I think this is really trying to push the hardware to do something it isn't designed for. Why get this when you can get a Retina Macbook and install Windows on that for less. I believe they are available for around $1350 right now on sale. You'd get 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD and better performance/battery life. Plus you can then run Chrome on that :)
Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate they stick an amazing screen into a laptop with only as much storage space as a Micro SD card. And then charge $1300 for it.
The Verge says the touchscreen isn't really smooth though.
>And then there's the touchscreen. Google repeatedly told us how smooth and fluid it is to swipe through webpages on the touchscreen on the Pixel, and how it would enable developers to target a broader ecosystem for their apps by allowing their tablet and smartphone creations to have the same experience on the web. If only it were true: the touchscreen response is far from fluid, if Google's on-stage demos and our own hands-on impressions are any indication.
That shot is misleading because the air slopes down so much. the max thickness of each device is likely pretty similar, but the Air has a much slimmer average thickness.
The Air tapers across the width of the body to make the edges significantly narrower than the laptop is at its thickest point. Try looking at them both fully edge-on so you can see the Air's full profile.
I'm glad Google is going to offer a high-end Chromebook, but I'd really like to see a $400 model that improves on screen quality and size. A 15" IPS Chromebook would be the sweet spot for me.
Also, I can't help but think that making a chromebook touch screen is a waste of money. Gorilla arm, anyone?
> Also, I can't help but think that making a chromebook touch screen is a waste of money. Gorilla arm, anyone?
Having touchscreen available in additional to traditional keyboard and trackpad laptop interface doesn't raise the gorilla arm problem (since you can still interact the normal way, and aren't forced to use touch to do anything), but enables using touch for workflows where gorilla arm isn't likely to be a problem.
Even though I use my chromebook every day, I think this is a very high price point for this device.
Seems like they release a new chrome os device every few months, I would much prefer updating my chromebook every year for 400$-500$ with faster lighter version, instead of investing 1300$.
chrome environment has developed enough that the "web browser" is no longer just a web browser. Consider it like emacs as it was way back when GUI's weren't around.
It's a PC laptop. I'm reasonably certain desktop Linux distros will be running on it in the very near future.
The screen is magnificent. And I love the move to a taller aspect (it's slightly larger, vertically, than the 13.3" screen I'm using now).
The board itself is pretty meh, though. Dual core Ivy Bridge with 4G. That will run desktop stuff, but it will do virtualization poorly. Big software builds are going to suffer a lot vs. my quad core laptop (which looks to be about 3x faster). And the 32-64G of built-in storage is mostly a joke; that just isn't going to cut it for serious development work.
But if you want a good laptop in this price range to install Linux on, why get one of these? There are plenty of Windows OEMs who will sell you a better machine (modulo the screen), or you can cough up an extra $200 and buy a 13" rMBP, which has a comparable screen and is technically better in every other regard (modulo 4G, although what's the price for the LTE modem?)
Yeah, if you do use cloud storage in that vicinity, it makes the deal much better. At current prices, 500GB at Dropbox is $500/yr, and 1TB at G-Drive is $600/yr. Those will probably drop before the three years is up so you can't just multiply by three, but let's ballpark it and say it comes with at least $1k in cloud storage. Of course, that's only really worth $1k for people who were actually going to use that much cloud storage, but if you were, it makes the net cost of the device, vs. just buying the storage, quite small.
On the other hand, if you weren't going to use that much originally, but buying this machine lures you into storing everything on Google Drive, and prices don't drop a lot in the next three years, it might in the long-term be a very expensive device...
Jesus. That's approaching SSD prices for storage that's slow and patchy to access unless you're sitting at a desk plugged into a fiber connection, that Google is going to rummage through to sell you ads.
There is a certain cost to Google to provide that big a storage limit "for free", but storage isn't that expensive these days, and most people won't use it all. I would guess that there's room in the Pixel's hefty price tag for that net present value of that cost.
It looks awesome, but at $1,299, I don't think it's priced well. That's $100 more than a 13" MacBook. I just don't see that much value in a Chromebook at this point in time.
I honestly think the high price tag is the point. Google is trying to establish itself as a major brand that isn't just offering alternatives to Apple hardware for a lower price. Think of the plans to build retail stores, and how the Android brand is given less prominence these days: they are working hard to build a consumer "Google" brand that's as strong as Apple.
