Joe4321
Instead of comparing the Pixel to a Macbook Air, it would be better to compare it to an iPad 4 with an add on keyboard. Like the iPad 4, the Pixel cannot run regular Mac or Windows apps. You can't use it for graphic design, music production, video editing or 3D animation. Just like an iPad. A MacBook Air, on the other hand, can run fully fledged Mac apps, even if it is not the most powerful MacBook.
Erik Unger
Ubuntu!
kleykenb
You might want to mention the 1 Terabyte Cloud storage one gets for free during 3 years with the Chromebook Pixel At the current price-scheme Google asks $49.99/month for 1 Terabyte of it's cloud storage (I'll round that to 50$ for easy calculations). 50 * 12 * 3 = 1800$ is what that 1T would cost over 3 years. Holy cow. Instead of having to pay 1800$ you ONLY have to pay 1300$ for that 1 Terabyte AND they chuck in a Chromebook Pixel for FREE?! Indeed. Google sells Cloud storage, the laptop is just a Welcoming present.
Jon Smith
"Chrome OS was designed for budget laptops, and sold to customers whose needs center primarily around the web. To pay more than a MacBook (see below) for a Chromebook – at this point – would be insanity."
Exactly what is Google thinking? Only way I would own the Pixel is if I put Windows or Linux on it.
Arush Kakkar
The two laptops cannot be compared!! They both are built for different audiences, and have two different purposes!
justabrake
i'm sure you'll be able to put an OS on it I did it with the Chromebook with everyone else
Fahrenheit 451
People are discounting the fact that if Google is willing to produce and release hardware of this caliber what's to say that the software isn't to follow? One of the most over-hyped and most maligned words: "ecosystem" propagated by the marketing department and pushed successfully by the now-deceased Jobs is just that "over-hyped". Go into Apple's App Store and iTunes and you will find an abundance of rubbish, parked and abandoned apps, one-trick pony apps. I use a handful of key apps for both pleasure and personal use.
Google may very well have a Google Docs revised to legitimately compete with Microsoft Office. Developers' are not stupid as witnessed by those of Flipboard (lookup where the developers came from and what platforms they now support). Time will tell.
exodous
Logically being a Google product it offers no storage. I just can't buy into the cloud yet living in a country that doesn't have networks everywhere. I occasionally am out in the middle of no where where I don't even have a phone signal.
For the price I might as well buy a Macbook Air and install Linux on it, how can they justify an extra $100 and half the storage space? The screen is a little better but I'm sure a new macbook air is around the corner that will have a better screen, USB 3.0, thunderbolt, and still $100 less than the Pixel.
Matt Fletcher
It should have been mentioned that the Pixel gets 1 TB worth of free space on Google for 3 years (worth $1,800). That's something really significant and worth adding/changing your article to include because it changes the entire evaluation. Mentioning this makes the Pixel a far better deal for most casual home users or anyone considering backing up items or storing data on the web. Leaving this fact out is like comparing 2 cable boxes worth $1,000 but failing to mention you actually get free cable for 3 years with 1 of the boxes.
Chris Maresca
It's very, very expensive. You can get an (better, lighter, more ports) Ultrabook for ~$600 and get unlimited cloud backup storage from CrashPlan for ~$7/month.
Really, not worth it. If you really want ChromeOS on you Ultrabook, you can just download it. If it was > $800, it might be competitive, but at this price, just buy the Mac.