Owner of a last-gen Pixel here. I don't see myself upgrading any time soon, but as far as refreshes go, this one seems to address most of my complaints, namely:
- More RAM
- Better battery life / charge time
- USB-C ports
Here's what I'm not sure if it will fix:
- Overheating (original Pixel gets HOT on the top-left corner where I'm guessing the CPU resides)
- OpenVPN support (ChromeOS does not support simply loading a .ovpn profile--I have to do some hacking from the command-line to get it to work)
- Longer warranty (1-year limited is all that is provided with the previous model--and since these are directly from Google, you can't get an extended warranty through the retailer)
- Weight (Love the metal slate look, could be lighter, however; based on the specs it seems like not so much)
And finally, the things that Google will never fix, and you should simply be aware of ChromeOS's limitations:
- Lack of apps
I will say, however, that in the past year, Crouton, which allows you to sideload a linux partition onto the device, has come a long way, to the point that you can actually have an Ubuntu chroot running in a tab inside ChromeOS as though it were just another window/app. It has proved incredibly useful for running things like Sublime or Eclipse without having to do the complete environment-shift that was required some time ago.
Price is still a little high, however. I feel like those looking for a high-quality Linux laptop could probably get an Acer Aspire for cheaper.