I agree that it's really senseless that you can't even look at the product pages if you're outside US. Adding ?gl=US to the end of the URLs works, though.
I meant the individual product pages in the Store. The "Visit the US site instead" link they provide works for the main page, but not the sub-pages for products. I don't know why I can't buy the devices and have them sent to a US address, anyway, for that matter.
Google has absolutely no idea of how to run worldwide services w.r.t language/content. Their forcing of Chrome to change its UI language based on IP is one fantastic example of their absurdity. The idiocy of the store is another. Leading to security holes, too! Install app while in-region. App releases critical update. Click app to update, then find out "app does not exist". Bizarre.
Not to mention they often (2/12 months) decide my Denver IP is in Poland or France. Or that my Azure (West-US) machines are in Hungary.
$999 (2.2GHz i5, 8GB RAM, 32G SSD) and $1299 (2.g4GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 64G SSD), 2560x1700 12.85" touch screen, Intel 5500 graphics, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB Type-C ports, SD card, audio jack, 720p webcam, Bluetooth 4.0. Really a very nice machine; seems a little overpowered for the cloud-oriented ChromeOS. Stingy SSD can be fixed with a generous high-speed SD card. Presuming it's dual-bootable, I'd be tempted though. I'd been planning to spring for the new Macbook Air but now that Apple's declared war on ports, this looks more my style.
It's interesting that this is on "Google Store", not "Google Play Devices". This may explain why it isn't working yet in all countries -- and maybe also why it works in the UK, since London is home to the first physical Google Store.
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.
Personally, if overheating was a major flaw I probably wouldn't consider the laptop well crafted. Thermal management seems part of the overall design to me. I don't dispute it's a nice looking machine though!
Indeed. But it was a very nice machine. Hopefully this one won't overheat. Any idea if it's fanless? There's no specific info about the CPU, but it doesn't seem to be according to the clock frequency.
Apparently it has two fans instead of one now and doesn't overheat like it used to:
Another quirk of the first Pixel was that it could get quite noisy and warm while running. No more: Thanks to a revamped cooling system, which features two fans that spin at lower revolutions-per-minute than the original model's single-fan setup, the new Pixel stays near-silent and doesn't get hot while you use it.http://www.computerworld.com/article/2895014/new-chromebook-...
I've never had my Pixel overheat per-se, but it frequently gets hot enough that it is mildly painful to touch.
My issue was the shit warranty. The sound card on mine completely shit itself (no working speakers, and no working headphone jack. Even while using ChromeOS on it) a few weeks after the warranty expired. I can't remember if they offered any sort of extended warranty at the time, but I think I would have got it if I had seen it, so I think they didn't?
I am also starting to become concerned about the battery life. I googled around for battery replacement and did not find anything. Mine is okay so far, but probably won't be in a year or so.
At least the price of this new iteration is more reasonable.
The first generation pixel ate up many hours of my time installing and reinstalling linux on it. Now I have Ubuntu running nicely on a Surface Pro and don't think I could be happier.
Do you think touchscreen support is up to par? I'm running a Windows tablet with similar specs (Acer Iconia W700P -- no pen support though) and I have really wanted to put Linux on it, but haven't tried. I've just been using a Debian VM for when I need Linux for now.
Its good enough for travel, which is what I use the SFPro for because I like to keep my travel bag weight to a minimum. For desktop work it would make me insane and stick with OSX.
Would be very interested to see how well Ubuntu runs on this. As a once die-hard Apple fan I'm so sick of the mess that is Mac OS X Yosemite that I'm willing to abandon Apple and try a Linux laptop, but only if:
I get around 6 hours on the old pixel after a few tweaks in Ubuntu. I dont use suspend / resume so cannot comment on that. Wifi and sound work beautifully.
I was Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch before making the jump to OS X. I agree with you that they've gone downhill, but because of your numbers 1 and especially 2-3 I've always been negative on a laptop that isn't made by Apple. I've just had so many terrible experiences with PC laptops in those areas. They all work, but they have never worked as well.
