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Comment by zxv | Hacker News Reader

I've been pleasantly surprised by the breadth of apps that work on my Chromebook Pixel. Pretty much everything I use on my nexus phone works, albeit some with a small window size.

For me, the biggest advantage is the performance boost of android media players, such as Netflix, Hulu, and You Tube.

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What do you mean by the performance boost of Android media players? Do they perform better on Chrome OS than watching video in the browser? I'd imagine that in a lot of cases, the max bitrate served to mobile clients may be lower than the web, although I'm not sure this is true for all the services you named.

Compared to running in a browser window, the android apps for Neflix, Hulu and YouTube exhibit far less jitter, dropped fames, delayed frames, etc. This is true even on a Pixel with an i7 processor and 16G of ram, so it's not a question of CPU or memory resources, and also true on a symetrical 1GB internet connection.

For me, this eliminates need need to carry a tablet for consuming video or audio media.

How is the cast functionality with the apps? Let's say you use the Netflix app, will it cast like an android phone? This way you don't need to cast your chrome tab.

fwiw i already cast netflix from chrome without casting the tab

Unfortunately there are some media companies that only implement casting in their mobile apps, not on the web.

So you either cast from the mobile app or tab cast.

I know that Netflix was probably just an example, but for the record, Netflix is not one of these media companies.

You can directly cast Netflix when using it from a browser, you don't need to cast the tab.

Or if you're talking about Amazon Prime Video, you just cast the tab because you can't cast the stream directly from the browser (like Netflix) or from any app on your phone because that only works if you're sending to a Fire Stick.

Somewhat tangential, if you have a TV running Android, you can install HBOGo but if you're on Comcast, they won't authorize the app so you can't use it. You have to install it on your phone and cast the mobile app to the built-in Cast receiver in AndroidTV (or do the same with the website on your other computer).

I'm legitimately curious: Did you actually buy the Chromebook Pixel at the normal RRP ($500-600)?

I've met people who have had one but most of them got them for free (either via Google employment or Google I/O). I'm yet to meet anyone in real life who purchased one retail.

PS - My question is about the Pixel range in particular, other Chromebooks sell very well.

I've bought two: a first generation Pixel used, and after two years, a Pixel 2015 directly from Google Play the month they came out.

The browser is so much faster than my desktop, that I tend to use it even when at my desk.

The best part, to me is that, unlike windows, I never need to troubleshoot it. I logged into the 2nd Pixel with my gamil account, and 2 minutes later it was synced, configured just like the previous. That's one of the reasons I bought a new one the second time -- consistency and trouble free use.

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