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I really like this Pixelbook
- Thread starter Michael Goff
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That is true. I think I meant to put HDR and kind of flubbed there. Yeah, let me go fix that.
Thanks for your feedback. Where did you purchase the Acer and at what price if you do not mind sharing that info?
Got the Acer for a sweet deal around a month ago for $250 with a free google home...best deal ever. Now its back to $399 with no free google home. Its almost like getting a free chromebook for the best buy deal they had in the past. That deal came up twice during christmas holiday season and for one week during the month of January.
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But people have to remember HDR does not need 4K. You can have HDR at even 1080p. HDR is for color improvement and brightness improvement. But the pixelbook does not support HDR...thats the problem. There are 1080p HDR monitors out there, yes they are not as sharp as the 4K HDR monitors and tv's but HDR does not need 1080p. Look at the Note 8, ipad pro latest, and other devices with HDR and no true 4K support.
That and the price unfortunately. I have been missing around with it at BB and it has me very impressed otherwise.
I can understand that. For me, I prefer a 4:3 AR both for notebooks and tablets. I find 16:9 (and 16:10 to a lesser extent) very awkward for tablets... too narrow in portrait mode, too wide in landscape. So that leaves the final hurdle...the price (which as I mentioned earlier is a personal thing not a reflection of the value of the PB).
I do have the pen! I have to say, the pen holder is very nice and sturdy for what it is. It's easy to slide the pen in and out and holds the pen firmly in place with zero concern about it slipping out at all. I'm impressed for a free pen holder. Not to mention, the turquoise color gives a nice little pop of character.
My PixelBook Pen clip arrived today!
In what felt like an age since ordering it, it unexpectedly just showed up in the post!
I still don't have the pen, so can't test it or anything but looks pretty cool!
I was thinking, it's been a good 4 months nearly now with this PixelBook and I can honestly say it's one of my favourite laptops I have ever owned. If not my actual favourite.
I was always a massive Mac fan, and wouldn't contemplate using anything else. Purely because I always felt like I was getting the best performance from a Mac, and Windows just could never compete back in the day. Probably naivety on my part more than anything.
But yeah, always Macs. It wasn't until I actually thought about what I use my MacBook for that I started to realise I was using it as a glorified web browser. My phone never connected to it - even when I used iPhone's, so that point was kinda moot.
My partner now has and uses my old 2016 MacBook (a space grey 12" one) and I had to log into it before for something as my old account is still on there. I couldn't believe how much it aggrevated me just navigating around it for 5 minutes. Now I'm not saying that MacBook's are now rubbish and PixelBook's are better - that would be silly and isn't true at all.
But for my personal use case, the PixelBook is just so well suited.
I haven't needed anything from that MAcBook since I have had this PB. And it has been so refreshing. All I felt like I was getting with the MB was update notifications. All. The. Time.
With the PixelBook, I log on and have a little circle arrow up icon in the tool bar and I click it and it says 'update ready to install'. Click that, 2 minutes later I'm back where I left off. It's wonderful.
I keep learning really cool things about it too. Like a night mode!! Just like Android phones, the PB contains a built in yellow light filter that can be activated through Chrome.
Makes night time or low light viewing perfect!
My camera might not pick up on the difference in screen tone very well, but it works brilliantly.
One thing I love the most is the app notifications in the tray. Having all my social media notifications come through onto the PB and for me to be able to launch the app or web page and reply to them or acknowledge them just adds another layer to this device.
I hardly touch my phone when I'm on my PB.
I said it in my early impressions, but the keyboard is one of the best I have used as well as the glass track pad. This is such a well crafted machine I am still a little bit in awe of it.
I often work from it in the office as I have a weird box thing that I connect the PixelBook or my work laptop to via USB and it drives to external monitors. The Pixelbook is a joy to work from in that setup with Citrix Receiver. I almost can't believe I can use it like this when people say it's just a Chrome machine. It's so versatile.
When I have taken it into work, people always comment on it. Two people randomly walked past my desk a while back and asked if it was the PixelBook. Showed some interest in it. Everyone who has seen it say they think it looks better than a MacBook.
I agree!
One of my favourite tech devices this. With the rumours today of a potential 4k Chromebook by Google, it's made me very excited to see how they build upon this. It definitely isn't perfect. The pen could attach a little better and it could lose some bezels from the screen, but for a first gen (kind of) device it's so good.
I love it.
In what felt like an age since ordering it, it unexpectedly just showed up in the post!
I still don't have the pen, so can't test it or anything but looks pretty cool!