So far most of the devices they sold were priced to be cheaper than Apple's counterparts. This pricing move is trying to say "we have better technology than Apple and it's worth the price", possibly in anticipation of other high-end products such as Glass.
I have no idea if it will pay off, but it's a bold move.
I love bold moves and this is certainly one of them. I just don't think it's going to sell well. Yet.
I don't think the average consumer will understand what it does and why it's priced the way it is. I understand what it does and does not do, I work in front end web engineering, and ultimately would really like to see Chrome OS take off (selfishly because my skillset would be very well suited for writing software for it). This is all a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. I just wouldn't plunk down $1300 for one.
But isn't it essentially just running web applications? I know I could download applications from the Chrome app store but I couldn't install any other applications, correct?
Yes, it's just webapps, Chrome extensions and Chrome Apps from the Web store. If you feel strongly that you need to install other software then the Pixel is probably not a product for you... Just keep in mind that it's pretty much the same for all tablet users, since they can also only use webapps and install apps from their vendor's store.
One of the things Apple avoids is $1,300 products that are conceptual beta-tests. It's blatantly obvious that "life in the cloud" isn't feasible for most people yet, not when 10 GB of Verizon LTE costs $90 here in the US, then $10/GB. But with that tiny 32GB of flash, that's clearly what the Chromebook is designed for.
It's bold, but it's not going to sell. The reviews are going to rip this to shreds ("nice screen, but doesn't run anything.") In the end, it's going to be a "what the heck were they thinking?" product that will dilute the brand.
People who "live in the cloud" with a 16GB iPad have very un-demanding needs. They're people like my mom, who take some photos and send some e-mails. They're not going to buy a $1,300 machine to do those things when a $500 iPad does them just fine.
That's the problem with speaking for the general population, you say "most people need more", someone else says "most people only need X" and the conversation goes no where.
You can make some inferences from the available statistics. The Chromebook is priced like an Ultrabook. Nobody is making any money off Ultrabooks, except Apple. Why would anyone spend as much as an Ultrabook to get a machine that does even less than an Ultrabook? I don't think this is that subjective of an argument.
> They're not going to buy a $1,300 machine to do those things when a $500 iPad does them just fine.
I think that this depends almost entirely on how slick it looks and how well it is marketed. Plenty of moms have MBPs that they shelled out the extra $1k+ for to take get on FB and send emails.
I'm not saying that it's _smart_ to do that :) but never underestimate the allure of a well-marketed product.
>One of the things Apple avoids is $1,300 products that are conceptual beta-tests.
How about the original Macbook Air? That was $1800 and pretty much a beta test of the good Macbook Airs that are out now (slow CPU, slow HDD, stuck with 2 GB RAM forever).
Some will see that as "So Chromebook is better than a MacBook then? They wouldn't have priced it that high if it wasn't. I want one".
Kind of how some expensive wine is sold. Sell it for $15 / bottle and it gets lost on the shelves among others. Put it in a special glass case and sell it for $120 / bottle and surprise people will buy, taste it and think it is really the best one they've ever head.
Not only this, now a cheaper Chromebook will seem like a really good deal.
I don't know anybody who only bought a Mac because it was expensive. They bought it because it was worth the expense.
Chrome OS is an unproven platform that doesn't have nearly the popular support of Apple's products, and it's coming from a company that's still fairly new at both software and hardware design. That's not to say this will be a bad product, but this is certainly a risky marketing strategy. I'd love it they pulled it off – I like the thought of a web-only notebook, even if I don't want one myself – so I'll be crossing my fingers and hoping they pull this off.
I wonder if this is intended as a flagship - not so much to actually sell, but to give Chrome OS the aura of quality, so that the cheap ones feel like a good deal, rather than a poor alternative for people who can't afford a 'real' laptop. Google presumably has the cash to do it.
Plus, of course, there's simple media exposure. Most people don't associate Google with laptops, but this is on the BBC homepage at the moment (first story under technology).
