Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

2015 Chromebook Pixel

google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 657 posts

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#531

Post by jsz0 »

chetanahuja wrote: post #507
benihana wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I find this whole thing funny. Again. How many times has Apple done this in modern times? Remember the outrage when Apple removed floppy disk drives? Optical drives? Ethernet ports? Remember how mad everyone got when Apple replaced their old, thick connector on the iPhone 5? Nobody complains about how thin their phone is now that the old 30pin connector is no longer the limiting factor on size. Nobody…

"At this point, I find this whole thing funny. Again" Yup. It's more than just funny. The number of people I know who are carrying around "our thinnest, lightest macbook yet" with a bagful of adaptors that weigh more than the laptop is HILARIOUS. As for me, I'm carrying around a 2012 Macbook Pro (the last model with a non-glossy screen). Even though my work involves dealing with iOS projects etc., my next laptop will…

> bagful of adaptors that weigh more than the laptop

They would have to carry around somewhere between 30 to 50 adapters to reach 2 pounds. I'm excluding the power adapter since that's a baseline for any laptop.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#532

Post by IkmoIkmo »

I don't really understand the appeal personally. At this price level you could get a dell xps.

ChromeOS seems brilliant at a few hundred bucks, especially for kids & elders who get the browser/video/text experience, without the complexity, bloatware, viruses etc of a windows environment.

But at $600 or $1000, there just seem to be better windows alternatives, to me at least. And above that you get into OS X range. ChromeOS just doesn't seem to provide the environment where you really need beefy specs (e.g. compiling large code or editing large videos), so if it's just consumer-type stuff, I'd rather have a 2014 Macbook Air 13' at $800-900 at Best Buy, or a Dell XPS, than this.

Would love to hear from peoples usecases and experiences. I think there's a genuine usecase for people to put linux on it, or SSH into something else, but for your average straight up consumer, why the pixel and not something else? I understand the low-price Chromebooks, the higher price is hard to grasp for me.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#533

Post by nogridbag »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #173
revelation wrote: post #148

Jesus, designing a usable ultrabook must be very difficult. We have one contender from California, but their ideology has them offer just a single USB-C port. Now we get the competitor from Mountain View, who have rightly recognized the need for more than one fucking port when that's how you charge the damn thing, and what do they decide? Oh yeah, we'll top out storage at 64GiB.

What most people have missed is that USB allows charging and data over the same port. So you can easily get a power adapter that has a charging tip which has on the same cord another USB-C port (socket) which you can plug into your display chain, or port replicator or what not. In Apple's case I fully expect they will make it so that when you plug your Apple display into your laptop it also charges it since the charg…

What about when you're not using the power adapter?

Even two USB ports on my MacBook "Pro" is too limited for my daily use case. I use a USB yubikey for multifactor auth with LastPass and it takes up one USB slot permanently. I prefer wired mice, so my mouse takes up the second USB port.

If I want to charge my phone, Fitbit or in the past Google Glass with the USB port, I have to unplug my mouse.

I would not buy the new MacBook as it's unusable for me unless I carry around a hub everywhere.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#534

Post by modfodder »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #501
Alupis wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we'll all be so happy with the obvious (in hindsight) decision to switch to USB-C. I don't think the issue is the inclusion of USB-C -- in fact, USB-C offers a lot . I think the issue is only having one connector on the entire laptop. What happens if that port fails or beaks? Your laptop stops working...

What I hear people complaining about is that the product isn't complete out of the box: You immediately have to go out and buy a hub, or at least a charger that also acts like a hub, and/or an HDMI adapter. Some of these gadgets are, for now, a little expensive -- $40 for something that used to be built in is, for some people, an insult. (I don't mind myself; I take the long view about things like this.)

The product is complete out of the box, just not complete for every use case. Even as a commercial editor my need for multiple ports decreases every year. Currently I work on broadcast spots with one client using one drive and dropbox. If I was on the print or web side I could get rid of that drive. I haven't used a thumbdrive in probably a year. Everything is dropbox or google drive if it's not large video files that require a raid. Two years ago I cut spots for Reebok on location using a 13" air, I have no doubt I could do the same with the new Macbook.

