would buy this.
As a previous owner of a Pixel I have to say it was one of the most beautiful and well crafted laptops I've ever owned. The Pixel had some major flaws, the CPU and overheating was a killer. However the biggest problem here is the underdevelopment of ChromeOS, such promise but it seems to be going the way of most of Googles products.
I don't get it anymore... 8-16 GB RAM for what? I have not used Chromebook. Do you all use it for gaming? For serious computation? with only 32-64 GB SSD?
For this price, it would be nice to be able to upgrade SSD though. Then I will also want to install a Linux distro or Windows on it.
My main issues with my first gen Chromebook Pixel that I received at Google I/O in 2013:
1) Poor battery life (~4 hours)
2) Lots of heat
3) Instability of Linux environment (with Crouton) made it a poor dev machine.
They seem to have fixed 1) and 2), I'm still nervous about making this a primary machine due to 3). I would have situations where the system would force shut down when closing the lid instead of sleeping/resuming properly. That, and two years ago, no Linux desktop environment supported high DPI screens properly. Maybe this has changed.
Other than that, this looks like an amazing machine. Love that 16GB of RAM is an option - XPS 13, which I'm also eyeing, only goes up to 8GB. 64GB max SSD is a bit of a problem though.
Google develops a laptop that I have high interest in, but no use for.
If they want to win the App Ecosystem war, they need to ensure that the developers have the tools to build in their ecosystem. Apple dominates because hackers love macbooks, and provide slick tools that only work in Apple's walled garden. This propagates down to the consumer level, as developers build products consumers love- with Apple taking in the profit all the way down.
Google doesn't have that. They don't have a toolset available to developers to optimize for Android/ChromeOS/etc. They need to fix the fragmentation problem at the App Developer level before they can compete at the consumer level.
My MBP was out of commission recently, with the video issue. I made do with an HP Chromebook for a month, using crouton to have ubuntu in a chroot.
I was extremely pleased with the setup, and it barely affected my productivity at all. Emacs was a little slower to fire up and sift through my agenda files, but apart from that, I barely noticed the difference.
When I wasn't working, it was great to use ChromeOS to surf or cast Netflix to the TV.
Owner of a 2013 Chromebook Pixel here - This new model definitely excites me. I've switched between running Debian natively on boot and running Ubuntu in crouton. As a Java/Web developer, my main gripes with the original Pixel are:
-4GB RAM is uncomfortable. Usable, but you need to manage what's running
-Battery life isn't great... I was seeing ~3-3.5 hrs during my 'real use'.
-Overheating - Gets very hot when doing cpu-intense tasks
-Charging time feels like it takes forever.
-Hinge is a little loose and the F-keys are weird, but neither are a deal breaker.
This 2015 model seems to fix almost all of this, with the possible exception of overheating... I guess time will tell. Chances seem high that these will be given out at I/O 2015, but if I can't get a ticket for that I'll still buy one of these immediately. Crouton has come a long way since 2013, but I'm hoping they keep the 'legacy boot' option from the first model - That way you can boot into native linux with ctrl+L or ChromeOS (and later crouton, if needed) with ctrl+D.
If this laptop was 15", it would literally be my dream laptop, however it still checks enough boxes to guarantee that I'll buy one.
I'm sure it's a fantastic machine, I just can't understand what niche this is aiming for... there seems to me to be a better alternative to this machine for anybody...
Can it run Ubuntu? That is the first thing I would do to it.
I've done it with Acer C720 with i3 processor. Initially got it as a portable light machine used for travel. But now it kind of became my default. I used to lug around my trusty old Thinkpad T60.
What is odd about this Chromebook is that it has ports and decent hardware, but abysmal storage (I have 50GB of MP3s, let's not get started on videos, documents, source code and compiled software) and a crippled OS. It's like a toy, but a toy that is dependent on a remote toy (the "cloud").
I don't understand how the break away from mainframes to microcomputers has come full circle where we now use very very very powerful microcomputers to connect to effectively mainframes (the "cloud"). Surely the liberating part of microcomputers was the ability to be untethered/unshackled and do stuff locally, not do stuff locally for a little bit or to some extent and then resync periodically. Many of the people using chromebooks for development (from what I can tell) SSH to another machine to do work on a remote server (with X or VNC or something like that), which reduces the extremely powerful local microcomputer to a dumb library terminal. It's stupid.
Client/server stuff keeps getting reinvented and it's annoying. I prefer to be a client when I choose, not a permanent client at the mercy of the server.