Not many people in the tech industry buy Macs because they are expensive, but I'd venture that (like many other trendy products) there are a good number of people who have bought it for the status/trendiness/cost/whatever. Not that it matters really, but it's an odd claim to make that all Mac purchasers were informed consumers. Most consumers are relatively uninformed, regardless of what they're buying, and loads of people buy things for no other reason than that they saw a commercial on TV and can afford it.
What's odd is making the assumption that all Mac purchasers weren't informed consumers. Your attitude reeks of arrogance and superiority (which seems to be common in the tech community).
>Most consumers are relatively uninformed, regardless of what they're buying, and loads of people buy things for no other reason than that they saw a commercial on TV and can afford it.
I have a few friends that work in creative at ad agencies and they would laugh at this.
I'm not saying that it happens without advertising :) but it happens, right?
Also, I am not trying to be superior or critical - I'm not slamming Mac owners, I own Apple products. There is nothing wrong with not knowing the GHz on your CPU. It doesn't matter for many people, and that isn't an arrogant judgment (or at least I don't mean it to be). I just think it's silly that we sometimes assume all people will evaluate technology the way we (tech people) do. Just because a thing is more/less expensive, more/less powerful, has more/less storage, does not mean that it might not be the perfect solution for someone else.
edit: I should add that I buy things for weird reasons all the time. I know nothing about fashion - I assume that the $80 jeans are nicer looking than then $40 jeans. Or I assume that the BMW 3x is a better car than the Accord. I do of course try to look into these things thoroughly, but sometimes I don't care, and I just want to buy a credible product. I suspect that lots of people do this with lots of things that aren't their primary concern - that's all I'm saying. A well-marketed, slick Chromebook could find an audience if for no other reason that there are a lot of people who think about computers like I think about cars: "I want a good one. This one looks pretty good to me, I haven't heard anything bad, it has a good reputation, it looks well-made, I don't want to spend the cycles endlessly investigating it, it's in my price range, I'll grab it."
Depends who buys it. We don't view them that way because we are programmers and we know what an 8GB of ram means or what i5 means. Others look at computers differently (oh, I like the metal finish, this machine feels so fast). Not saying there is anything wrong, it is just how it is.
I think you're dead on and that's the factor a lot of techie people seem to completely fail to understand. We look at this stuff through a completely different lens than the typical consumer. Back in the awful days when I was retailing computers, I can't count the number of times people bought one laptop over the other because of the color or finish or some other minor detail. One of the main reasons Apple succeeds is that they make beautiful products, and it looks like Google is trying to share that market.
People use price to compare wine because we have virtually nothing else to go on. With wine, many people are selecting from options they have no direct experience with (styles, yes, particular wine or year? not in many cases) – so price became a way to discriminate when all else was unavailable.
That's basically worthless in a country where people are paying $10 per GB for 4-5 megabit LTE service, or else hopping on Starbucks Wi-Fi access points to get 1-2 megabit service.
I can foresee scenarios where that would be useful: when we have unmetered 30-40 megabit wireless service everywhere. But very few people in the U.S. find themselves in that situation.
I don't see that. For most application the typical Wi-Fi access is enough, e.g. for music and movie streaming, working in Google Docs...
Even if it was only working on home Wi-Fi, it would be far from worthless. People pay $200 for a Wi-Fi home NAS. Having your home NAS available anywhere is a nice plus.
Also there is the screen that is higher resolution and multi-touch.
You're going to chew through 10 GB of LTE steaming music and movies. Working in Google Docs, maybe, but Google Docs sucks. I can justify $250 to use Google Docs over Starbucks WiFi. Not so much $1,300 to do the same thing.
Totally agreed - but as has been mentioned elsewhere here, the overwhelming majority of computer owners aren't techies/developers. I definitely wouldn't buy one of these, but if you're basically a web user and you don't want to shell out for the MBP, I could see this being an appealing option I guess.
The battery life is crap. I honestly didn't think that $1300 was awful. Pricey, but not awfully pricey. And then I saw the battery life... only 5 hours =( If you want to delight the user with a mobile, battery life needs to be a priority. 5 hours is industry standard in crap laptops. Even the el' cheapo Chromebooks (my cr48) get better than 5 hours.
Yes, the OS itself is touch enabled. Buttons and such are better designed for tapping, tabs are draggable, the status bar at the bottom can be pulled up with a swipe, etc.