Now I wouldn't buy the new Macbook for my main editing rig, but I might buy it to use when traveling and consulting. I don't understand people complaining about a product that was obviously not designed for their use.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#535

Post by lobster_johnson »

modfodder wrote: post #534
lobster_johnson wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I hear people complaining about is that the product isn't complete out of the box: You immediately have to go out and buy a hub, or at least a charger that also acts like a hub, and/or an HDMI adapter. Some of these gadgets are, for now, a little expensive -- $40 for something that used to be built in is, for some people, an insult. (I don't mind myself; I take the long view about things like this.)

The product is complete out of the box, just not complete for every use case. Even as a commercial editor my need for multiple ports decreases every year. Currently I work on broadcast spots with one client using one drive and dropbox. If I was on the print or web side I could get rid of that drive. I haven't used a thumbdrive in probably a year. Everything is dropbox or google drive if it's not large video files tha…

It's complete, but most people will want and need to buy some kind of adapter for their external drives or whatever.

Some of the anger seems to stem from confusion about what the new MacBook is. It's clearly a smaller version of the Air, not a replacement for the Pro.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#536

Post by Dewie »

digi_owl wrote: post #87
moskie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet many people use their MacBooks as a browser on steroids. Those people are the target audience of the Chromebook.

The whole ChromeOS project seems to have gotten underway because someone at Google observed how much of the computing time was spent inside the web browser. the problem with ChromeOS, imo, is how limited it becomes once you pull out the net connection. Never mind the whole lockdown unless you flip that "developer" switch.

First I saw mention of it, it seemed that they wanted to make a minimal OS that was very quick to boot - minimal in part because it was only the browser, or whatever.

Then soon after that SSDs happened and I stopped caring about boot times.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#537

Post by kalleboo »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #497
bashinator wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Apple is replacing the nigh-indestructible magsafe with a traditional plug...

Of course this is purely anecdotal, but amongst my friends and coworkers I've seen magsafe connectors fail at about the same rate as normal power adapters. Usually at the end where the wire goes into the wall plug brick part.

Yes the cheap to replace wire end breaks easily. But the expensive-to-repair computer side port is solid. You're going to see a lot more expensive computer repairs with the USB-C charging port.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#538

Post by lugg »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #532

I don't really understand the appeal personally. At this price level you could get a dell xps. ChromeOS seems brilliant at a few hundred bucks, especially for kids & elders who get the browser/video/text experience, without the complexity, bloatware, viruses etc of a windows environment. But at $600 or $1000, there just seem to be better windows alternatives, to me at least. And above that you get into OS X range. Ch…

Speculation: I suspect the way its going with storage and processing that they are pivoting it to be a contender with Air etc. The cloud storage thing is nice but it just doesn't really have a use case above a few GB of data. The cost of storage just keeps coming down and the price of bandwidth hasn't really moved in years.

I think its in a transitory stage, can't really compete with the air yet but likely will in a couple of iterations (think android vs iphone, iphones were cheaper spec wise but android caught up and imo overtook iphones in only a couple of iterations.

I do agree there is still a use case for ssh'n into something else, but I also can't see the original use case working at this price point.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#539

Post by jsz0 »

bashinator wrote: post #451
moe wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if that port fails or beaks? Your laptop stops working... I'm not a fan of their single-port decision either, but in fairness: Every laptop stops working when the charging port breaks. No matter how many other ports it may have.

And Apple is replacing the nigh-indestructible magsafe with a traditional plug...

MagSafe was great when laptops got 3-4 hours (or less) of battery life which required re-charging in hostile conditions. MagSafe3 is 8-10 hours of battery life. No one can possibly trip over your charger if it's not plugged in.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#540

Post by Pxtl »

Honestly, I'm not interested in this kind of device until Google manages to unify Android and Chrome so we have a real ecosystem to work with.
Post reply on HN