When Google introduced Chromebook in 2011, the idea seemed odd. A computer that does essentially nothing offline? Undeterred, companies soon started selling these cheap, plastic PC/Mac alternatives. Not wanting Chromebook to be known as second-rate hardware, a familiar curse Android suffered in its early years, Google took it upon itself to show the world that Chromebooks could be productive and premium.
So in 2013, the world received the Pixel, followed by an updated version in 2015. Now, two years later, Google's unleashing its third attempt, the Pixelbook. Like the Pixel's original vision, the Pixelbook strives for premium hardware—an aluminum, glass, and silicone amalgamation that hangs tough with the finest Macs money can by. It's even got a few new tricks compared to its aging ancestors.
But while Google showcases that it has hardware chops, the Pixelbook is only really enticing for Google fans.
The Pixelbook is a good-looking Chromebook in a field of devices that usually sacrifice design for price. You might find some nice ones from Samsung or HP, but Pixelbook is almost double the cost of even those top-of-the-line machines. The most eye-catching thing about the Pixelbook is its size—it packs a lot of power in a really tiny package. That fanless Core i5 processor is somehow packed inside a laptop that's less than half-an-inch thick.
But even calling it a laptop isn't doing the Pixelbook justice because this thing can contort itself in a couple different positions thanks to a 360-degree hinge that almost turns this thing into a tablet. I say "almost" because if you ever used a tablet, you'll find the Pixelbook doesn't quite deliver on the promise.
The biggest problem? Weight. While the Pixelbook might look minuscule, it's aluminum and glass skeleton packs on some pounds, 2.4 pounds in fact. While that might not sound like much, it's almost half-a-pound more than a Macbook, and nearly one-and-a-half pounds more than a 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
When I'm not testing Pixelbooks, I'm usually using an iPad Pro for reading, taking notes, and playing a few games. Doing these activities with a Pixelbook is physically demanding whereas an iPad is so light I barely notice it. You can also feel the keyboard on your fingers as you hold the Pixelbook in tablet mode, which is a minor tactile annoyance but one that wears on you over time. The flexible hinge is a nice feature, and it works pretty well went you just want to watch Netflix in "tent mode," but much like Microsoft's Surface, it's its least appealing quality.
Of course, in whatever mode you're using it in, the Pixelbook looks very nice. With a simple, clean design along with a two-tone color scheme and glass/silicone material accents, this thing looks damn picturesque when sitting on your desk. While basking in Apple-like design, I miss some of Google's playfulness with its original Pixel—like the multi-colored light bar that could also show you battery charge—but the Pixelbook is adequately different from Apple, despite its overabundance of aluminum.
If you're ready to pay $1,000 for a Chromebook, you won't be disappointed when it comes to looks—but you might be when it comes to everything else.
When the first Chromebooks debuted in 2011, they were full of tiny sacrifices that made getting one an unwise decision and Microsoft made fun of it mercilessly. Fast forward a few years and Google's vision seems to a smart one, and when Google introduced the Android app store to Chromebooks in 2016, the sacrifices declined further still. Now with options up to 512GB of storage on the Pixelbook, it's more Mac and PC-capable than ever before.
In some instances, it's even better. Certain apps like Instagram don't allow users to post photos on a desktop, but the Android Instagram app can do it just fine. But that's a somewhat rare use case, and when it came to running some apps—particularly Microsoft Office—the Android apps were sometimes buggy or simply not designed for such a large screen.
This has been the first time in six years that I was able to comfortably work an entire day just using a Chromebook, something that would have been absolutely impossible in the pre-Google Play store days of the platform. But the universal truth remains—just don't buy a Chromebook if you need to do some serious work.
The Pixelbook's processor can handle heavy workloads better than most and when it comes to normal stuff like web browsing, writing, editing, and watching video, the Pixelbook blazes. But this is just not a machine built for power users. If you need what essentially amounts to an internet machine with a mobile app store attached, the Pixelbook is a great idea. Of course, you could always buy one at half the price.
The Pixelbook—like most 2-in-1s and tablets nowadays—also comes with an optional $100 pen. Unfortunately, the Pixelbook Pen just simply isn't that good.
At a hands-on event of the Pixelbook, Google sold the Pixelbook Pen as a huge leap forward for these types of digital pens. So much so, that I was genuinely excited to try it. But as soon as I connected my Pen, I knew I'd been deceived.
For what it's worth, setting up and connecting the Pen is incredibly simple. In fact, it was so simple—not even requiring a Bluetooth connection at all—I didn't even realize I did it yet until the Pen icon appeared in the bottom corner. Google is good at this sort of thing.
That Pen icon opens up into tools for all kinds of things like screen capture, summoning the Google assistant, or creating a note. When I started taking my first note, the delay on the Pen was pretty average—maybe even below average. Although I might be someone spoiled by the pencil technology in the Apple Pencil and the new reMarkable tablet (which is really good), Google's Pen was just middle of the road, somewhat responsive yet somewhat delayed. If my stokes were quick enough, the digital ink could sometimes be a full half-inch behind my Pen. As something for an artist or a frantic note-taker, this Pen just wouldn't cut it. Future software updates might improve this, but for now, it leaves you wanting.
Google also didn't even include any kind of magnetic system to help you keep track of that Pen, and it's also not rechargeable.
Of course, the Pen has other tricks as well. It's biggest one is that it works in tandem with the Google Assistant, which might be the Pixelbook's most standout feature. For example, if you're online and you circle an image while holding down the button on your Pen, Google will immediately analyze that image and provide more information. The machine learning and machine vision at work here is really impressive, but the feature still feels gimmicky. Nice when you have it, but the moments when it's actually useful will likely be few and far between. It's certainly not worth buying $1,000 device, and I'm not sure if its even worth the $100 pen.
But the heart and soul of the Pixelbook, and really all of Google's hardware in the past year, is the Google Assistant. The friendly AI tucked inside Google's suite of Home products and also in its lineup of Pixel phones, Google Assistant is front and center on the Pixelbook as well. There's even a hardware key, located between the control and alt keys, that will summon the assistant directly.
Apple and Microsoft do this as well, with Siri and Cortana, but Google's integration with the software, as well as it being just generally more intelligent and useful, is the one truly awesome benefit of the Pixelbook. And that benefit only multiplies if you're locked into Google's ecosystem in any significant way.
Chromebook has come a long way from its humble beginnings, and now with the Google Play store and the Google Assistant, it's a more powerful platform than ever before—But that doesn't mean you need to buy a Pixelbook.