Well, its Chrome OS, so anything that runs on Chrome browser anywhere (including Native Client apps), plus additional apps using the Chrome OS-specific APIs.
> Chrome OS wasn't a touch based OS as far as I recall... have they integrated touch into the OS now?
Chrome browser (and, therefore, Chrome OS) has been integrating touch features for several versions. Since I don't use Chrome on touch devices (except Chrome on iOS, which is a different beast) I'm not that familiar with it, but my understanding was that the support was pretty far along by now.
A retina Macbook Air would have higher virtual density and resolution. This is only 1280x850 vs 1440x900 if you assume a 2x scale factor the way retina does things. It is nice, but 32GB, thicker and only runs a browser limits it compared to everything else out there: macbooks, windows, linux... even tablets and phones have 64-128GB now for much less and can run Chrome.
I think it's interesting they chose a 3:2 aspect ratio. The price is a bit high for the specs you get, but I suppose a lot of that is the (multi-touch)screen.
The 3:2 aspect ratio is certainly interesting to Google but not to users. It is even less vertical space than with 16:9 or 16:10. So what good is that much horizontal space, apart for ads in a column left or right of the content.
I was going to jump on this as soon as it was announced. Sadly, I don't think this is suitable for Android development given the specs. What are your thoughts? My GF is very tempted to take over my macbook pro...
I wonder if they are doing this, at least in part, because they really want a Chromebook that is high-end to display in their physical stores? Maybe having a really nice, really expensive Chromebook will make the brand not seem cheap to casual store browsers.
There's the famous framing story about the company that invented the bread maker. Everyone was interested in their product but hardly anyone bought it. They brought in a product specialist who told them to release a second, high-end version of the bread maker. Once they did this, the base model started flying off the shelves.
All but one previous Chromebook has shipped with 16 (exception being the Acer, which uses an ordinary HDD), and the amount is almost entirely a non-issue for normal use. Which would add to my theory ChromeOS could be moving past the "just a browser" paradigm it's been going with all this time.
It would cost me $20,000 to transfer that amount of data over 3G, and almost ten times that on another common carrier. The amount of "cloud" storage is irrelevant in most countries.
An even more unfriendly prospect: at a typical Australian upload speed of 100kB/s, it would take 2982 hours (124.5 days) to upload enough data to fill the drive. At this point, most people would have given up and bought a laptop with a decent amount of storage.
I need 1TB of fast storage, not on the other end of an internet connection, especially given that the cloud provider (or anyone that gains access to the cloud provider) can read my data.
So this looks like it could be a very nice Linux laptop assuming all the drivers are open source (nothing bad stood out in a cursory glance of the specs, though I imagine the noise-canceling and touchscreen won't work on vanilla Linux). Only issue is how well your favorite Linux interface (Gnome, KDE, etc) will scale to such a high pixel density.
This is pretty incredible. Not for me, but definitely a great product. I take issue only with the 32GB internal. I know it's a cloud device but it would be nice to be able to store some local videos to watch on that incredible screen. I guess that's what USB 3.0 is for, but still.
I know this is going to seem like a nitpick, but laptops without magnetic power connectors these days just feel cheap. It's such a simple addition that greatly improves the product. I don't see why larger companies aren't all converting over to them. I know apple has a patent on them, but there's tons of prior art for heaven's sake. I think the only non-apple product out there I've seen with them on it is the microsoft surface (though admittedly the surface one is pretty bad, it's still better than this style of connector).
Overall though it seems like a nice product. I'd probably be interested if I could install ubuntu on it.
Apple exclusively owns US Patent No. 7311526 ("Magnetic connector for electronic device", issued in 2007) and does not license the MagSafe connector or the patent.
Many of the deep fryers I've used years ago had magnetic power connectors. How is Apple's design different? Is it just because it is "on a laptop", and not "on a hot oil basket"?
Edit: I looked up the patent, and it appears they've patented various improvements to the connector, such as universal orientation (can plug it in either direction), and something to do with the polarity of the magnets.
And yet, they wouldn't have been able to use it if Apple didn't let them, because it does power - and that's covered by Apple's patent.
Luckily (for them) most of the incumbents have patent cross-licensing deals, so MS doesn't worry about Apple suing them for patent infringement, and vice versa.