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|11 years ago|reply
- More RAM
- Better battery life / charge time
- USB-C ports
Here's what I'm not sure if it will fix: - Overheating (original Pixel gets HOT on the top-left corner where I'm guessing the CPU resides)
- OpenVPN support (ChromeOS does not support simply loading a .ovpn profile--I have to do some hacking from the command-line to get it to work)
- Longer warranty (1-year limited is all that is provided with the previous model--and since these are directly from Google, you can't get an extended warranty through the retailer)
- Weight (Love the metal slate look, could be lighter, however; based on the specs it seems like not so much)
And finally, the things that Google will never fix, and you should simply be aware of ChromeOS's limitations:
- Lack of apps
I will say, however, that in the past year, Crouton, which allows you to sideload a linux partition onto the device, has come a long way, to the point that you can actually have an Ubuntu chroot running in a tab inside ChromeOS as though it were just another window/app. It has proved incredibly useful for running things like Sublime or Eclipse without having to do the complete environment-shift that was required some time ago.
Price is still a little high, however. I feel like those looking for a high-quality Linux laptop could probably get an Acer Aspire for cheaper.
[+] [-] revelation|11 years ago|reply
We have one contender from California, but their ideology has them offer just a single USB-C port. Now we get the competitor from Mountain View, who have rightly recognized the need for more than one fucking port when that's how you charge the damn thing, and what do they decide?
Oh yeah, we'll top out storage at 64GiB.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|11 years ago|reply
In Apple's case I fully expect they will make it so that when you plug your Apple display into your laptop it also charges it since the charger is permanently connected to (or built into) the Apple monitor/display.
[+] [-] egonschiele|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zanny|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edvinbesic|11 years ago|reply
Apples to Oranges, no pun intended.
[+] [-] zobzu|11 years ago|reply
For 1000 USD however this is ridiculous. Just go DELL or Asus or similar. The XPS13 is excellent for example, come with proper ports, disk space, is light, is fast, has long battery life, has great screen, etc.
Getting an Apple or Google ultra-light laptop just because they're big, rich, trendy companies doesn't seem like a great idea this year. Maybe they'll catch up next year.
[+] [-] AustinDizzy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chez17|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pgodzin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedmeyers|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akhilcacharya|11 years ago|reply
So close to perfect, yet so far.
[+] [-] sspiff|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krapp|11 years ago|reply
Of course i'm one of those cranky old dinosaurs who likes cords and ports and who doesn't particularly like 'the cloud' so obviously it's not for me anyway.
[+] [-] dschiptsov|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superuser2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j_baker|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] __m|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blfr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pbreit|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wahsd|11 years ago|reply
To your point about he MacBook one port. They do offer a rather smart "splitter" dongle at $60-$90 that allows you to charge while I/Oing other data when that uncommon scenario uncommonly arises.
I just don't get the whole Google approach. They think far higher of their "OS" than is warranted. They should have been selling this thing as a loss leader at around =<$800. I don't know too many people ... as in none ... who want to spend $1k on a Google "OS" machine.
[+] [-] IkmoIkmo|11 years ago|reply
ChromeOS seems brilliant at a few hundred bucks, especially for kids & elders who get the browser/video/text experience, without the complexity, bloatware, viruses etc of a windows environment.
But at $600 or $1000, there just seem to be better windows alternatives, to me at least. And above that you get into OS X range. ChromeOS just doesn't seem to provide the environment where you really need beefy specs (e.g. compiling large code or editing large videos), so if it's just consumer-type stuff, I'd rather have a 2014 Macbook Air 13' at $800-900 at Best Buy, or a Dell XPS, than this.
Would love to hear from peoples usecases and experiences. I think there's a genuine usecase for people to put linux on it, or SSH into something else, but for your average straight up consumer, why the pixel and not something else? I understand the low-price Chromebooks, the higher price is hard to grasp for me.
[+] [-] nandhp|11 years ago|reply
So the new MacBook isn't the only USB-powered notebook anymore. It does, however, appear to have two type C ports, along with two type A ports (USB 3.0), headphone, and SD card. The type C port also supports display out (up to 4K).
It also has a "regular" processor (Intel® Core™ i5 Processor, 2.2GHz or Intel® Core™ i7 processor, 2.4GHz) and "up to 12 hours" of battery life; but it weighs 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) to Apple's 2.1 lbs.
You can buy Google's 60W USB-C charger for $60. https://store.google.com/product/universal_type_c_60w_charge... The C to A adapter (for your existing peripherals) is $13. https://store.google.com/product/usb_type_c_to_usb_standard_...
