Google Announces $1,299 Chromebook Pixel With 2560×1700px Touchscreen
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
What power user lives completely in the cloud?
* Coders obviously can't use this machine.
* Designers need photoshop or other non-web apps.
* Writers are not gonna migrate from Word to something like this, because either they were already using Google Docs and are fine with their crappy old netbook, or they like Word and are gonna stay with it, because writing is still just plain better in MS land.
* Video editors obviously need real apps
* Social media experts will just continue to use their iPad3 or Nexus 7/10
* Gamers can't go without DirectX seriously
What power users are they talking about?
Android has arguably more high-performance, graphics-heavy and touch-enabled apps, and has the toolchains to compile more sophisticated applications (IDEs, etc).
[1]: https://plus.google.com/100132233764003563318/posts/exCKa13F...
[2]: https://plus.google.com/+PaulWilcox/posts/23QtTfiVrtk
Also, Google has a weird ironic naming paradigm. First is Chrome which is named as such because they want to minimize the browser's chrome (tab bar, menus, buttons, etc.), and now is the Pixel which has a HiDPI display so people kind of forget the pixel. It would probably be a bad idea to call their self-driving car Crash though.
Speak to any Googler and you'll hear about the Chrome/Android divide. It's a pretty big issue and possibly Google's biggest weakness.
JS: And this also gets at another issue. I know that Sergey made some comments that were widely reported about a future merging of Android and Chrome OS, and to me this seems more like a statement of the obvious. In the sense that, once the hardware is full-featured enough to support all the things that you have on Chrome OS, then why do you need something as stripped-down as Android.
MP: Yeah, it's unclear. We get a lot of questions like this, and the truth is, I don't know the answer. We're so focused on shipping release one right now, we spend less time than the outside world speculating about what we're going to do next... how will we integrate this with Android... how will we do any number of things like that. -- http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/01/chrome-os-interview-...
The interview as a whole shows where Google's head was at regarding Chrome OS just a week before the iPad was announced, which is itself fascinating.
I think the evidence says it all. Three years later and Chrome & Android are no closer to a merger.
There is also nothing stopping you from porting your favorite development tools to NaCl. This is something I'm planning to look into in the near future.
they were already using Google Docs and are fine with their crappy old netbook
Also, Google Docs looks really nice on a Macbook's retina display; significantly nicer than on a regular display. If the Pixel renders it the same way, it is a nicer experience.
Your average end-user is going to be pretty disappointed when they find out that all they can do with their expensive laptop is browse the internet.
It seems like the best use of this of this might be to run Linux, but if you accept a slightly lower resolution, you can get a pretty decent Thinkpad or Envy that has a lot more flexibility.
Chrome (both the browser and ChromeOS) have always been about making it so that "browser" and "dumb terminal" aren't at all the same thing. Certainly, I think its reasonable to say that its still at the point where, for many power users, it isn't suitable as a replacement for a traditional desktop OS.
But then, this is clearly aimed at early adopters that are more heavily into web-based tools than is generally the case, and who value a low-configuration means of getting to those tools.
Yes, the resolution is great. But why would someone spend 1300 bucks on something that has great resolution just so they can ssh into something else? $500 maybe.
Okay, fuck HN.
The real answer is: depends on what $1000 means to you.
We have an idea what $1000 means to most people
I just realized this was really my only major complaint with ChromeOS and I now desire one.
Writing the code is only half the story. You also need to test that code and that means running the code on a target machine similar to your customer.
So unless you customer is also using a Chromebook this is going to make the testing much harder.
Right. And unless you are writing desktop software, that most likely means running it on a commodity physical or virtual servers, which aren't going to be your dev workstation.
For user-facing web software (as opposed to pure web services), ideal UI testing means having a wide variety of hardware/OS/browser combinations available for testing, but none of that needs to be your development workstation, either.
So neither of thos are strokes against using a Chromebook for development.
> There is also nothing stopping you from porting your favorite development tools to NaCl.
> If the Pixel renders it the same way, it is a nicer experience.
Once I got a linode server set up I stopped worrying about not having my dev env. With persistent 3G I was actually able to SSH in and get work in settings I never would have considered previously.
The obvious thing that was missing from the chromebook experience was a core set of native app. 1password, skype, spotify, and a few others haven't quite made it to a web app yet. However, most of these apps have a native client ready to go for iOS. So between the chromebook and iPad mini I felt like I had everything I needed to be productive.
Ultimately, I simply wanted a nicer machine to work on day to day. Chrome OS is a real pleasure to use (I like it more than modern OS X in some ways!), but the hardware on my Samsung laptop just felt, well...cheap. This new machine fits that sweet spot really nicely. I could see myself considering to purchase this machine as a dev laptop if I hadn't just bought a new macbook pro.
If you want to say it's "better," I'd ask "to what end?" I personally really like the security model of ChromeOS and having working 3G drivers was a huge benefit when I was experimenting with this setup. I love having a secure client I can trust to connect to sanctioned dev environments on. It's much harder for me to vet that my ubuntu rig hasn't been root-kitted vs. trusting the block-level cryptographic hashing on ChromeOS.
