Review: New Chromebook Pixel is still lovely hardware with limited appeal

Chromebooks are cheap. They work best that way. It’s rare to find one north of $400, and the sweet spot is between $200 and $300. While they've got shortcomings, the cost is reasonable for what you get. In some cases, the limitations are even desirable.

Only one Chromebook has truly gone against that grain—the Chromebook Pixel. It was the polar opposite of every other device bearing the name. The Pixel was high-quality hardware where others are low-rent, but even though it cost five times what you could pay for a regular Chromebook it didn't really do much more. It's a laptop as nice as it is niche.

Now, two years later, Google is back with a second Pixel. The outside is mostly the same, which is a good thing. The inside gets a big upgrade courtesy of new Intel Broadwell processors, also a good thing. And even though at $999 the price remains high relative to other Chromebooks, it's still $300 cheaper than the original. That is certainly a good thing.

Specs at a glance: Google Chromebook Pixel 2
Screen	2560×1700 at 12.85" (239 ppi)
OS	Chrome OS
CPU	2.2GHz (2.7GHz Turbo) dual-core Intel Core i5-5200U or 2.6GHz (3.2GHz Turbo) dual-core Core i7-5600U
RAM	8GB or 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
GPU	Intel HD 5500 Graphics (integrated)
HDD	32 or 64GB solid-state drive
Networking	Dual-band 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
Ports	2x USB 3.0 Type A, 2x USB 3.0 Type C, card reader, headphones
Size	11.7 × 8.4 × 0.6" (297.7 x 224.5 x 15.3 mm)
Weight	3.3 lbs (1.5 kg)
Battery	"12 hours"
Warranty	1 year
Starting price	$999, $1,299 for "Ludicrous speed" version
Price as reviewed	$999
Other perks	720p webcam

Look and feel

The construction and design of the new Pixel change surprisingly little from its predecessor. Size and weight are nearly identical, and the new Pixel has the same boxy corners and edges of the last Pixel. It's a handsome machine, but where most Ultrabooks are all about curves and tapered edges, this one is squared-off and conservative.

The most noticeable external change is in the lid next to the lightbar. The old Pixel had some antenna cutouts here, but the new one does away with them. Google has tried to hide most of the utilitarian stuff that laptops like this need to have. The rear-facing fan vent is a subtle gap between the hinge and the bottom of the laptop. The mic and speakers are hidden underneath the keyboard. It's a clean design, though it's unadorned to the point of being generic.

The lightbar is the one bit of personality the Pixel has. During normal use, its four LEDs are blue, red, yellow, and green, the regular Google colors. When the battery is low, the bar turns an angry red. Tap out the Konami Code on the keyboard and it blinks out a multicolored pattern. The new thing in the second Pixel is that the lightbar can serve as a battery indicator. When the lid is closed, tap on it near the lightbar twice. If you've got a 50 percent charge, two of the LEDs will light up. If you've got a 25 percent charge, one of them will light up.

Build quality remains first-rate—it’s not just the rock-solid all-aluminum chassis, either. The chiclet keyboard still has great travel and feels nice to type on. The redesigned hinge doesn't wobble when you touch the screen. The 12.85-inch, 2560×1700 display retains its oddball 3:2 aspect ratio, but its pixel density stands up to the best that Apple and the Windows ecosystem have to offer. Google tells us that the panel supports the sRGB color gamut, though not all the way up to Adobe RGB.

The display’s “effective” resolution is 1280×850, but the OS offers different Windows-like scaling options you can use to maximize the screen’s usable space. We think the best balance between visibility and usability is either 1440×956 or 1600×1062, but 1920×1275 and even the full native resolution of 2560×1700 are available if you’ve got particularly sharp eyes.

The Pixel retains an accurate trackpad and a touchscreen, but they’re frustrating for the same reasons as they were in the original Pixel two years ago—the hardware Is great, but Chrome OS does very little to take advantage of it. The OS lacks OS X or Windows 10-style multi-finger trackpad gestures, which go a long way toward making laptop multitasking easier. And while we don’t think touchscreen gestures and swipes are tremendously useful on a laptop screen, Chrome OS doesn’t even try. Chrome OS UI isn't even well-optimized for touch.

The Pixel is intended to be a developer machine, something for Chromebook OEMs to aspire to. From that perspective, it makes sense to include a touchscreen. Why not? There are a handful of instances in which it might be useful (playing games, designing touch-friendly sites for phones or tablets). The software just isn’t making the most of the hardware’s potential.

The promise of USB Type-C

My favorite thing about the Pixel is how it uses USB Type C, and I suspect that most PC OEMs are going to ape what Google has done here when their laptops begin including the new connector.

We won’t recap all of Type C’s features here, but this is what you need to know to understand how the Pixel is using it. The Type C connector can be used for a whole lot more than file transfers and accessories—the supplementary USB Power Delivery spec allows Type C to provide up to 100W of power. USB Alternate Mode allows the physical USB cable to carry other kinds of signals, including DisplayPort and HDMI. And the Type C connector is physically larger and more robust, which inspires more confidence than the sometimes-flimsy Type B connector does.

Google is using all of these in the Pixel. The laptop charges via USB Type C rather than a standard power adapter, and it uses Type C plus various dongles (yes, yet more dongles) to drive HDMI and DisplayPort displays. Unlike the recently announced Retina MacBook, Google has included one Type C port on either side of the laptop, which is kind of ingenious: you can plug in the power adapter or the display from either side. Normally, you need to twist your charger cable around to accommodate the location of the power connector. In the Pixel, you just plug it in on whatever side is the most convenient.

It’s a small change, but when I first saw it I had one of those forehead-slapping “of course” moments. The ability to plug either your power adapter or your monitor in from either side is a big help if your desk at home has a different layout from your desk at work, or if the surge protector on your side of the couch/bed is opposite the power plug on whatever laptop you’re currently using.

One thing about USB Type C that we’ve mentioned several times is that, even though it promises to be the only port you need, in these early days it’s just something else to adapt to. The fact that the Pixel has more ports than the Retina MacBook is great, and its two run-of-the-mill USB Type A plugs help too. But if you want to plunk it down on your desk with all of your existing monitors and other accessories, you still need to be prepared to buy some new dongles or adapters.

Google's official dongles vary in price; male Type C to male Type A cables and male Type C to female Type A cables will each run $13. Type C to DisplayPort and Type C to HDMI will each run $40. As Type C ports become more common, hopefully these adapters and dongles become more plentiful and inexpensive.