I was thinking, it's been a good 4 months nearly now with this PixelBook and I can honestly say it's one of my favourite laptops I have ever owned. If not my actual favourite.
I was always a massive Mac fan, and wouldn't contemplate using anything else. Purely because I always felt like I was getting the best performance from a Mac, and Windows just could never compete back in the day. Probably naivety on my part more than anything.
But yeah, always Macs. It wasn't until I actually thought about what I use my MacBook for that I started to realise I was using it as a glorified web browser. My phone never connected to it - even when I used iPhone's, so that point was kinda moot.
My partner now has and uses my old 2016 MacBook (a space grey 12" one) and I had to log into it before for something as my old account is still on there. I couldn't believe how much it aggrevated me just navigating around it for 5 minutes. Now I'm not saying that MacBook's are now rubbish and PixelBook's are better - that would be silly and isn't true at all.
But for my personal use case, the PixelBook is just so well suited.
I haven't needed anything from that MAcBook since I have had this PB. And it has been so refreshing. All I felt like I was getting with the MB was update notifications. All. The. Time.
With the PixelBook, I log on and have a little circle arrow up icon in the tool bar and I click it and it says 'update ready to install'. Click that, 2 minutes later I'm back where I left off. It's wonderful.
I keep learning really cool things about it too. Like a night mode!! Just like Android phones, the PB contains a built in yellow light filter that can be activated through Chrome.
Makes night time or low light viewing perfect!
My camera might not pick up on the difference in screen tone very well, but it works brilliantly.
One thing I love the most is the app notifications in the tray. Having all my social media notifications come through onto the PB and for me to be able to launch the app or web page and reply to them or acknowledge them just adds another layer to this device.
I hardly touch my phone when I'm on my PB.
I said it in my early impressions, but the keyboard is one of the best I have used as well as the glass track pad. This is such a well crafted machine I am still a little bit in awe of it.
I often work from it in the office as I have a weird box thing that I connect the PixelBook or my work laptop to via USB and it drives to external monitors. The Pixelbook is a joy to work from in that setup with Citrix Receiver. I almost can't believe I can use it like this when people say it's just a Chrome machine. It's so versatile.
When I have taken it into work, people always comment on it. Two people randomly walked past my desk a while back and asked if it was the PixelBook. Showed some interest in it. Everyone who has seen it say they think it looks better than a MacBook.
I agree!
One of my favourite tech devices this. With the rumours today of a potential 4k Chromebook by Google, it's made me very excited to see how they build upon this. It definitely isn't perfect. The pen could attach a little better and it could lose some bezels from the screen, but for a first gen (kind of) device it's so good.
I love it.
That's a very nice follow up. That is the thing I find daunting about computers, be they Windows or Macs, the endless updates that stop you right in your tracks or prevent you from doing something when you have limited time and only meant to jump on for a moment and jump off again.
Its funny to hear of the 2016 laptop being referred to as the "old" machine. I have one from around 2011 or 2012 that I still think of as my "new laptop". It was set up to run both Snow Leopard and goodness...I forget which version of Windows was running on it. I bought it to play games on. Back then the quality of Windows laptops was so dreadful I decided to just get a Macbook Pro and run Windows on it for the games and use the Mac side for everything else. The reason I haven't used it in a long while is we moved and I got caught up in other things and still don't have my home office quite set up yet.
My tower PC is even older. Yikes
My next office machine will be something I can once again game on and edit my pictures and movies on. I don't really yet know what I'd best be looking for. I would not think a Chromebook is nearly viable for that purpose, but every time I turn around the list of what I hear of people doing on these machines keeps growing. It will be interesting to see where Google and other manufacturers take these machines.
Its funny to hear of the 2016 laptop being referred to as the "old" machine. I have one from around 2011 or 2012 that I still think of as my "new laptop". It was set up to run both Snow Leopard and goodness...I forget which version of Windows was running on it. I bought it to play games on. Back then the quality of Windows laptops was so dreadful I decided to just get a Macbook Pro and run Windows on it for the games and use the Mac side for everything else. The reason I haven't used it in a long while is we moved and I got caught up in other things and still don't have my home office quite set up yet.
My tower PC is even older. Yikes
My next office machine will be something I can once again game on and edit my pictures and movies on. I don't really yet know what I'd best be looking for. I would not think a Chromebook is nearly viable for that purpose, but every time I turn around the list of what I hear of people doing on these machines keeps growing. It will be interesting to see where Google and other manufacturers take these machines.
