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The Chromebook Pixel Is Real, and Expensive
First time accepted submitter Lirodon writes "Just when you thought Google's rumored Chrome OS laptop, the Chromebook Pixel, was an elaborate fake, think again. This high-end Chromebook with a 12.85-inch high resolution touchscreen (available in both Wi-Fi only and Verizon LTE versions) and an Intel Core i5 processor under the hood is super fancy, and also super expensive: starting at $1299. Would you want to pay that much for what is essentially a premium netbook?" Engadget has a hands-on with the device.
nope
This thing would obviously only be $2.99 + S&H if it weren't for the Microsoft tax! I'm tired of M$ driving up the price of hardware with ... interruption... whispering .... uh... I'm tired of the GOOGLE TAX!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Still, it's like 1 million dollar vodka - it does its job for sure, but it is surely a little expensive for that.
Since when is Core i5, Intel HD 4000, and 4GB of ram, and a screen with an absurdly high resolution, considered a netbook?
Sure, it has a netbook os installed...but that doesn't mean anything. I could also install windows 3.1...big deal.
Apple just dropped the price on all their retina laptops
The only interesting thing in the whole machine is the display.
It has sane proportions (3:2) and it has a very decent resolution (2560x1700). Basically these were the worst problems of the notebooks of the last few years: the 16:9 display that made no sense whatsoever* and the laughably low resolution. Now it seems that these may go away.
*: please note that I'm talking about the really portable size range where basically the keyboard determines the width of the notebook - in this category the displays did not get wide; they got short, with huge unused spaces above and below them.
Real life is overrated.
Depends...
On if you can hack it. As long as you can still open up the developer mode and if you can upgrade the local storage, even with some difficulty then this becomes a way of getting a MacBook Pro workalike without giving money to either Apple or Microsoft then I'm for it. Actually I will go for the more "expensive" 64G / LTE version too. It's still cheaper than the $2,199.00 Amazon pops up with for a retina Macbook.
I especially love the idea of having a proper shape of screen. I would sacrifice very much performance for that.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
In the last few days, I have switched over to the "Google is evil" camp and will be moving away from them as much as possible.
If anyone cares what pushed me over the edge, it was when I found they now require you have Google Plus to write a review in the play store. A move worthy of Microsoft at its vilest. This is not the only issue by any means though.
needs more ram as well 4gb is small at that price also flash size is small.
It should not be a problem. I have a very similar built in intel card driving a 1366x768 and a 1920x1080 screen at the same time.
You can't run Windows on a Chromebook. The BIOS doesn't exist - just a small loader that can boot Linux and that's it. You can flip a hidden switch into "developer mode" where it'll let you have a command prompt, but that's really all there is. You can modify ChromeOS at that point to have a Linux system (there are instructions for installing Ubuntu, but it involves a bit of work with DD).
In regular non-developer mode, ChromeOS is quite locked down.
I don't get why you'd want this – it's only $100 less than a 13" rMBP, while having 4GB less RAM, a much much smaller SSD, and a far inferior OS.
But an Intel HD 4000 ?
I'm not expecting that to keep up with the high-res display.
It doesn't seem to be a problem for the Retina version of the MacBook Pro 13", which uses the same chip.
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
The 13" Macabook Pro Retina starts at $1499.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro
For that you get:
2.5GHz Core i5
8GB RAM
128GB SSD
And out of the box you can run OS X, Windows, or Linux.
So for $200 more than a Chromebook you get 4x the storage, and an actual OS and apps.
Seems a no brainier to me, assuming you HAVE to have a super HD display.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Get a Retina MacBook Pro.
Lets compare:
13" Chromebook Pixel
1.8GHz Core i5
4GB RAM
32GB Storage
5 Hour battery
Only runs Chrome
$1,299
13" Retina MacBook Pro
2.5GHz Core i5
8GB RAM
128GB SSD
7 Hour battery
Can run OS X, Windows, or Linux
$1,499
Seems to me that extra $200 gets you a LOT more bang for your buck. And if you don't care about the display then that same cash gets you a much better hardware spec'd laptop from many other places.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Wouldn't a 'premium' notebook have a real OS?
This isn't a 'premium' notebook, with Chrome OS installed it isn't even really a notebook, it's a portable $1299 thin client.
