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Hi! Im Daria, host of The Red-Headed Geek Show! Today I will be doing a full review on the new Chromebook Pixel!
Lets start with the exterior. To get started, this is a beautiful piece of machinery. Its all machined aluminum, with a handsome coat kinda similar to a gunmetal color. As you can see, everything is very angular, kinda a mix between the Mac book pro's round edge and a complete sharp edged body. I find it handsome. Another aspect. Its rigid. A good quick test of this is to open it up, grab it on both sides of the keyboard and try to twist. On a flimsy product you may hear some uncomfortable noises coming from beneath the keys and such. Not with this guy. He is strong.
This laptop is very light and thin. It measures 16mm in thickness, 3.35 pounds. Just for comparison sake, the Mac Book Pro is 19mm and 3.57 pounds. The Chromebook is packed with a dual core Intel 1.8Gig Core i5 chip, paired with 4Gigs of DDR3 RAM. That being said, this is more than enough to drive its OS, which is installed on either a 32 (for $1299) or 64 GB (for $1499) SSD. The one you see here is the 32GB.
More external features include 2 USB ports on the left next to a mini display port, headphone jack, and
on the right is an SD card reader. Another option for sound are the speakers, which are hard to spot because they live somewhere under the keyboard. On the outer edge, you see the light bar, glowing with gorgeous Google Chrome colors.
Inside are the web cam, power and function buttons, as well as a very graceful set of keys. The keys float perfectly above level here, similar to the Mac Book Pro as well. Typing on this thing feels graceful, and easy. As far as the screen resolution goes, this is the most impressive aspect of this laptop. It has a 12.85 inch screen with 2560 by 1700 pixels, or, a density of 239 pixels per inch. Highest of any laptop. Ever.
The display is touchscreen, so you have the option of click or touch. Its taller, rather than wide, which has been the norm for a while. Google says this makes it easier to scroll through web pages. Its glossy, tucked behind Gorilla glass. Sound wise, it performs respectably good and loud. Power-wise, he is said to run around 6 hours, but user's have claimed this may vary.
A few drawbacks. This device isn't ready for dual booting yet, we tried it and it didn't work. It needs a theme that can handle the retina display of the Pixel. When we did try to boot Linux's Ubuntu, opening up a browser was microscopic, and I could guess that doesn't make the average user comfortable in relying on this device for their everyday workload.
Another aspect you may not be aware of is that the Pixel isn't truly laptop. It does not run Microsoft Office, Adobe, stuff like that. Now, you have the option of using apps to compensate for these programs, but it just isn't the same. You can compare it more to an iPad or Tablet than a laptop in terms of its functionality. Everything is web-based on him and you MUST have internet access to to use this thing. It embraces the idea that everyone is always connected and everything is cloud or web based, but the truth is, not everyone lives in that land.
So, to end. I like the thing, its fun to use. However, I would not purchase it for my own use. It is too pricy for me for what it does. Maybe a business person who is always on-the-go and is used to working on a subway, or coffee shop, etc... That makes more sense. To me, I want to open up my laptop and use Microsoft Word, what I am used to. Although beautiful, consider wisely before purchasing the Chromebook Pixel.
