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Chrome Google Portables Upgrades Hardware

Google's Pricey Pixel Gets USB-C and a Lower Price 139

Posted by timothy from the dang-I-say-dang dept.
The Register reports that Google's high-end Chromebook Pixel has gotten a few spec bumps, and a lower price. It's still a touchscreen with a resolution of 2,560 × 1,700, but now that screen is backed by 8GB RAM (rather than 4) as a base configuration, and the system is equipped with a Broadwell Core i5 chip, rather than the Ivy Bridge in the first rev. The price has dropped, too; it may still be the most expensive Chromebook, but now it's "only" $999 on the low end, which is $300 less than the first Pixels cost. ($1300, though, gets an i7, 64 gigs of SSD instead of 32, and 8GB of RAM. Perhaps most interesting is that it adds USB type C, and (topping Apple's latest entry) it's got two of them.
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Google's Pricey Pixel Gets USB-C and a Lower Price More

Google's Pricey Pixel Gets USB-C and a Lower Price

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  • 64GB (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Thursday March 12, 2015 @01:25PM (#49242867) Homepage Journal

    I'm a bit disappointed with the 64GB storage.
    I would get one of these for as a Linux laptop, but I want 1TB, like my Macbook.

    If the wise denizens of /. can tell me I just need to plug thing X into slot Y to get that, I'll send in my order.

    • Slot? This is a consumer device. It's not user serviceable. The SSD is probably either soldered in, or behind so much glue that you'll never be able to put the thing back together again properly once you install the replacement.

      • Re:64GB (Score:4, Informative)

        by Microlith ( 54737 ) on Thursday March 12, 2015 @02:05PM (#49243181)

        It's a surface mount, single-package SSD.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          Where did you get that information?

          I'd never buy a laptop with soldered in SSD... What if you need to recover data from it and the machine is otherwise dead? What if I want to upgrade it? Most ultrabook super thin laptops have mSATA drives.

          • So the CRB 2 probably will have that as well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Unless you really want the touchscreen, I don't really see why you'd buy one of these over another Macbook.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mellon ( 7048 )

        More ports. Runs Linux. I agree about the touchscreen, though. Don't really quite understand that for a laptop.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Rob Y. ( 110975 )

          As Chrome gains the ability to run Android apps, a touchscreen will be a must. Not because touch is great on a laptop, but because Android apps would be awful with a trackpad. (actually, everything's awful with a trackpad, but I assume you can plug a mouse into this thing)

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          MacBooks run Linux very well. Possibly better than these things. Do you still have to do some hacking to run Linux instead of Chrome?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

            Linux is officially supported. The screen is non-wide-screen. It's 5:4. Should be the ultimate laptop if the threads on Slashdot complaining about 16:9 monitors and the lack of vertical space are to be believed.

        • More ports. Runs Linux. I agree about the touchscreen, though. Don't really quite understand that for a laptop.

          Not more ports than a MBA (which is a similar price, and has more storage and a faster CPU, and doesn't have Google datamining your every word). And it runs [cultofmac.com] Linux [everydaylinuxuser.com], too [linux.com].

        • It's nice to have sometimes. For some things it's a lot easier than using the mouse pad (in particular it's faster to click on a specific thing). Usually I don't use it because I forget about it (as I spend most of my time with a desktop). But it definitely is a cool thing to have.

      • Unless you really want the touchscreen, I don't really see why you'd buy one of these over another Macbook.

        I do Mac type things on my Macbook. I'm not interested in ChromeOS. But a native Linux laptop would be handy, especially for long flights where I get most of my best programming done. I hate the touch screen on laptops. I have a Lenovo with that and I had to disable the touch screen so it didn't mess up whenever anyone pointed at the screen.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          What do you mean by a "native Linux laptop?" Linux runs just fine on Mac or Windows notebooks. This notebook happens to come with ChromeOS instead of OS X or Windows. I couldn't find details on the current one, but the old Pixel didn't have a standard BIOS so you had to hack that to get a regular Linux install to work. Then you're left with a notebook with an undersized hard drive because Google expected you to store everything in the cloud.