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[ 49.3 ms ] story [ 2031 ms ] threadWe wouldn't be on Hacker News if we didn't try to push things to do something it wasn't designed for :)
Anyway, the Retina Macbook you talk about is missing the touchscreen part which is a big thing for Windows 8.
What use is the touchscreen apart from scrolling or tapping on links in the browser?
The Verge calls it a hair thicker than the Air, am I the only one that feels that it's a lot thicker? Comparison photo: http://cdn0.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/7732773/theverge...
>And then there's the touchscreen. Google repeatedly told us how smooth and fluid it is to swipe through webpages on the touchscreen on the Pixel, and how it would enable developers to target a broader ecosystem for their apps by allowing their tablet and smartphone creations to have the same experience on the web. If only it were true: the touchscreen response is far from fluid, if Google's on-stage demos and our own hands-on impressions are any indication.
Also, I can't help but think that making a chromebook touch screen is a waste of money. Gorilla arm, anyone?
Having touchscreen available in additional to traditional keyboard and trackpad laptop interface doesn't raise the gorilla arm problem (since you can still interact the normal way, and aren't forced to use touch to do anything), but enables using touch for workflows where gorilla arm isn't likely to be a problem.
Will the Pixel be locked? I doubt that Google would make this arrangement, but it is a question worth asking.
Seems like they release a new chrome os device every few months, I would much prefer updating my chromebook every year for 400$-500$ with faster lighter version, instead of investing 1300$.
MacBook Pro = about $1,200 MacBook Pro Retina = about $1,500
The screen is magnificent. And I love the move to a taller aspect (it's slightly larger, vertically, than the 13.3" screen I'm using now).
The board itself is pretty meh, though. Dual core Ivy Bridge with 4G. That will run desktop stuff, but it will do virtualization poorly. Big software builds are going to suffer a lot vs. my quad core laptop (which looks to be about 3x faster). And the 32-64G of built-in storage is mostly a joke; that just isn't going to cut it for serious development work.
So I won't buy one. But wow, I like that screen.
EDIT: KevinEldon corrected me below, it is 1 TB for 3 years, my mistake. Normally that would be $49/month.
On the other hand, if you weren't going to use that much originally, but buying this machine lures you into storing everything on Google Drive, and prices don't drop a lot in the next three years, it might in the long-term be a very expensive device...
It looks awesome, but at $1,299, I don't think it's priced well. That's $100 more than a 13" MacBook. I just don't see that much value in a Chromebook at this point in time.
So far most of the devices they sold were priced to be cheaper than Apple's counterparts. This pricing move is trying to say "we have better technology than Apple and it's worth the price", possibly in anticipation of other high-end products such as Glass.
I have no idea if it will pay off, but it's a bold move.
I don't think the average consumer will understand what it does and why it's priced the way it is. I understand what it does and does not do, I work in front end web engineering, and ultimately would really like to see Chrome OS take off (selfishly because my skillset would be very well suited for writing software for it). This is all a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. I just wouldn't plunk down $1300 for one.
It's bold, but it's not going to sell. The reviews are going to rip this to shreds ("nice screen, but doesn't run anything.") In the end, it's going to be a "what the heck were they thinking?" product that will dilute the brand.
I think that this depends almost entirely on how slick it looks and how well it is marketed. Plenty of moms have MBPs that they shelled out the extra $1k+ for to take get on FB and send emails.
I'm not saying that it's _smart_ to do that :) but never underestimate the allure of a well-marketed product.
How about the original Macbook Air? That was $1800 and pretty much a beta test of the good Macbook Airs that are out now (slow CPU, slow HDD, stuck with 2 GB RAM forever).
Some will see that as "So Chromebook is better than a MacBook then? They wouldn't have priced it that high if it wasn't. I want one".
Kind of how some expensive wine is sold. Sell it for $15 / bottle and it gets lost on the shelves among others. Put it in a special glass case and sell it for $120 / bottle and surprise people will buy, taste it and think it is really the best one they've ever head.
Not only this, now a cheaper Chromebook will seem like a really good deal.