Depending on your device, you unlock things by pressing Power-Refresh; that switches the device to unlocked mode. You can continue using ChromeOS, build your own ChromiumOS, or install another OS.
You can also kill off the bootloader completely. I've never done that before, but I believe the linked doc describes the process. I'm not exactly sure how to install Ubuntu, but the hardware is not going to stop you and never has.
The Pixel-specific instructions are here, though this is for the old revision and I'm not sure what (if anything) has changed:
I have a Samsung chromebook 2 and as far as I know I cannot install linux on it. I believe this is due to the chip architecture however, and my understanding is eventually it should be possible. Am I incorrect in any of this?
Is that an ARM one? You can certainly build Chromium OS (which is Linux), including packages that you want, and install that. It is a somewhat involved the first time, but possible. You probably want something more self-hosting though (like, apt-get dist-upgrade works), and that sounds like it would be a lot of work. There's also Crouton which might get you what you want.
But yeah, ARM booting is consistently crazy and I don't understand how it works at all.
I use Crouton [1] on my cheapo chromebook and it works pretty OK for lots of tasks. I mainly just watch youtube on that thing, so this solution works since I only occasionally want to hop on Linux to get some stuff done.
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.
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.
It's made ONLY to use complex web apps, with the data stored on the server. So the SSD is essentially just for web caching / local web storage, and the RAM is for Chrome processes, basic OS use, and additional caching.
I got a Toshiba Chromebook 2 (4 GB RAM, 32 GB storage, decent screen, but an anemic processor), thinking it could replace an old MacBook we use for web, email, and music. The email didn't work so well, because we couldn't easily see multiple accounts at once. I put in an SD card full of music, but the players I tried were all terrible.
I can see wanting 8 GB of RAM, but I'd need Crouton to make use of 16 GB.
The Chromebook hardly stores any files locally, that's why the SSD is so small. But if you have a lot of tabs open, especially with developer tools, it's not impossible to use up 8GB of RAM.
32-64 GB of SSD is plenty enough for a serious work environment (unless you're not into photo-video editing), and you probably run heavy computations that require high sustained CPU load on a server / cloud anyway.
I just bought one, I'm going to give it an honest shot at being my only computer. As the reviews say, most of what I do is web (and web dev), so I would really like it to work. The question is will I be able to do any sort of docker/node/server-sidey stuff. We'll see. I'll give it a fair shake and even try running that stuff remotely. The Android apps thing is an interesting stop gap, maybe it'll be easier to get a text editor running from that environment?
You can try Caret, which is a very nice editor, and Zed, which works with Dropbox. However, you will not be able to do much (if anything) with Docker without going into developer mode, and even then it will depend a lot on whether this model will break Crouton in any way.
I'd say the tiny amount of storage will make it really hard to do anything productive with containers...
Now that Polymer/Paper is out there I wish someone would use that for an editor, as it's likely it'll finally be the standardized UI for Chrome OS. Might be a fun weekend project...
I've had a Chromebook for over a year now and my best advice is to skip straight to installing a real Linux distribution (either using crouton or just natively). The reality of ChromeOS apps is much further off than the dream of some totally cloud connected digital worker. Throw Ubuntu on it, get Sublime Text, Atom, etc. and all your development tools, then go to town.
> 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.
You can install linux on it. I own the previous version of the Pixel and I run ubuntu on it and its close to perfect.
Two things I would change are
1. Improve thermal cooling or move to a underpowered cpu. I have worked around it by rate limiting my CPU to not go over 800 MHz. With a few tweaks, it sips ~8.8W and gives me > 6 hrs of battery life.
2. Make the hinge a bit stiffer.
My only other complaint is that it refuses to install FreeBSD.