          • What do you mean by a "native Linux laptop?" Linux runs just fine on Mac or Windows notebooks. This notebook happens to come with ChromeOS instead of OS X or Windows. I couldn't find details on the current one, but the old Pixel didn't have a standard BIOS so you had to hack that to get a regular Linux install to work. Then you're left with a notebook with an undersized hard drive because Google expected you to store everything in the cloud.

            I know I can run Linux on my Macbook, but I use XCode and have big data sets that use most of the disk.

            I could get another Macbook, but then I don't get to play with new things.

            The undersized disk thing was my original point.

            • If you use XCode then why would you want Linux?

              • If you use XCode then why would you want Linux?

                I use XCode on the Mac.
                I use Python and assembler and C and a few other things on Linux.
                I use Windows because my employer shoves it onto my work laptop, but only to VNC or SSH into machines on which I do real work (System Verilog).

                I don't write big GUI apps. I do care about making sure the underlying hardware does what it is supposed to do. If it's not esoteric hardware details, it's not really my thing, unless it's a POS for a yarn store, which is punishment for something bad I did in an earlier life.

                For a

    • Move music off the drive onto usb storage. I got a small usb drive with just a tiny nub that sticks out for my daughter's chromebook and it works great. That leaves a lot of room on the drive. Remember that the OS doesn't take up 20-30 gigs of space on a chromebook.

      • And writing music to USB thumb drive is painfully slow. Most ones will give you a few MB/s of write speed, and it is compounded by the fact you write some hundreds of file so there's slowdown at each "boundary" compared to the favorable case of writing a few big files.

        A 128GB SD card might do well, if that's your main music collection you're fitting here. At least, it stays unchanged most of the time. You still have to not mind the slowness and at that cost you could have had a 256GB SSD in the laptop.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      If the wise denizens of /. can tell me I just need to plug thing X into slot Y to get [1TB, like my Macbook], I'll send in my order.

      Sure, plug one of these [amazon.com] into one of these [google.com] into one of the USB-C slots on the Chromebook.

      • Why? There are 2 USB 3.0 ports, as well. The adapter is an added expense and point of failure.

    • I don't know if USB-C is backward compatible, but I presume it is. I can't see the specifications, so I don't know if there are additional USB slots if it isn't (but presumably there would be unless they are stupid).

      So buy the 64GB version and use that as your system drive. Buy an external USB HD in whatever capacity you want and just plug it in the USB slot.
      Problem solved.

      Anyone of any competence is going to build a system like that anyway, an SSD system drive with another traditional HD as your media driv

      • I happen to know a lot more about USB Type-C than the average punter who hasn't authored specs for the USB SIG.

        It's good juju. But compare with an Intel NUC, where you can plug in a PCIe SSD. [newegg.com]

        That would be a good thing to be available on the motherboard.

        • I have a mSSD slot on mine which is nice, as is ITX builds it saves even more space...

          However most ITX cases I have seen thus far don't support removable back plates... which means if I ever have to remove or replace the thing, I will have to basically disassemble everything to get at it which kind of sucks (as on most MB the slot is on the back of the board)... :(

        • I happen to know a lot more about USB Type-C than the average punter who hasn't authored specs for the USB SIG.

          It's good juju. But compare with an Intel NUC, where you can plug in a PCIe SSD. [newegg.com]

          That would be a good thing to be available on the motherboard.

          $500? for 512 GB? Are you KIDDING me?!? If SSDs are going to cost THAT much, platters will spin for quite a while in my computers...

      • I don't know if USB-C is backward compatible, but I presume it is.

        USB-C is just the connector type. The ChromeBook Pixel is using USB 3.x which is backwards compatible just like all other USB revisions.

        • Sorry that should have been connector/wiring type. But, yes, with the proper dongle it's backwards compatible with all other USB types.

  • For god's sake man! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Thursday March 12, 2015 @01:26PM (#49242871) Homepage

    Close that parenthesis! I can't take it for much longer, it hurts, please!

