Review: Chromebook Pixel (2015)

Introduction and design

The original Chromebook Pixel was infamous for being the most expensive and insanely specced Chromebook, equipped with a high-resolution and equally unorthodox 3:2 screen. It was expensive and luxurious, thanks to its all aluminum body and worse yet, the original Pixel's battery life was underwhelming.

Since then, Chromebooks have exploded in popularity and Google's Chrome OS experiment has matured into a well oiled cloud platform. Now, two years later, the new Chromebook Pixel has been introduced as the next step forward.

Google equipped the new Pixel with the same 2,560 x 1,700 screen, an even more powerful Intel Core i5 Broadwell chip plus a much longer quoted 12 hours of battery life – all at a lower (but still premium) $999 or £799 (about AU$1,277) price. In many ways, the new Pixel is the Chromebook perfected, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's an ideal machine for the average Joe.

Design

Every time I've seen the Chromebook Pixel in photos, it instantly reminded me of the Delorean, and not in a good way. It seemed tacky and bland with a sheet-metal body that seemed utterly derivative of the '80s car. Thankfully, in person, I was proved completely wrong.

Seeing the Pixel in images is one thing, but holding it in your hands is a completely different experience. The Pixel comes in the form of a solid aluminum slab that's very reminiscent of the MacBook Air, but its made with a smoother, slightly softer metal. Open up this laptop and it reveals its completely bare, elegant and utilitarian design.

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What sets the Pixel apart from other Chromebooks is its minimalism. There's barely any branding on the device, save for the word Chrome etched into the laptop rear hinge as well as at the top of the keyboard deck. From the the lowered lip around the keyboard to the keys themselves and the track pad's edges, the laptop as a whole follows one sharp, square-shaped aesthetic set by the 3:2 screen. Likewise, the edges of the machine fall off sharply to make it feel utterly modern.

The Pixel is easily recognizable, thanks to its uniquely square aspect ratio. Not to mention that unmistakable, multi-colored light bar on the back of the screen, which displays all the primary colors of the Google logo. Ingeniously, this lightbar also doubles as an battery meter that comes to life with a progress bar whenever you double tap the back of the lid.

It's hard not to appreciate all the minute details Google has gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Everything about the about the design is quite deliberate and well thought out.

USB-C done right

The new USB-C ports are some of the most important new additions to the Chromebook Pixel. The new USB 3.1 port is a big deal, in light of its recent debut with the new MacBook. However, unlike Apple's latest laptop, the Pixel comes with two of these new fangled ports instead of just one. Alongside two full-size USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot and a headphone/mic combo jack round out the Pixel's I/O offering.

Overall the new USB-C ports come as a boon to the laptop rather than to its detriment. The two ports are located on both sides of the laptop, letting you plug in the charger on either side of the device. At the same time, the availability of legacy ports means you won't be bogged down with adapters, as you are with the new MacBook. If anything, USB-C's expandability to displays and external batteries adds a bit more flexibility (and future proofing) to this machine over other Chromebooks.

Specifications and performance

The Pixel is by no means the lightest Chromebook around. It weighs in at 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg) largely thanks to its fully aluminum body, which measures in at 11.7 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches or 297 x 224 x 15 mm (W x D x H).

Despite it's unorthodox 12.5-inch screen, fitting the Pixel into a bag designed to carry 13- to 14-inch laptops is not a problem at all. What's more, the machine's shorter width (than most other laptops) allows me to slip in the charger right next to it inside the same laptop sleeve compartment.

By comparison, the Toshiba Chromebook 2 is lighter and ever so slightly thicker, at 2.95 pounds (1.33 kg) and 12.6 x 8.4 x 0.76 inches (320 x 213x 19.3 mm). The Acer Chromebook 13, meanwhile, weighs 3.31 pounds (1.5 kg) and measures 12.9 x 9 x 0.71 inches (327 x 228 x 18 mm).

Here is the Chromebook Pixel (2015) configuration given to TechRadar for review:

Spec Sheet

• CPU: 2.2GHz Intel Core i5-5200U (dual-core, 3MB cache, up to 2.7GHz with turbo boost)


• Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 5500


• RAM: 8GB DDR3


• Screen: 12.85-inch 2,560 x 1,700 IPS touchscreen display


• Storage: 32GB SSD


• Ports: 2 x USB-C, 2 x USB 2.0, headphone/mic jack SD card reader


• Connectivity: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260; Bluetooth 4.0 LE


• Camera: 720p HD wide angle camera with blue glass


• Weight: 3.3 pounds


• Size: 11.7 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches (W x D x H)

Starting at $999 or £799 (about AU$1,277), the Pixel comes at a steep premium compared to wide swath of affordable Chromebooks in the world, but you're also getting a beefed up configuration as seen above. Few Chromebooks come equipped with a beyond-HD screen let alone 32GB of SSD storage or 8GB of RAM by default. This is by far one of the fastest Chromebooks to ever ship, and you'll never run into a slow down, even after opening 20 or more Google Chrome tabs.

If that isn't enough speed for your liking, the Chromebook Pixel is available in an LS model, which stands for "Ludicrous Speed." The higher-end model retails for a baffling $1,299 or £999 (about AU$1,663), and it comes equipped with a 2.4GHz Intel Core i7 Broadwell processor, plus a bump up to 16GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.

If you're looking for something much lighter on your wallet, the Toshiba Chromebook 2 is available for $329 (about £223, AU$431). It's not quite as well equipped as the Pixel, but the Toshiba machine comes outfitted with a gorgeous 1080p screen and a more than adequate 2.16GHz Intel Celeron processor.