I think this is probably where most people would call me a tin-foil hat weirdo, and I wouldn't disagree. This might be just a fun exercise to think about right now. However, I think it's an increasingly important factor in considering personal computing setups and it definitely played into my choice of platform on the ChromeBook. Plus, it's also just plain cool to see how much mileage you can get out of just chrome + ssh!
But as a $250 web machine with 10h of battery life? Sure.
with the advent of technologies like WebGL a lot of apps can be moved into the browser. Including photo editing and 3D gaming.
If such apps are running in a browser, as non native code, this would call for good hardware specs. especially with such high resolutions.
seems reasonable to me.
Web-based IDEs and 3D games exist that can be used with this (photo editors, too, though not Photoshop.)
Depends what they are coding; developers working with PaaS platforms using one of the many cloud IDEs can certainly use it.
> Writers are not gonna migrate from Word to something like this, because either they were already using Google Docs and are fine with their crappy old netbook, or they like Word and are gonna stay with it, because writing is still just plain better in MS land.
If they are using Google Docs on an existing laptop/netbook, well, eventually its going to need replaced, and if that's their main use, ChromeOS presents a lot less distraction than traditional desktop OS's for that use role.
There needs to be a balance. If I can't use my IDE on a chromebook, that obviously won't work. But if I can have access to my tools locally that manage remote service and data -- I'm golden.
How many breathless stories have been linked here about dudes in Oregon pedaling their mountain bike out into the forest and setting up their iPad 3 and Zagg keyboard, and using their LTE connection to do remote dev? Same thing for the Chromebook.
It may work if you use SSH, as others have mentioned, but that still restricts your use case and that's not what you implied at first.
That said, yes, brackets is immature, but fairly brightly points to a future where a browser OS like ChromeOS is more than sufficient for a really wide variety of use-cases.
> I've never really understood being cheap with something that you're going to look at and touch 6-10 hours a day for 3-4 years, on average.
For simple image editing, I just use pixlr.com. If I really needed advanced features from photoshop (or gimp), I can A) remote connect to a desktop or B) boot to ubuntu from a flash drive.
If you need Visual Studio and don't have access to a desktop computer you can remote connect to, then yes, don't buy a chromebook.
Or of course if you are developing native iphone/ipad apps (i.e., not phonegap, etc.) and don't have access to a mac computer, then yes, of course, get a macbook instead of a chromebook.
If you don't like chrome OS then you can install ubuntu or whatever. The lack of local storage space would be a pain, though, I do admit.
(edit: competes in terms of screen resolution... 4GB RAM and an i5 is not as good as 8-16GB RAM and an i7 of course)
And if you're the kind of writer that doesn't need it, you probably already are using docs, on your $300 netbook, and you really don't care. This isn't going to improve your life in any way, because frankly, a computer from 1995 would be all you need for writing. I'd say earlier, but you at least need a half-decent print preview.
The long-term strategy, which they announced years ago, is to converge the two platforms. (Its been obvious for some time that, in more detail, Android was the near-term comparatively low-risk [for Google] option, and ChromeOS was the long-term, higher-risk option.)
"We're pushing computing forward. It'll definitely make the
ecosystem rethink touch," Pichai said. "I think people will
take the first step toward building tablets with this." [1]
[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57570520-93/googles-chromeb...
I'm not seeing the value proposition here. What can you even run on a Chromebook that would need a Core i5 CPU?
The more interesting one is the $1,449 model with LTE and 64GB, but I don't think it's particularly compelling. I have a Verizon 4G LTE hotspot and the highest plan is $90/month for 10 GB. I blow through that in 20 days or so even though I don't watch Netflix, use the office wi-fi whenever I can, etc. That's a lot of money to pay to use apps (GMail, Google Docs) that aren't even very good.
I think what they're going for is the computer-on-cloud concept taken to new heights -- not worrying about viruses or malware (Google is effectively the new system administrator of your machine), not worrying about data being unavailable going from one device to another is the value proposition they're offering.
If you really consider what the bigger half of people use computers for (watching videos, social networking, basic word processing, etc.) it suits their needs well, and the value proposition will probably resonate with them.
A tablet suits those needs a lot better than a $1,300 device that can do less locally than a $500 iPad.
She cannot do this with normal desktops (she doesn't know how to use file explorers).
You're underestimating how valuable it is to have your data be available anywhere, anytime, you're underestimating how much of a burden very basic desktop usage is for the average Joe out there. Sure, that's probably not as true for the newer generation, but lifting the burden of system administration (managing data) is a pretty significant deal.
Personally I hate the idea of anyone but me being the guardian of my data -- to me this is just an excellent method for Google to introduce their ads into everything. Even to access my own static data I will keep getting served with ads, I hate that -- but it looks more and more that this is how things will be in the world of tomorrow.