  • I am not an user of Apple products, but I see their merits (like great customer support, works great out of the box). If the new Apple notebook had 3 USB-C ports all would be fine and dandy. But the moment they have 1 and the only way to access almost ANYTHING else (like a projector or connect your phone to), you now have to buy an adapter separately... It's really evil and a money grab in my opinion. If 100% hardware would work wireless, then by all means, have no ports on your notebook, but this time has

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Apple likes to push "it will take some time" into "soon." Chromecasts/Apple TVs and things like that hooked up to projectors are becoming more common.

      Personally, I'm quite happy to trade a bunch of connectors for a lighter notebook.

      • That might be true, I use a desktop as my private computer, so I see laptops and notebooks as work tools, and I can't see a time soon where all hardware is wireless in most companies. Wired is usually more secure.

    • It's really evil and a money grab in my opinion.

      Money grab by who? If Apple was the only source of USB-C adapters, then you might have a point.

      But they're not.

      Next time: Think; THEN Post.

  • if microsoft surface could run linux, all netbooks and ultraportables discussion would go to the place they should have been for a long time: the garbage.

    • if microsoft surface could run linux

      The (x86) Surface is a standard PC, you can install and run Linux on it.

      Of course, that requires giving money to Microsoft and not everyone wants their keyboard or solely the hardware on offer in the Surface.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      From what I hear, you can install Ubuntu on the last generation of surface pro. I haven't looked into whether the current one allows it.

  • ChromeOS is a great operating system (Score:5, Funny)

    by Blaskowicz ( 634489 ) on Thursday March 12, 2015 @02:05PM (#49243187)

    ... it only lacks a good web browser.

  • The top end model (Score:5, Informative)

    by stox ( 131684 ) on Thursday March 12, 2015 @02:12PM (#49243243) Homepage

    has 16GB, not 8GB, of RAM.

  • Hardware wise, this thing's a big fat loser compared to the new Macbook 2015.
    Off the cuff comparison:
    1. Storage is a huge loss
    2. Has fan. booooo
    3. CPU is a win
    4. I am going to guess the touchpad is a loss - hard to beat apple on this.
    5. Form factor and weight is a big loss
    6. I/O ports, winner. silly being apple apple and sacrificing function over form.
    7. OS - I prefer a pure linux for CLI but not so much for GUI apps. I would lean for OS X as it has better support in the GUI apps area.

  • I got the Samsung 11" chromebook on sale for $150.

    It's great for what it is: an inexpensive device with a decent sized screen, full KB, and fast bootup. Unlike windows, it does not get easily infected.

    But I cannot see a chromebook being worth $1000.

    • But I cannot see a chromebook being worth $1000.

      Especially with only 32 gigs of storage! It doesn't really matter whether or not you need lots of storage with a chromebook - even assuming you don't, it still costs them next to nothing to put just 32 gigs in there!

    • Does it have a 2,560 x 1,700 screen? I think that's what you're paying for here.

      • Does it have a 2,560 x 1,700 screen? I think that's what you're paying for here.

        Can your eyeballs even use 2,560 x 1,700 on a sub-13" screen?

      • No, but I don't see the point of such a high res screen, on a device with such limited use.

  • 3:2 aspect ratio -- surprisingly good (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    2560x1700 is essentially a 3:2 aspect ratio. Terrible for watching movies, fantastic for productivity. I used to code on a pair of 3:2's -- it feels a little weird at first, but you gain a lot more vertical space and it's much more sane than portrait 16:10's: it doesn't break layouts in most applications or webpages.

  • Open your mind (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Art3x ( 973401 )

    If my work didn't give me a laptop for free, I would be tempted to snap up a new Chromebook Pixel.

    The self-anointed tech pundits are all scratching their heads. "Why such a luxurious laptop to just browse the web?"

    "Just browse the web." That's the first lie. Web browsers, especially Chrome, no longer just browse the Web. It is no less than a modern GUI toolkit and practically a whole operating system. HTML 5 specifies [w3.org] that web browsers can run background processes, run offline, open and save local files, st

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