I'm excited about Crostini. I used it on a Pixelbook, warts and all, and will buy one as soon as I see a good sale (now that the rumors for a new Pixelbook have dropped). If anything, a Pixelbook and my trusty old MBP will hold me over until Ice Lake-ish chips ship.
I think (know) this has the potential to completely disrupt the dev laptop world in a couple of years. This could be a very flexible alternative to macos. MacOS's Unix roots are why I like it best (and don't see Windows as a viable alternative). Now with Android, Chrome, Linux and containers with Crostini - what's not to like? In fact, I can see this creating a world that puts hardware vendors on a much more equal footing.
In a world like that, Apple would have felt the financial sting from the decisions to force the Touch Bar on users or ship a limited-life and unrepairable keyboard.
Kubernetes was a shot against Amazon and AWS - and the open source server world is better for it. Crostini and whatever it morphs into (Fuchsia?) will be a shot against Apple (and Windows/Surface). Consumer computing will be better off for it. In fact, there's no reason Apple can't do something similar!
How long before someone figures out how to compile macos/ios apps from a Crostini container? I'm betting not long.
[doublepost=1532298522][/doublepost]One more thought - make those bezels smaller and get rid of that plastic coating...
I think (know) this has the potential to completely disrupt the dev laptop world in a couple of years. This could be a very flexible alternative to macos. MacOS's Unix roots are why I like it best (and don't see Windows as a viable alternative). Now with Android, Chrome, Linux and containers with Crostini - what's not to like? In fact, I can see this creating a world that puts hardware vendors on a much more equal footing.
In a world like that, Apple would have felt the financial sting from the decisions to force the Touch Bar on users or ship a limited-life and unrepairable keyboard.
Kubernetes was a shot against Amazon and AWS - and the open source server world is better for it. Crostini and whatever it morphs into (Fuchsia?) will be a shot against Apple (and Windows/Surface). Consumer computing will be better off for it. In fact, there's no reason Apple can't do something similar!
How long before someone figures out how to compile macos/ios apps from a Crostini container? I'm betting not long.
[doublepost=1532298522][/doublepost]One more thought - make those bezels smaller and get rid of that plastic coating...
If crostini runs on ARM based Chromebooks, I'd think Apple could do something similar on an iPad Pro. They certainly have a processor horsepower lead. An iPad Pro with Crostini-like features would do a much better job of making the iPad Pro a "what's a computer?" replacement. Do you sometimes need a desktop class app on your iPad Pro? - there's a container for that! Sandboxed and secure.
Apple/Microsoft probably won't do it because someone will fear it will cannibalize Mac/Windows sales...
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If I were Apple, I'd do it. iPads have a much higher margin than Macs (aside from the super high end where ARM can't touch for now). They'd make less pure cash but make more pure profit.
And they may very well be working toward that.
Without fierce competition, they can take their time. Each iteration of a new generation of iPad/Macbook, iMac, etc. is another turn of the money-making machine handle. The more cranks, the more money. They could leap from where they are now to that future within 12 months.... but then they'd miss out on all the revenue from people who regularly replace their existing Apple products with the latest version (even thought their current devices are performing well).
Life is too short. Whoever makes interesting, quirky, forward-looking hardware first, that's what I buy. Some really fun devices... and a few duds. I don't like to dwell on the duds.
I bought a Surface Pro and returned it for the Pixelbook.
Got the Pixelbook for $749 on sale at Best Buy and I absolutely love it. The Surface Pro is a nice machine but the Pixelbook is way better in my estimation. Everything is A to B instead of Windows A to B to C, The Pixelbook system feels streamlined.
Exactly. ChromeOS is inherently more limited than a Windows computer. But it’s also more streamlined as a result. And with future version, you’ll be able to choose to add the complexity of Linux apps.
That being said, I’m going to be etch this into your brain. Look at how choppy he multitasking animation is. It will never leave now.
Ok. I'm in!
Between your account of your experiences and the crazy deals that Best Buy has on the Pixelbook I couldn't resist. $470 after tax. That included an .edu discount, a birthday discount for elite members, and other discounts and incentives.I like the pixelbooks, but I'm waiting on buying anything until Apple and Google have their Sept/October events to see what's up.
I'll probably pick up the next pixelbook. I'd like a quad core whiskey lake/nvme/16GB ram linux enabled pixelbook... with small bezels
I'll probably pick up the next pixelbook. I'd like a quad core whiskey lake/nvme/16GB ram linux enabled pixelbook... with small bezels
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