Google's Pixelbook: The Ideal Chromebook for a New Generation of Computer Users

I had to change my mindset to fully appreciate Google's new $1,000 Pixelbook. This stunning 2-in-1 device is some of my favorite hardware for the price, but it runs Chrome OS, arguably the weakest operating system you could install on a computer. If you're accustomed to being a power user of macOS, Windows, or Linux, then Chrome OS might feel limiting, and no amount of exceptional hardware can distract you from how constrained it is compared to its more established competitors. To avoid repeating my complaints about Chrome OS's severe inadequacies in yet another Chromebook review, I decided to adopt the mindset of an ideal Chrome OS user. It was a challenging task, like trying to quit drinking soda, but it made one thing very clear: If you fit the profile of an ideal Chrome OS user, this is the best laptop you can buy.

Who is the Ideal Chrome OS User?

According to Google, the ideal Chrome OS user is a young person whose first computing device was a mobile phone, not a Powerbook 520c. Their first experience with Photoshop was likely an app on their Android or iOS device, and their initial gaming experiences were simple mobile games like Fallout Shelter or Asphalt 8. They don't know the joy of meticulously tweaking an operating system with Quicksilver or Alfred or customizing the user interface with Rainmeter. For this new generation of computer users (IDC claims 58 percent of schools use Chrome OS devices), a computer is not a tool but a portal to the internet and everything beyond.

Chrome OS: A Different Perspective

When you understand these two key aspects of potential Chrome OS users—that they view computers as gateways to the wider world and that they are more familiar with mobile apps—Chrome OS starts to feel like a pretty decent operating system.

Last year, Google began officially integrating Android apps into Chrome OS, and early this year, they took that integration more seriously, working with app developers to improve Android app support in Chrome OS. Initially, it was clunky because Android apps often didn't resize properly for the resolution of Chromebooks like the Samsung Chromebook Pro. However, there have been significant improvements, and now when I open apps like Adobe Lightroom and Comixology, they feel like native Chrome OS applications rather than oversized versions of my phone apps.

This is a crucial distinction that helps Chrome OS feel a bit more mature—even if it still falls short of being the powerful content creation platform that Windows, Linux, and macOS are. It's more like an iPad, but with a design that prioritizes typing.

Pixelbook's Exceptional Hardware

The first thing you'll notice about the Pixelbook is its exceptional hardware design. Everyone I showed it to marveled at how thin (just 0.4 inches) and light (2.4 pounds) it is. The metal and glass construction feels solid and durable, giving you confidence that it can withstand everyday use and travel.

The keys have a slightly rubbery feel when pressed, which is soft and pleasant without feeling mushy, and the glass trackpad is as good as any you'd find on a MacBook.

Since it's a Chromebook and runs the lightweight Chrome OS, there's no need for cooling fans, making it completely silent and never too hot. In that sense, it's similar to an iPad. With its touch display, 360-degree hinge, and all the Android apps, the Pixelbook often feels like a tablet itself. So comparing it to an iPad seems natural.

However, the Pixelbook is noticeably more powerful than an iPad, which uses a different operating system and processor type. It's even more powerful than the Samsung Chromebook Pro, with configurations ranging from the $1,000 Pixelbook with a 4.5-watt seventh-generation i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD to the $1,650 Pixelbook with a 4.5-watt seventh-generation i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD (which means it reads and writes data faster).

The $550 Samsung Chromebook Pro, in comparison, uses the previous generation's processor, and the much slower m3 version at that. It also has only 32GB of storage and just 4GB of RAM. This means it's significantly slower, can store far fewer apps, and will struggle with multitasking compared to the new Pixelbook.

Benchmark Performance and Multitasking

Both Samsung and Google's Chromebooks feature 12.3-inch displays with 2400 x 1600 resolution, just a tad below the iPad's 2732 x 2048 12.9-inch display. However, the Pixelbook is much faster than either. In WebXPRT, which benchmarks a computer by testing how well it edits images, creates spreadsheets, and processes complex equations in a browser, the Pixelbook scored a 453—on par with devices like the MacBook Pro, LG Gram 14, and even the recent Razer Blade Pro. The Samsung Chromebook scored a 267 while the iPad managed only 232. And on Geekbench 4, a synthetic benchmark that runs as an Android app on Chrome OS, the Samsung Chromebook had an iPad-like single-core score of 2571 while the Pixelbook had a laptop-like 4168.

These exceptional benchmark speeds are immediately noticeable in everyday browsing. I can have twenty tabs open on the Pixelbook, with Fallout Shelter running in the background and Netflix running in the foreground with no lag. The Samsung Chromebook always choked in a similar scenario, and iPads simply don't multitask at that level.

Battery Life and Pen Support

Battery life is a bit less impressive. When streaming a YouTube video, it averaged about eight hours and 53 minutes—even the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro lasted 11 hours and ten minutes on the same test. While it doesn't have the best battery life for extended movie-watching sessions, it's still more than enough for regular web browsing. With basic use, I often went well into my second workday without reaching for a USB-C charger.

Where the Pixelbook falters is with its pen support. Doing art on a Chromebook might be appealing, but between the $100 price tag on the Pixelbook Pen and the slight delay between pen stroke and pen render that I noticed on every single app I used, it just doesn't seem worth it. If this is your only device and you absolutely need to draw or take handwritten notes, then go for it—with practice, you'll be able to adjust to the lag, but an iPad would definitely be easier to use.

Google Assistant and the Ideal User

Yet the Pixelbook has a trick that the iPad and the Samsung Chromebook (which includes a dinky little stylus) do not. This Chromebook has Google Assistant built in. It's not just like Siri in an iPad, where you long-press a single button. On the Pixelbook, there's a dedicated button to launch Google Assistant. Once launched, it works just as it would on your phone or a Google Home, and if you have the Pixel Pen, you can use it to circle words or images on your computer and have Assistant immediately search the web for them. The feature doesn't feel like a fundamental alteration to how we interact with our computers, but if you're used to working on a mobile device and asking Siri or Google inane questions, it's now just as easy on a Chromebook.

When you consider the Pixelbook as the next step for someone who primarily computes on their phone, it's an absolutely wonderful device. If you've ever stood in Best Buy and seriously considered an iPad versus a Chromebook or laptop, stop. Go buy the Pixelbook; it's the superior device for you, balancing the need to write with the need to consume nearly perfectly.

It's almost the superior device for power users like me. While I hated that I had to change my photography workflow on the Pixelbook (there's no CaptureOne available, and the mobile version of Photoshop is worthless compared to the macOS and Windows versions), I sometimes didn't care. When I was rewatching Halt and Catch Fire last weekend, it was the Pixelbook I reached for to idly play games, read comics, and Google weird milestones in computer history.

The Pixelbook still costs a not insignificant $1,000, but that's okay. This is the best possible device you can currently get for Chrome OS, and it actually feels like it's worth it.

README

This thing is very fast.Battery life is acceptable, but could be better.The design is really, really nice.Seriously, there are few devices you'll hold in your hand that feel as nice as this one.It's still Chrome OS, so don't complain when you can't edit a movie.

Spec Dump

Intel i5-7y5712.3-inch LCD2400 x 1600 at 235ppi128GB SSD8GB of RAM11.4 x 8.7 x 0.4 inchesBluetooth 4.2802.11ac2 x USB-C3.5mm audio out