$1349 for the cheapest 13" Retina display.
http://appleinsider.com/mac_price_guide/#%23
$50 more only if you do comparison shopping. :)
Similar form factor and specs to a Mac Book Pro .. and guess what .. similar price. Take that you Apple Apologists .. um .. err .. [Facepalm]
Right but half the ram (4GB versus 8GB) and a quarter of the storage (32GB versus 128GB) for only 200 dollars less than the 13" rMBP. Shouldn't it be a lot less considering that it does not come with a fullblown OS and apps?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Inferior OS? I dunno. I have a Samsung Chromebook and a MacBook Air, and for most work I prefer the Chromebook -- mostly because the OS gets in my way a lot less than OS X does.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Bit of clarification on the linux instructions.
http://chromeos-cr48.blogspot.com/
Has the typing commands portion of the instructions simplified down to:
wget http://goo.gl/34v87; sudo bash 34v87
run at least twice.
And: /dev/mmcblk0
sudo cgpt add -i 6 -P 5 -S 1
To set ubuntu as the default boot.
So. No need to type in anything too complex w/ dd
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
As a proud member pervert in good standing of the Congregation for Appreciation of Internet Pr0n, I must heartily decry, deride, protest, and shake every conceivable appendage I can muster at the idea of a laptop having a touchscreen. I care not for access to dev mode and ease of conversion to Linux, nor do I care about comparisons to MBR, MBP, or any other model in its market class, nay; what I care most about is that when I am using internet on my laptop for the purpose that the Good Lord Snookums intended--the transmission of digitalized lewd images at 0.999999 percent of c to my eyes for transitional enlightenment of my load--that any incidental contact of whatever airborne fluids I may be generating will not hit my screen and be registered as input. I have a hard enough time keeping my screen nice and clear as it is, I really do not need the fruit of my loins sending me to yet another morally dubious website when I'm not yet done with the one I'm on! So NAY! I say! Nay to touchscreens on laptops! I will NOT be a consumer of this product!
As a side note, I do not use my iPad for this very reason... well, that and my wrists tend to get crimps in them.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
$1300 doesn't sound outrageous if the build quality and features were decent for an ultraportable nOtebook.
With an i5 CPU (Note: the "i5" in it is only a 1.8GHz dualcore) and a hi-rez touchscreen it sounds OK at first. But the reason you spend this kind of money for an Ultraportable is because a $500 netbook can't hack it. and that's because your Outlook inbox has been archived a dozen times and is still pushing 2GB. And while the home office network can do 20MbPS up/down you're in the field (hence the Ultraportable) and the exchange server really sucks over a 1.5Mb/256Kb connection. Oh wait this Chrome and it only has a 32GB HDD. So I'm not sure what it is good for. I don't need an i5, 4GB RAM and a hires screen for "cloud stuff", I can do that on my phone.
Really your just paying $1300 for an "I'm Stupid" sign.
Sure, it has that code - but its UI stack does not use it for widgets etc. Which is why it still doesn't have an option to e.g. make text bigger in all applications, like you can in Windows or most Linux DEs.
Those 11" Ultrabooks come with a copy of Windows, so you can actually do something useful.
Is that a feature or a bug?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'm not clear what the hardware is worth, but people are ignoring why this is priced so high. What nobody mentions is the laptop comes with 3 years of 1TB Google Drive storage. If you check out pricing for that much storage, you are looking at $50/month, which translates to $600/yr or $1,800 for 3 years.
So if you are a Google Drive power user and need a ton of storage space, this thing is a bargain. You get the storage at a discount and a nice free laptop. Sure, that seems like a crazy amount to spend on cloud storage space but this thing isn't exactly a laptop for the masses.
The big question here is who needs that much cloud storage space. It sounds like something that would be nice to have, but I wouldn't spend $600/yr. I'm not the target audience though.
Considering that the name is Chromebook Pixel, they might want to rethink that marketing talking point.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
This isn't necessarily true. Apple has been shipping this for years as a developer features (open Quartz Debug, set your UI scale, logout, login.)
Yes, they did. Have you ever tried actually enabling this option? It didn't just break third-party apps - it broke the core OS UI, such as the top-level app menu. I don't know on what level the UI stack actually supports this, but it clearly doesn't extend to all stock widgets.
Inferior OS? I dunno. I have a Samsung Chromebook and a MacBook Air, and for most work I prefer the Chromebook -- mostly because the OS gets in my way a lot less than OS X does.
If your "work" cosists entirely of web browsing, then I guess ChromeOS is a better OS. Sorry but most of us actually have to use non-web apps like spreadsheets, IDEs, and groupware/office. Also, I can't use Chrome in all cases even for web usage because I need to test my code on multiple client architectures.
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