[+] [-] benologist|11 years ago|reply
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/11/8190513/chromebook-pixel-2...
[+] [-] egonschiele|11 years ago|reply
I'm really happy someone is trying to compete, but not sure why I would buy this.
[+] [-] BenjaminDyer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dferlemann|11 years ago|reply
For this price, it would be nice to be able to upgrade SSD though. Then I will also want to install a Linux distro or Windows on it.
[+] [-] chambo622|11 years ago|reply
1) Poor battery life (~4 hours)
2) Lots of heat
3) Instability of Linux environment (with Crouton) made it a poor dev machine.
They seem to have fixed 1) and 2), I'm still nervous about making this a primary machine due to 3). I would have situations where the system would force shut down when closing the lid instead of sleeping/resuming properly. That, and two years ago, no Linux desktop environment supported high DPI screens properly. Maybe this has changed.
Other than that, this looks like an amazing machine. Love that 16GB of RAM is an option - XPS 13, which I'm also eyeing, only goes up to 8GB. 64GB max SSD is a bit of a problem though.
[+] [-] badloginagain|11 years ago|reply
If they want to win the App Ecosystem war, they need to ensure that the developers have the tools to build in their ecosystem. Apple dominates because hackers love macbooks, and provide slick tools that only work in Apple's walled garden. This propagates down to the consumer level, as developers build products consumers love- with Apple taking in the profit all the way down.
Google doesn't have that. They don't have a toolset available to developers to optimize for Android/ChromeOS/etc. They need to fix the fragmentation problem at the App Developer level before they can compete at the consumer level.
[+] [-] pmontra|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sspiff|11 years ago|reply
For anyone in the same situation, here's the price and specs left out of their landing page:
$999 model:
- 2.2GHz (2.7GHz Turbo) dual-core Intel Core i5-5200U
- 8GB RAM and 32GB storage
$1299 model:
- 2.6GHz (3.2GHz Turbo) dual-core Core i7-5600U
- 16GB RAM and 64GB storage
[+] [-] MarcScott|11 years ago|reply
I was extremely pleased with the setup, and it barely affected my productivity at all. Emacs was a little slower to fire up and sift through my agenda files, but apart from that, I barely noticed the difference.
When I wasn't working, it was great to use ChromeOS to surf or cast Netflix to the TV.
I'd definitely consider getting a Pixel.
[+] [-] Sodman|11 years ago|reply
-4GB RAM is uncomfortable. Usable, but you need to manage what's running
-Battery life isn't great... I was seeing ~3-3.5 hrs during my 'real use'.
-Overheating - Gets very hot when doing cpu-intense tasks
-Charging time feels like it takes forever.
-Hinge is a little loose and the F-keys are weird, but neither are a deal breaker.
This 2015 model seems to fix almost all of this, with the possible exception of overheating... I guess time will tell. Chances seem high that these will be given out at I/O 2015, but if I can't get a ticket for that I'll still buy one of these immediately. Crouton has come a long way since 2013, but I'm hoping they keep the 'legacy boot' option from the first model - That way you can boot into native linux with ctrl+L or ChromeOS (and later crouton, if needed) with ctrl+D.
If this laptop was 15", it would literally be my dream laptop, however it still checks enough boxes to guarantee that I'll buy one.
[+] [-] OoTheNigerian|11 years ago|reply
Who makes these decisions?
[+] [-] lytedev|11 years ago|reply
Chrome OS developers?
[+] [-] rdtsc|11 years ago|reply
I've done it with Acer C720 with i3 processor. Initially got it as a portable light machine used for travel. But now it kind of became my default. I used to lug around my trusty old Thinkpad T60.
[+] [-] blfr|11 years ago|reply
What about other software? Is the browser like the regular Chrome? Can you play regular media files (flac, x264 mkv)?
Are there any unpleasant surprises?
[+] [-] 72deluxe|11 years ago|reply
I don't understand how the break away from mainframes to microcomputers has come full circle where we now use very very very powerful microcomputers to connect to effectively mainframes (the "cloud"). Surely the liberating part of microcomputers was the ability to be untethered/unshackled and do stuff locally, not do stuff locally for a little bit or to some extent and then resync periodically. Many of the people using chromebooks for development (from what I can tell) SSH to another machine to do work on a remote server (with X or VNC or something like that), which reduces the extremely powerful local microcomputer to a dumb library terminal. It's stupid.
Client/server stuff keeps getting reinvented and it's annoying. I prefer to be a client when I choose, not a permanent client at the mercy of the server.
[+] [-] chatmasta|11 years ago|reply