My theory is the Pixel is for corporate customers not consumers. Dramatically lower IT support costs since no local storage. Probably increased security as well. And this version takes care of the high end of that market.
The Chromebook Pixel
181–190 of 507 posts
Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Discliaimer: I work for Google, but don't know about real strategy decisions about this. I think it's all about establishing more demand for web apps. Already I can do everything I need to in Chrome except for a nice development environment, though Cloud9 is getting closer, and music apps like Logic. Those are quite doable though, especially with the Chrome App APIs, someone just needs to get the ball rolling. The cu…
I can't imagine there are that many people who want to spend $1,300 to use web apps. People use GMail, Google Docs, etc, because they're cheap, not because they're good. That's why the $250 Chromebooks sell any units--because they're cheap. This thing takes the "cheap" aspect out of the equation, which seems like a mind-blowingly stupid decision.
I use gmail and google docs because they're good. Why else would I use them? Cheap? There's plenty of free email programs out there. None compare to gmail. I'll agree that when I need to get really down and dirty with a spreadsheet, I whip out Excel, not google spreadsheets, but for most of my "lists that need some numbers to add/multiply together", google spreadsheets work great and are always available from wherever I am.
Which is not to say I think you're wrong. No one's going to spend this much money on something so limiting. If we were 10 years in the future and we all had gigabit network speeds, and there were enough awesome web apps to replace the hard working desktop apps (photoshop, IDEs, CAD, etc)... then yes.... but I would still hope the specs would be better for the price. 4GB of RAM in a $1300 machine? What is this, 2005?
Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#183So, it is real! It looks awesome, but at $1,299, I don't think it's priced well. That's $100 more than a 13" MacBook. I just don't see that much value in a Chromebook at this point in time.
Considering that this is actually competing against the Retina MacBook Pro, it's actually $200 cheaper...
$1269 for a refurbished 13" rMBP
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FD212LL/A/refurbished-macb...
Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Both these machines seem better than the Chromebook Pixel in every way Other than not having a touch screen.
Because my laptop doesn't already get enough fingerprints all over the screen.
The fingerprint issue certainly hasn't stopped people from using tablets.
Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#185Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#186There are only three meaningful things you can do with a computer with specs like this: development, design, or gaming. And yet ChromeOS can't do any of these things. Perhaps this is a vanity product for the wealthy. But wealthy people are going to just surf the web on an iPad. I really don't get this product.
> I really don't get this product. Reminds me of what every techie said about the iPad too.
Or the Surface. Or BB10.
Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#187I wish the screen folded 180 degrees around so you could use it as a tablet.
I agree with this, that would probably be the icing on the cake. At least help on the steep price jump.
Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#188Direct link to specs: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromebook-pix... (scroll down and click "full specs") I think it's interesting they chose a 3:2 aspect ratio. The price is a bit high for the specs you get, but I suppose a lot of that is the (multi-touch)screen.
The 3:2 aspect ratio is certainly interesting to Google but not to users. It is even less vertical space than with 16:9 or 16:10. So what good is that much horizontal space, apart for ads in a column left or right of the content.
I think you have that backwards: 3:2 == 1.5x as wide as it is high. That's more vertical space than 16:9 (1.78x) or 16:10 (1.6x).
Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#189Am i the only one seeing this as a high-end computer with : - Linux drivers working out of the box - Amazing screens - Very easy to transform into a full fledged Linux development machine I hope it can fit the bill, certainly looks promising from that perspective ! Anybody has a link to full specs ?
I wonder how Linux desktops will handle the screen - I imagine lots of tiny, unreadable text.
Re: The Chromebook Pixel
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's much easier to develop on a Chromebook than you probably think. There are many editor choices, there is Web Inspector for debugging, there is an SSH client (in NaCl), there is developer mode, there is Crouton which gives you a Ubuntu chroot without losing the rest of ChromeOS[1]. I don't do NaCl, so I can't speak to how much pain that is, but for web development I find Cloud9, Web Inspector, Secure Shell to be m…
I've got a Chromebook sitting to the right of my keyboard, and routinely use it as an SSH terminal (that and the keyboard is exactly why I have it). Remote is sufficient, but not always desirable (not just offline, latency can get in the way as well); and crouton and such are kludges vs. having a proper *nix environment within CrOS (not to mention losing verified boot, which I see as a plus overall but glad it can be…
Yeah, I agree that Crouton and the like are "cheating" a little bit, and I don't use them personally. I think you're being a little unfair here, though. You want verified boot and a full *NIX offline toolchain. Aren't those incompatible things? Probably the closest thing you can get to local development without cheating is if something like VirtualBox were ported to NaCl, which I don't believe exists, yet.