Did you get touch features working on your older Pixel? I'm very curious about whether the Pixel series would be a good machine for Ubuntu .. care to share your experiences?
Touch sorta works on my Pixel running Debian. By which I mean I can tap on the screen to click, but all of the multi-touch gestures don't work.
I have put absolutely no effort into getting it to work though (honestly I'd disable it entirely if I wasn't too lazy to bother), and a desktop environment like GNOME might be able to configure it to work. I'm not sure there.
Edit: (Multi-touch on the touchpad works fine for me.)
Multitouch on the touchpad works out of the box on ubuntu including gestures. Touch on the screen works too, but I dont use it since I dont like smudging my screen. If there is interest.
It should be possible to get working. All the drivers are in the chromiumos source repository. Until very recently X was used, so the X server should have the touch support. (Haven't tested on the new Pixel because I don't have one, but the old one, definitely.)
The kernel drivers are in src/third_party/kernel/v3.10 for first-gen pixel, and v3.14 for this one. If you're going to run your own Linux, I'd use that kernel rather than the one the distro provides. Or figure out what patches are different between the two, and cherry-pick those onto your distro's kernel.
Laptops are sold to be general purpose computing devices, not to "run Windows".
The reasoning you gave seems to be some sort of fully general counterargument to ever installing GNU/Linux, as there are hardly any devices that are "sold to run GNU/Linux".
In general installing GNU/Linux on devices not meant for it is, indeed, a bad idea. Bad drivers will usually make your computing experience a hell filled with non-REISUB-able freezes and other goodies. If you're like me and you can handle all the crap then it's fine. Otherwise stick to Windows. Or, better yet, just buy a Mac. A Dell developer's edition or a Thinkpad might be problem-free. Might. I wouldn't put money on it, though, especially with future regressions likely to fuck something up.
Out of curiosity what laptop do you use? What do you do on your laptop? How does the vendor that you bought the laptop from enable your intended use (out of the box)?
I get what you're saying, but I feel like the example you're providing is off. When people buy a laptop, the major selling point isn't that it runs Windows, it's typically the hardware in it. It just happens to come with Windows because that's what most people use. A major selling point of the Chromebook is that it runs Chrome OS, so in this case yeah installing Linux on it kind of defeats the purpose of buying a Chromebook.
The reason people like to buy Chromebooks to run Linux is that chromeos uses the Linux kernel, so all the hardware has to have Linux drivers available. Most laptops have at least some issues with Linux. Even my thinkpad, a line known for Linux comparability, can't use the discrete graphics card under linux.
The major selling point is that it runs Windows which runs the software and games they want, and their old data. Try offering one with BeOS or even Linux and see how many you sell.
I have been a Linux user for sometime, so when I got the laptop I first installed linux on it. Subsequently I have grown rather fond of dtrace, so I like to use FreeBSD when the environment permits. So I tried installing FreeBSD on the machine in November last year.
I write C/C++ code on the machine, so my storage needs are minimal. If I was to guess my total storage footprint on the device would be less than 1 Gig over the base ubuntu desktop install. The machine has 64 Gigs of storage, which is more than enough for my needs.
I use the Asus Chromebox (small "desktop" ChromeOS machine) as an OpenELEC media center. It runs absolutely flawlessly, mostly because it's just a basic Intel Pentium system. From what I've heard, the ARM Chromebooks like the Samsung ones can be a bit trickier, but it can be done.
The whole ChromeOS project seems to have gotten underway because someone at Google observed how much of the computing time was spent inside the web browser.
the problem with ChromeOS, imo, is how limited it becomes once you pull out the net connection. Never mind the whole lockdown unless you flip that "developer" switch.
But again, that doesn't really matter to people who are using their laptops as a browser on steroids. Whether you're using a Macbook or a Chromebook, you're SOL in either case if you mostly do your work in a browser.