For the same reason a good chunk of my neighbors upgraded to iPhone5 from iPhone 4S (even though some of them didn't have the iPhone4S for more than a few months, and probably had to pay full (non-subsidized) amount to make the upgrade). Notice Google's marketing and branding efforts for this Pixel being eerily similar to Apple's, the pitch that the device somehow transcends in value over all of your other silicon-based products. They're trying very hard to have their brand be in the same rank Apple is in. It's a thing you're going to use to keep your pace in the 'Keeping up with the Joneses' game, it's like a Gucci bag, it's an alternative to the Macbook for when you're in Starbucks. There's no good reason to buy a Benz over a Corolla, but a lot of people do. Worse, a lot of people who probably shouldn't do.
If you really consider the actual market for computers, most users are going to laugh at Google's ridiculous price tag and buy a Windows machine for less than half the price.
Sometimes you can't see the use for something, but others will in due time...
Again, I'm not seeing the value proposition.
[1] Arguably... this looks like 0.64" all the way across, while the Air tapers from 0.68" to 0.11". In practice I find the taper helps a lot for shoving into briefcases, sleeves, and holding it one-handed.
Is this a common naming strategy or Google specific?
I find it really amazing we've got these choices, MBPro, MS Surface Pro, Google Pixel. All of the variables are getting cover (high res / low res) screen, local/net storage, local/remote compute, attached/detached keyboard, cellular/wifi-only connectivity.
PCs and laptops had gotten so boring, but now, they are interesting again.
I thought that was always the point.
Then again, I guess that's why the emphasis here is on portability and screen quality... so that makes sense.
Then again #2, you need a powerful client these days to run all of the Javascript being used... so the i5 CPU makes sense.
Okay, this is moderately interesting.
No, the point was that you could seamlessly move between different clients in the event of hardware failure, being away from your primary device unavoidably, etc.
> Wasn't "thin client" the dream?
"Thin client" may have been someone's dream, but it certainly hasn't been Google's rich clould-based apps vision.
> No, the point was that you could seamlessly move between different clients
I work on three computers every day. Documents, Preferences etc all sync immediately. And how does living in the cloud help me when there is network failure ?
>One word. Dropbox.
Yes, Dropbox is an example of using the cloud to make it easy to move between client machines.
> I work on three computers every day. Documents, Preferences etc all sync immediately. And how does living in the cloud help me when there is network failure ?
Using Dropbox to provide immediate sync of document and preferences is living in the cloud.
And "living in the cloud" works fine in network failure, if you have a mechanism to operate offline when the network is unavailable and resync when the network is available -- whether that's because you use a desktop OS and local apps with synchronized cloud storage or webapps with offline functionality, the latter of which is a feature Google pushed very hard for years on.
Supporting users who "fully live in the cloud" has always been the point of ChromeOS (and, therefore, Chromebook).
The idea that those users would include "power users" has always been a Google goal, but hasn't been the focus of the design of previous Chromebook devices.
Allowing native apps that run locally to be delivered via the web has been a long-term Chrome (browser and OS) goal (hence Native Client), and, from a broader perspective, enable browser-based apps (whether "native" and running locally, running in the cloud, or a mixture of cloud and local components) has always been the overarching Chrome goal.
IOW, making it so that all users, including power users, can live in the cloud has been a long-term, strategic focus of Google. The Chrome Pixel release is an indication that Google thinks that that vision is ready, if not for prime time, at least for early adopters.
Apple doesn't own 'thin laptop', but tons of the thin laptop market just happens to be aluminum with a black keyboard with space between the keys.
I'm in the Mac world and haven't really looked for PCs, but it seems like every laptop I see either has a striking resemblance to a Mac or is a 'pimped out' Alienware desktop replacement type machine with interesting lines and multi-color LED lighting and such.
2nd worst is not having a USB port on the right side, but they've changed that in the 2+ years since mine was made.
For $249, the ARM Chromebook is built pretty well. It's small, light, and the battery lasts a long time. The screen is fine. The keyboard is fine. Sometimes it feels a little slow, but so does my 8-core i7 desktop :)
Chrome Pixel looks like a powerful laptop plagued by the limitations of Chrome OS. Chrome Pixel is not going to be (in my opinion and probably Google doesn't expect it to be either) a sellout product but it highlights Google's vision of how laptops would be in coming years.
Not really being able to write code was really the only thing that turned me off from buying a chromebook. I would be willing to get a regular chromebook, but the $1299 price tag of the pixel doesn't seem worth it. I don't see the touch screen being too useful, so if I was going to spend that kind of money, I'd rather just get a macbook air.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/60044/how-do-i-change-the-fon...
> Schmidt says Chrome OS devices will be 'disposable,' priced like netbooks
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/20/schmidt-says-chrome-os-de...
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But mostly I guess it's a appetizer.
What is this nonsense?
Other than them, I'm not seeing how this sells. A refurbished Retina MBP is cheaper. And even at full price, $200 for a superior OS that can run apps like MacVim, VirtualBox, keep my stuff local, has much more storage and sync to my private 250GB storage. That's priceless.
I remember when the Retina display came out, there were issues with Ubuntu's UI scaling to the high DPI of the device.
If I put Ubuntu on the Pixel, would it look good?