Chrome OS is an unproven platform that doesn't have nearly the popular support of Apple's products, and it's coming from a company that's still fairly new at both software and hardware design. That's not to say this will be a bad product, but this is certainly a risky marketing strategy. I'd love it they pulled it off – I like the thought of a web-only notebook, even if I don't want one myself – so I'll be crossing my fingers and hoping they pull this off.
Plus, of course, there's simple media exposure. Most people don't associate Google with laptops, but this is on the BBC homepage at the moment (first story under technology).
>Most consumers are relatively uninformed, regardless of what they're buying, and loads of people buy things for no other reason than that they saw a commercial on TV and can afford it.
I have a few friends that work in creative at ad agencies and they would laugh at this.
Also, I am not trying to be superior or critical - I'm not slamming Mac owners, I own Apple products. There is nothing wrong with not knowing the GHz on your CPU. It doesn't matter for many people, and that isn't an arrogant judgment (or at least I don't mean it to be). I just think it's silly that we sometimes assume all people will evaluate technology the way we (tech people) do. Just because a thing is more/less expensive, more/less powerful, has more/less storage, does not mean that it might not be the perfect solution for someone else.
edit: I should add that I buy things for weird reasons all the time. I know nothing about fashion - I assume that the $80 jeans are nicer looking than then $40 jeans. Or I assume that the BMW 3x is a better car than the Accord. I do of course try to look into these things thoroughly, but sometimes I don't care, and I just want to buy a credible product. I suspect that lots of people do this with lots of things that aren't their primary concern - that's all I'm saying. A well-marketed, slick Chromebook could find an audience if for no other reason that there are a lot of people who think about computers like I think about cars: "I want a good one. This one looks pretty good to me, I haven't heard anything bad, it has a good reputation, it looks well-made, I don't want to spend the cycles endlessly investigating it, it's in my price range, I'll grab it."
I don't think computers are comparable to wine.
I can foresee scenarios where that would be useful: when we have unmetered 30-40 megabit wireless service everywhere. But very few people in the U.S. find themselves in that situation.
Even if it was only working on home Wi-Fi, it would be far from worthless. People pay $200 for a Wi-Fi home NAS. Having your home NAS available anywhere is a nice plus.
Also there is the screen that is higher resolution and multi-touch.
$100 more? Is it better than a MacBook?
$200 less? Wow...MacBooks are so overpriced.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FD212LL/A/refurbished-macb...
Well, its Chrome OS, so anything that runs on Chrome browser anywhere (including Native Client apps), plus additional apps using the Chrome OS-specific APIs.
> Chrome OS wasn't a touch based OS as far as I recall... have they integrated touch into the OS now?
Chrome browser (and, therefore, Chrome OS) has been integrating touch features for several versions. Since I don't use Chrome on touch devices (except Chrome on iOS, which is a different beast) I'm not that familiar with it, but my understanding was that the support was pretty far along by now.
I think it's interesting they chose a 3:2 aspect ratio. The price is a bit high for the specs you get, but I suppose a lot of that is the (multi-touch)screen.
But I am really bothered by the fact that it is...
A Chromebook.
I hate "cloud" stuff, I like to have stuff where I know where they are, and who can see them.
Also I live in Brazil, where internet is patchy, at best. And it is sad it does not support Ethernet... I like Ethernet! It is faster and more stable!
But impressive, very impressive, well done Google.
If anyone here has a idea if there are a way to use Chromebook as non-Chromebook (specially, non-cloud), tell me :)
The display specs are amazing, but storage is a paltry 32GB so I guess it's compensated there.
I envy anyone who can actually make use of that.
Most ultrabooks don't come with ethernet either. But it has USB ports, and USB ethernet adapters are not too expensive.
[1]http://cdn2.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/7734569/2013-02-...
I was wondering if this could be worth installing Linux on it.
Overall though it seems like a nice product. I'd probably be interested if I could install ubuntu on it.
Apple exclusively owns US Patent No. 7311526 ("Magnetic connector for electronic device", issued in 2007) and does not license the MagSafe connector or the patent.
Edit: I looked up the patent, and it appears they've patented various improvements to the connector, such as universal orientation (can plug it in either direction), and something to do with the polarity of the magnets.
Luckily (for them) most of the incumbents have patent cross-licensing deals, so MS doesn't worry about Apple suing them for patent infringement, and vice versa.