The thing is, home computing is, for the vast majority of people, accessing email, Facebook, and various web information sources 90% of the time. If the Internet's not working, for the most part, they wouldn't be able to do whatever they were doing in the first place, ChromeOS or not.
Using office-type apps at home is not something that's done every day any more - my family do it incredibly rarely on their Windows desktop.
> "Never mind the whole lockdown unless you flip that "developer" switch."
Speaking of which, it would be nice if that were a physical switch on Pixels. With the original Pixel at least, there is an issue that if your battery runs completely dead, the bit that tells the computer it should be in developer mode is unset. When that happens, if you have linux installed on it, you are hosed. Everything on the drive becomes inaccessible, and the only thing you can do is reflash ChromeOS.
If I am wrong about that, somebody please tell me. It is making me paranoid as hell about leaving it unplugged.
The issue is fixed on Pixel 2: "And yes the issue with dev/legacy enable state being lost when the battery drains has been fixed as the state is now saved in the TPM instead of CMOS" (comment to https://plus.google.com/+OlofJohansson/posts/1yopVMjEhjK)
The backup battery is gone because Intel datasheets advised against it for years, and they got more insistent over time. It's surprising enough that they still didn't manage to kill of that part of the PC80 architecture (RTC clock and associated memory). They certainly try for years by now.
As for the TPM, Chromebooks come with them for a long time now. They're cleared when entering or leaving developer mode. The main difference is that after clearing, the devmode mechanism also records the state there (instead of in CMOS).
If you're concerned about "final keys", read the spec (eg. http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/resources/tpm_main_spec..., Part 1, Section 9.5). The only key that is never deleted is the "Endorsement Key". That one is similarly annoying as the Pentium III serial number (ie. it allows secure identification of the TPM if you let software send requests to the TPM).
> The whole ChromeOS project seems to have gotten underway because someone at Google observed how much of the computing time was spent inside the web browser.
Well, I think there is something in that direction, but quite a lot in the direction of "the whole Chrome project at Google -- including ChromeOS -- was started because someone at Google realized that Google would have more reach if people spent more time in the browser and had less reason to use non-web software, so they set out to address the issues that make out-of-browser software necessary for what users want to do with computers."
"the problem with ChromeOS, imo, is how limited it becomes once you pull out the net connection"
The other problem with ChromesOS is that it's a gigantic privacy sinkhole.
Everything you do in the OS is tracked and recorded by Google. Even printing to your desktop printer. None of this tracking is anonymous either since you must sign in with your Google account to properly use ChromeOS. (Just a reminder that a Google account equals your name, gender, email, date-of-birth, location and mobile phone number).
Google fail to state in their lengthy privacy policy how long they keep your data (presumably forever) or whether your activity is disassociated from your identity when viewed by Google. In my view, this is simply unacceptable when you consider the gargantuan volumes of private date collected and the unprecedented degree of tracking.
The reaction on this site to an entire OS that tracks you by default has mostly been: "Yeah, you're being tracked. So what? Get over it." Presumably everyone happy to recommend ChromeOS would be equally happy to switch on their Mac/Windows/Ubuntu machine and have it track everything they do, have that information sent back to the OS manufacturer, and for none of that data to be anonymous?
Besides the terms of service violation, if you provide an invalid phone number you're likely to get locked out of something and not able to verify your identity to get back in.
In order to purchase the Pixel, I had to create a Google Wallet account. This needed all my contact info.
Once I get the device I will use a different fake google account, but they can suspect there's a link between the purchasing account and the account that uses the machine.
First I saw mention of it, it seemed that they wanted to make a minimal OS that was very quick to boot - minimal in part because it was only the browser, or whatever.
Then soon after that SSDs happened and I stopped caring about boot times.
The "audience" or market for the Pixel are Googlers - hardly folks looking for a browser on steroids. Although that being said, I'm not sure "browser on steroids" is exactly a knock given what you can accomplish these days.
