Google has just recently announced its new, ambitious, flag-ship laptop, the Chromebook Pixel. It’s the first touch-screen laptop that sports Chrome OS, and also has the highest-resolution screen in the market with a ridiculous 239 pixels per inch (2560 x 1700 at 3:2 ratio) on a 12” screen. In comparison, Apple’s new Retina Display Macbook Pro has only about 220 pixels per inch. The Chromebook Pixel also supports 4G connectivity and comes with GoGo Inflight Internet access.

It’s Almost a Macbook Air

With the entry-level model priced at £1,049, Google makes it really clear that they place their new flagship laptop on the high-end market, side-by-side with Apple’s Macbook Air. In fact, it looks and feels somewhat like a Macbook Air. From the overall body, keyboard design, to the very detail part like the screen border, it almost shouts Macbook Air.  Senior vice president of Chrome at Google, Sundar Pichai, strongly believes that Chromebook Pixel is far better than the Macbook Air. He points out the fact that Air does not have a touch-screen capability or even a high-resolution screen. He then added a bold statement to sum up the comparisons between the two, “Chromebook Pixel will get you a lot more for your money”.

It’s pretty, it’s fast, it’s powerful (enough), but…

Our main concern with the laptop here is the fact that it runs on Chrome OS, which currently has a very limited software options in its ecosystem. If it’s hard enough for you to jump from Windows OS to Mac OS, then you probably don’t want to even think about going to a whole new OS which is still in its infancy. Another thing that you might want to consider is the almost square 3:2 screen ratio, which sounds a bit unusual on today’s standard of modern laptop. This is not a good news if you hate to see huge a letterbox on your screen when you’re watching movies.

Bottom Line

Unless you only use your laptop to surf the Internet or view high-res images, and have £1,000 lying around your house, then it’d be quite hard for us to recommend it for you as there are a lot of other options out there that can get you a lot more for your money, for real. Check out some of our high-end laptop selections on our website.