Aside from the AI features, these look like an improvement on the Chromebook concept.
Christ. I can’t imagine wanting something with the name ‘Google’ attached.
Although, Chromebooks sucked pretty bad. I can see why they want to diverge here.
So … go all in on the evil? If you read the article, they sound fukin horrid.ChromeOs is fine for an Internet browser, not sure anything else. I set one up for my ex’s grandparents and it was perfect for them, they were able to login to their email and read all the insane right-wing emails they were subscribed to. I gave them Netflix to try to curb the 24/7 viewing of fix News.
Chromebooks are very successful in the kinds of market where a facility needs to buy them by the thousands for staff/faculty. Schools, for example. They use all the Google platform apps Docs, workplace Gmail sheets etc. all integrated, kept on the cloud so that a device that falls in a river has not lost a shred of data. They’re able to be locked down with admin policies and bottom line is the cost per unit is very low. And you get the great feeling of the people who are in charge of all this being entirely clueless that every fucking byte of data is being harvested and analyzed, aggregated, and monetized.
Ofc Micro$lop did all the same things except cost
So, it’s an Android tablet with a keyboard and even more shitty AI integration.
Save yourself some money and connect a bluetooth keyboard to an old Android tablet. It will be just as good.
Better yet, get a decent spec used Android tablet, one that supports bootloader unlock and for which there are ROMs. Install TWRP, install Lineage or crDroid, RR or Bliss - or any of about a dozen amazing brews that give the device orders of magnitude better performance than with stock OS. Then stick a keyboard and mouse to it and you’re golden.
If these come with open bootloaders and decent hardware to run Linux, then yes pls. Otherwise fuck no.
Why even bother when you’re just giving Google money for reselling hardware they didn’t manufacture. Just buy a decent brand basic spec system. Personally I’ve always stuck with ASUS for my new stuff, and for older hardware I’ve been extremely happy with Toshiba laptops. Get a Toshiba Tecra from ten years ago and put Linux on it; it will outperform one of these new Google units.
Because android means ARM, and I want there to be more mobile ARM devices that can run regular ol’ Linux. Currently there aren’t very many of those that aren’t either Apple (and therefore mostly useless because Apple tries hard to make sure Linux doesn’t run very well on their hardware) or otherwise pretty expensive. Who knows, maybe these turn out to be good low cost ARM Linux machines. Though I won’t be holding my breath.
Because android means ARM
I miss the days when it also meant x86 and MIPS.
A Chromebook by any other name. It’s still a no thank you.
If they had just embraced normal Linux anytime in the past ~20 years, they’d actually have a strong desktop os market to pair with android. I’ve only ever had MacBooks for work and I’d buy a neo over an android based laptop
The only difference I can tell between chromebooks and this is that this has more AI shoved into it.
After the recent changes in Google search I can’t think of any reason to use it.
May they go the same way as all other google laptop attempts
Stick 'em where the Sun don’t shine, Google.
these look like an improvement on the Chromebook concept.
The name doesn’t sound like an improvement
Should have named Pixel Book as there are already Pixel, Pixel Tablet, and Pixel Fold.
They should have just named it Abandonedbook to start and skipped a few steps
They already had one of those until 2022: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixelbook
The first one was really excellent (except for the os). 4:3 ratio screen, backlit keys when it was kind of rare still, solid aluminum body still light, cool charging indicator.
Might have gone somewhere but they decided to kill support for it, like, three years later. Three years for a $2,500.00 laptop is a big FY to the buyers.
Still, as a piece of hardware, pretty neat. But that was then. I think they were still not evil back then.
Yep - I have one. It isn’t bad, though eventually I need to get it off chromeos and running a ‘proper’ system.
It does use passive cooling, so the cpu is basically on fire constantly. And having it shutdown isn’t really shutdown, so every time I go to poke it, I need to recharge it to like 5% before it has enough juice to boot.