It is possible to write software like photoshop for ChromeOS, thus it is a real computer. It's just that no one has. Nobody has written this kind of software for Plan 9, and a computer with Plan 9 is still a real computer.
You're thinking KRITA probably. Germany though I believe, because of the GMBH thing on its group. Krita really bogs on my system when using painting tools so ready for primetime, I think not. But hey I've been wrong before. The best photoshop / Illustrator replacements underway right now are coming from Serif Software under the name Affinity. Not opens source BUT definitely going to make a dent in Adobe's fat head.
The MacBook is a completely different machine than this. Now the MacBook Pro Retina 13" is a more proper comparison. In which case they are pretty close when it comes to specs, price, weight, size, battery life, etc.
Nice work Google. It has two 2 USB Type-C (vs 1 on the new Macbook) and 2 USB 3.0 ports. This is the way to introduce USB-C and provide practical value to the customer (vs selling $79 adapters).
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.
"The Chrome store in not available in your country". Then it shows the option of looking at the US store page. I click on the Chromebook there and it goes back to saying it's not available in my country.
I am old school in the sense that I like to run my os as a native install directly on the machine without any chroot / vm / hypervisor trickery. This guide walks you through how to do a native linux install and blow chromeos away on the pixel. http://vger.kernel.org/~davem/chromebook_pixel_linux.txt
Whoaaaaa this seems waaaayy hackier than I expected. Will this void the warranty? I just ordered... I will be returning the thing if I can't get Debian installed and given a thorough trial run.
Edit: Nevermind it's really not that bad, just replacing the BIOS, that should be fine. I see little risk of "bricking" a machine here, I'm sure I can get Debian running with these instructions and return the product if it doesn't work well enough.
Start with creating a chroot. chroots are easy and can be wiped/recreated quickly if you mess them up. I run Debian Jessie in a chroot and have a simple bash script that provisions the additional stuff I want (apt-get, etc..) and edits a few config files.
I'd just like to chime in and say that this guide is pretty much all you need to get up and running with Debian on the original pixel. It worked great and was my primary side-project development laptop for over a year in this setup.
I recently restored ChromeOS in anticipation of selling it for the pixel 2 upgrade, and I gotta say - ChromeOS and crouton have both come a long way. Ubuntu via crouton handles everything without any tweaking, which was a major problem I had with Wi-Fi on Debian. You can still take advantage of the <10second-to-browser boot time of ChromeOS if you just need to look a few things up real quick.
To take advantage of everything, if you could get ChromeOS to boot in developer mode (ctrl+d at bios screen) and Debian to boot on legacy boot (ctrl+l at bios screen), then you really get the best of all worlds!
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I also assume it's not intentional: they just redirect the US store to local ones.
$1,299 16 GB RAM, 64GB SSD
Not to mention they often (2/12 months) decide my Denver IP is in Poland or France. Or that my Azure (West-US) machines are in Hungary.
As for a residential (I assume) in Denver, that's just whack.
As for the device, it fixes the problem of all-day-battery which is a common feature on Chromebooks (e.g. Dell) but wasn't on the original Pixel.
I am glad they are continuing the product. Initially everyone laughed but, as time goes by, Chromebook is quite acceptable for 'serious web surfers'.
Another quirk of the first Pixel was that it could get quite noisy and warm while running. No more: Thanks to a revamped cooling system, which features two fans that spin at lower revolutions-per-minute than the original model's single-fan setup, the new Pixel stays near-silent and doesn't get hot while you use it. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2895014/new-chromebook-...
My issue was the shit warranty. The sound card on mine completely shit itself (no working speakers, and no working headphone jack. Even while using ChromeOS on it) a few weeks after the warranty expired. I can't remember if they offered any sort of extended warranty at the time, but I think I would have got it if I had seen it, so I think they didn't?
I am also starting to become concerned about the battery life. I googled around for battery replacement and did not find anything. Mine is okay so far, but probably won't be in a year or so.
