Google has long been putting its weight behind the Chromebook line-up which essentially brings a unique web experience on very cheap and light-weight laptops. However, the search giant has taken a giant step forth by unveiling Chromebook Pixel, a premium machine equipped with high-end specs and priced at $1299.
Over the years, many of us have carefully constructed the opinion that no matter what a vendor does, it is hard to beat the experience Apple offers through its MacBook machines. However, Google may be trying to change that opinion now.
Specifications and highlights
Chromebook is a perfect combination of beauty and brains. The machines come fitted with a core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and an ultra-high-pixel resolution of 2560 x 1700. In the growing fight for more pixels, this is the highest resolution display that is currently available on any laptop. Moreover, this display is touchscreen, which is a huge plus.
Not only that, the laptop’s display comes with a 3:2 aspect ratio. That is unusual and some users may find it odd but since the machine is meant for people who want to spend a lot of time on the web, the ratio seems apt – most of the web pages look better on a 3:2 display.
The fact that such a high-pixel display delivers a stunning visual performance is beyond doubt. It even beats Apple’s MacBook series at this. Moreover, the rest of the machine is also impressive. The laptop comes with rounded edges, which look really slick, LED-backlit keyboard, vents hidden in the hinge, a dedicated microphone to shut out the keyboard noises during an audio chat and finally, etched glass touchpad which is far superior to the touchpad experience offered by any other laptop in the market.
Pricing and availability
Google has plans of offering two flavors of Chromebook Pixel – the Wi-Fi model comes with 32GB of storage and carries a price tag of $1299, whereas the other model with LTE connectivity packs 64GB of storage space and costs $1449. The Wi-Fi model will be available starting from today, whereas the LTE model will be made available later in April this year. Users who go for the machine also get to have a whopping 1 terabyte of storage space on Google Drive.
The verdict
As impressive as the machine is, the big question is: are the users ready to shell out so much money for a machine that is meant to be web-centric and not for regular computing chores? It is hard to answer that question because the lines between online and offline lives computing tasks have virtually blurred over the recent years. These days, wherever there is computer, there is internet and there is web.
Although Google is essentially taking a significant risk in banking on this blurring difference, it may prove its worth while. Watch the video below to see an up-close view of the Pixel machine and do let us know your thoughts about it in the comments below.
Source: Chrome Blog/Chromebook Pixel
Courtesy: The Verge
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Now Google starts like Microsoft, designing products solely based on its own Corporate strategy, forgetting customer needs: “Lets make EVERYTHING be on the net, then people will never go offline and we can fit our adds in somewhere”
Anyone spending this kind of cash on a Laptop with a high end display is probably planning to do some serious work on it, making use of the display – not just wasting time on Facebook, or watching the mainstream media’s propaganda day in day out.
But for anything taking advantage of this display, like image editing, video editing etc, the storage offered is a joke, making the machine a weird bastard child. Loading large images from the internet is too slow and editing large video files without enough room is impossible. They really need an SSD option in this kind of machine.
Not to mention that the internet is far from guaranteed to always be available like it is now. Obama could shut down all private use of the internet indefinitely – at any time he deems necessary for any reason without even asking congress.
And what if you go travelling? There’s usually sporadic, slow or no internet access. Then what do you do?
Beautiful as it is, I see only very few of these selling in the current configuration, even if someone manages to hack Linux onto it, with its greater abundance of professional level tools. There isn’t enough space for development on it either.