Perhaps I’ve been a Google Chromebook user for too long now because I’m nearly sold on the new Chromebook Pixel. I know it sounds crazy — who would pay $ 1,299 for a laptop that you can’t install software on — but anyone using a Chrome OS device today would be blown away by this machine. Simply put: It runs rings around all of the prior Chromebooks and is exceptionally better in every way.
Here’s a quick tour of the hardware including that 4.3 million pixel display. We have a 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina Display in the house and to my eyes, the screen of the Chromebook Pixel looks even better although that’s hard to translate in a video. The internal speakers are outstanding as well as I tried to demonstrate on camera. Unfortunately, my video camera is “smart” enough to level out the sound, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
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Outside of the occasional podcast and video production, I have little doubt the Pixel could fulfill all of my mobile computing needs. And it would be a joy to use one of them as well thanks to the Intel Core i5 chip and 4 GB of memory; bench-marking Chrome shows a four- to five-fold performance boost over the Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook I bought last year.
It’s even slightly faster than Chrome on my similarly spec’d MacBook Air. And unlike most other Chromebooks, no corners were cut: The Pixel’s design and build quality is top notch from the backlit keyboard to piano hinge that doubles as a heat sink.
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