At least the price of this new iteration is more reasonable.
If it's not specially to have chromeOS or linux and use the touchscreen, I have a hard time understanding the appeal of this machine.
The site has a link to the US version.
1) The wifi and sound work out of the box
2) Battery life is better than 2hrs
3) Suspend/resume works
I have mine configured with:
256GB SSD
2TB HDD
MATTE 1080p screen
16GB ram
802.11ac 2x2 wifi
has lenovo-like nub mouse
cost me less than 1500
runs windows 7, linux mint, and OSX
battery life browsing web at medium brightness over wifi is over 10 hours in windows, 8 in linux, 7 in OSX
I too am shopping for a Linux laptop. It can be tough.
> Installing Ubuntu is not easy , either. By default the bootloader of Chromebooks are signed and locked.
I assume that the writer is correct.
[0]: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/10/ubuntu-12-04-up-and-runni...
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/d...
Depending on your device, you unlock things by pressing Power-Refresh; that switches the device to unlocked mode. You can continue using ChromeOS, build your own ChromiumOS, or install another OS.
You can also kill off the bootloader completely. I've never done that before, but I believe the linked doc describes the process. I'm not exactly sure how to install Ubuntu, but the hardware is not going to stop you and never has.
The Pixel-specific instructions are here, though this is for the old revision and I'm not sure what (if anything) has changed:
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-fo...
But yeah, ARM booting is consistently crazy and I don't understand how it works at all.
[1] https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton
Who makes these decisions?
Americans.
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.
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.
Also, ChromeOS will happily use 8-16GB of RAM if you have enough browser tabs open and stuff running in the background.
Wish Google would adopt that attitude for their Nexus line as well...
I can see wanting 8 GB of RAM, but I'd need Crouton to make use of 16 GB.
For a ton of Chrome tabs.
> only 32-64 GB SSD?
You're expected to store all data on Google servers.
Or one Facebook tab.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22264966/chrome-memory-li...
So they can run our online 3D modeling and rendering webapp: https://Clara.io ;)
I feel that this notebook will sell better if it had ubuntu installed and 256gb ssd.
> what could use 16gb memory?
4+ simultaneous processes.
I'd say the tiny amount of storage will make it really hard to do anything productive with containers...
I think Text is OK. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/text/mmfbcljfglbok...
Personally though my favorite is Tailor, even though I never got the live reloading to work (for HTML/JS.) It can pull from GitHub repos, which is pretty useful. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tailor/mfakmoghean...
Now that Polymer/Paper is out there I wish someone would use that for an editor, as it's likely it'll finally be the standardized UI for Chrome OS. Might be a fun weekend project...
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_...
Two things I would change are
1. Improve thermal cooling or move to a underpowered cpu. I have worked around it by rate limiting my CPU to not go over 800 MHz. With a few tweaks, it sips ~8.8W and gives me > 6 hrs of battery life.
2. Make the hinge a bit stiffer.
My only other complaint is that it refuses to install FreeBSD.
I have put absolutely no effort into getting it to work though (honestly I'd disable it entirely if I wasn't too lazy to bother), and a desktop environment like GNOME might be able to configure it to work. I'm not sure there.
Edit: (Multi-touch on the touchpad works fine for me.)
The kernel drivers are in src/third_party/kernel/v3.10 for first-gen pixel, and v3.14 for this one. If you're going to run your own Linux, I'd use that kernel rather than the one the distro provides. Or figure out what patches are different between the two, and cherry-pick those onto your distro's kernel.
Yeah, just like buying a Windows laptop to install Linux, meaning using the laptop for another purpose than it is being sold for.
The reasoning you gave seems to be some sort of fully general counterargument to ever installing GNU/Linux, as there are hardly any devices that are "sold to run GNU/Linux".
Did you try installing SeaBIOS on it?