The Acer Chromebook 13 is by far the most affordable option of this trio. Priced at $249 or £219 (about AU$326), it comes packing a full HD display and a 2.1GHz Nvidia Tegra K1 for the CPU.

Performance

The Pixel is a wickedly fast machine. Web pages load up lighting quick, scrolling is smooth and even pinch to zoom on the touchscreen feels snappy. Sure, you're pretty much limited to only web surfing on Chromebooks, but even mid-range laptops can stumble with just running the browser. In many ways, using the Pixel feels a lot like a fully decked-out gaming laptop, because it is so consistently fast - just don't expect it to run many games.

Powered by a Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM, the machine truly comes into its own when streaming 1080p and even 4K video on YouTube. Most Chromebooks do perfectly well with full HD footage, but higher-res video has made most machines buckle, whereas the Pixel ran smoothly. I was even able to play Bastion without a hitch, unlike the Celeron-powered Toshiba Chromebook 2, thanks to the headier Intel HD 5500 integrated graphics.

Getting over that blocky screen

Aside from the Pixel's hefty price tag, one thing you'll have to get over is its 3:2 aspect ratio. The display is a bit taller than most other laptops, and this makes it great for working documents, the little photo editing you can do in Photoshop, as well as viewing web pages.

Of course, you'll probably only be looking at a single window at a time. Thanks to the screen's narrower width, having two windows side by side gets uncomfortably cramped. Thick black bars at the top and bottom of the display are also an unavoidable issue when watching movies or any media made for widescreens.

But, if you can get over these annoyances of having a 3:2 screen, the Chromebook Pixel has one of the nicest looking displays. The panels is nice and bright: even with the backlight set to 50%: it's easy to see everything on the display, even in bright sunlight. Colors are also rich, and there's plenty of contrast to fully appreciate whites fading into subtle grays and then deep blacks.

Google has even fine tuned the touchscreen's responsiveness and accuracy. That said, I rarely found myself playing around with it other than to pinch and zoom in on a few webpage images.

Beyond all day use

Google boasts the its new Chromebook Pixel has a battery life of 12 hours, and that estimate isn't too far off from the reality. In my own testing, I was able to eke out 8 hours and 22 minutes of usage. During my test, I set the screen brightness to 50% while I tabbed between 20 webpages, listened to Google music and, to top it all off, I streamed a two-hour movie on Netflix.

Nearly nine hours of battery life would be a huge number for any Chromebook, but it's even more impressive because of the Pixel's Core i5 processor and high-resolution screen. With most Windows laptops, a high-resolution screen can shortens battery life by three hours or more.

Although the Toshiba's Chrome OS machine comes sporting lower resolution full-HD display, it only lasted 6 hours and 26 minutes. The Acer Chromebook 13, meanwhile, managed to edge out its competition with a screen-on time of 8 hours and 56 minutes, largely due to its power-sipping Tegra K1 processor.

Verdict

Google has improved the Pixel in almost every regard and most importantly addressed the battery life issues found in its inaugural laptop. The new Pixel has also been tweaked with a more colorful and responsive touchscreen, as well as the addition of USB-C. Despite all these improvements, it still doesn't fix this machine's underlying problem: it costs more than twice as much as most other Chromebooks.

We liked

If you're looking for the end all, be all of Chromebooks, the Pixel is it. Outfitted with a Core i5 processor, USB 3.1 (and USB-C) ports, a high-resolution screen, and more RAM than it will ever need, this laptop sets a high bar for Chrome OS machines for years to come. The only notebook that will come close matching the Pixel's performance in the foreseeable future is the Acer Chromebook C910, a 15-inch rig that will feature the same Core i5 processor.

Power and performance aside, the Pixel is one of the few Chromebooks that feels like it has itself completely figured out. The build quality of this machine is exquisite and the design has been engineered down to a science. What's more, its vivid screen - plus the impeccable keyboard and trackpad - all help to round out the Pixel as one excellent, premium package.

We disliked

It's impossible not to get hung up on the Pixel's high price. For the same amount of money, you could buy two or even three Chromebooks or a decent Windows laptop. Which begs the question: is the Pixel worth it's weight in gilded aluminum?

The answer is: almost. In many ways, this is the best Chromebook money can buy, with a nearly record-setting battery life and performance that can't be beat - for now. However, Chrome OS itself still has too many limitations to be the only computing device for some folks, namely tasks like easily-accessible printing, native media creation and gaming. . This makes it difficult to recommend that you invest so much money in such a machine.

Final verdict

The Pixel set a precedent for Chromebooks years ago as the most premium laptop made solely for web browsing. This latest model builds on that legacy, iterating and improving upon it. However, while the Pixel is about as close to perfection as a Chromebook can get, this isn't necessarily a machine for the everyday user.

Although the Pixel is available as a commercial device, it's more of a development platform that represents the future of Chromebooks. The inclusion of USB-C and, to a lesser extent, the touchscreen help the Pixel serve as a testbed for these two technologies that have yet to be widely or meaningfully implemented in Google's platform. At the same time, the Pixel represents epitome of what a Chromebook can be today, making it a great choice for developers building applications for the next version of Chrome OS.

Simply put, most users won't need this much performance to just run the Chrome browser and a few Android applications. Both the Toshiba Chromebook 2 and Acer Chromebook 13 are excellent Chrome OS machines at a much more affordable price. The latest Chromebook Pixel is a gorgeous preview of what's possible for the platform, but it's not what you need right now.

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