Now, about that price point...
the problem with ChromeOS, imo, is how limited it becomes once you pull out the net connection. Never mind the whole lockdown unless you flip that "developer" switch.
Using office-type apps at home is not something that's done every day any more - my family do it incredibly rarely on their Windows desktop.
Speaking of which, it would be nice if that were a physical switch on Pixels. With the original Pixel at least, there is an issue that if your battery runs completely dead, the bit that tells the computer it should be in developer mode is unset. When that happens, if you have linux installed on it, you are hosed. Everything on the drive becomes inaccessible, and the only thing you can do is reflash ChromeOS.
If I am wrong about that, somebody please tell me. It is making me paranoid as hell about leaving it unplugged.
Also, what happened to giving the CMOS a backup battery?
As for the TPM, Chromebooks come with them for a long time now. They're cleared when entering or leaving developer mode. The main difference is that after clearing, the devmode mechanism also records the state there (instead of in CMOS).
If you're concerned about "final keys", read the spec (eg. http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/resources/tpm_main_spec..., Part 1, Section 9.5). The only key that is never deleted is the "Endorsement Key". That one is similarly annoying as the Pentium III serial number (ie. it allows secure identification of the TPM if you let software send requests to the TPM).
Well, I think there is something in that direction, but quite a lot in the direction of "the whole Chrome project at Google -- including ChromeOS -- was started because someone at Google realized that Google would have more reach if people spent more time in the browser and had less reason to use non-web software, so they set out to address the issues that make out-of-browser software necessary for what users want to do with computers."
The other problem with ChromesOS is that it's a gigantic privacy sinkhole.
Everything you do in the OS is tracked and recorded by Google. Even printing to your desktop printer. None of this tracking is anonymous either since you must sign in with your Google account to properly use ChromeOS. (Just a reminder that a Google account equals your name, gender, email, date-of-birth, location and mobile phone number).
Google fail to state in their lengthy privacy policy how long they keep your data (presumably forever) or whether your activity is disassociated from your identity when viewed by Google. In my view, this is simply unacceptable when you consider the gargantuan volumes of private date collected and the unprecedented degree of tracking.
The reaction on this site to an entire OS that tracks you by default has mostly been: "Yeah, you're being tracked. So what? Get over it." Presumably everyone happy to recommend ChromeOS would be equally happy to switch on their Mac/Windows/Ubuntu machine and have it track everything they do, have that information sent back to the OS manufacturer, and for none of that data to be anonymous?
Once I get the device I will use a different fake google account, but they can suspect there's a link between the purchasing account and the account that uses the machine.
Then soon after that SSDs happened and I stopped caring about boot times.
Please don't take people for idiots, photoshop won't be running on your ChromeOS.
It never was. First USB-C powered though.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/08/hp_chromebook_11/
The HP Chromebook 11 is not USB-C powered.
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/ads/chromebooks/overview.html
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.
The Chromebook Pixel was given out at I/O 2013, I know because that's how I got mine. :)
"The Chrome store in not available in your country". Then it shows the option of looking at the US store page. I click on the Chromebook there and it goes back to saying it's not available in my country.
I get why we cannot see the link in Europe, as hardly anyone is buying them over here, so why bother.
Edit: Nevermind it's really not that bad, just replacing the BIOS, that should be fine. I see little risk of "bricking" a machine here, I'm sure I can get Debian running with these instructions and return the product if it doesn't work well enough.
I recently restored ChromeOS in anticipation of selling it for the pixel 2 upgrade, and I gotta say - ChromeOS and crouton have both come a long way. Ubuntu via crouton handles everything without any tweaking, which was a major problem I had with Wi-Fi on Debian. You can still take advantage of the <10second-to-browser boot time of ChromeOS if you just need to look a few things up real quick.
To take advantage of everything, if you could get ChromeOS to boot in developer mode (ctrl+d at bios screen) and Debian to boot on legacy boot (ctrl+l at bios screen), then you really get the best of all worlds!