Google Pixelbook 4 Months Later: Should I Keep It?
Google Pixelbook 4 Months Later: Should I Keep It?
2018-02-15
this beautiful piece of hardware is the
pixel book it's been over four months
since it came out initial back two
reviews are almost out dataxe have been
a lot of software updates that have come
so I wanted to pick one up revisit it
and see if it's worth the starting price
of one thousand dollars for Chrome OS
before I jump in I want to give a huge
shout out and thank you to the Acorn
collective for making this video
possible if you want to give
crowdfunding you've got a new idea for
something you want to crowdfund you're
going to want to stay tuned in to this
video they are revolutionising the
crowdfunding platform so pricing on the
pixel book is is ridiculous I think
anybody who bought one would even admit
themselves ridiculous start to the
thousand bucks so you're getting nice
specs I've got Core i5 and here at eight
gigs of ram but a thousand bucks you are
at surface laptop category there's a
kind of other Windows laptop so you can
get you're talking about some macbook
pricing some use macbook pros you can
get a lot of computer for a thousand
bucks what you're gonna get is still
really nice so Google's been testing
Android apps and Chrome OS for a while
and it kind of became official with the
pixel book and you've got close to the
full breadth of the Google Play apps
here which are nice some things are
still weirdly letterbox you get access
to all those applications which make
things really easy to use and that's the
functionality to the pixel book we're
also gonna have a problem with that is
you're getting people could ask things
like slack for example there's an
awesome web Aven and there's the Android
app and you could use Gmail tab for
Gmail and there's a myriad of other
email apps you can use you're kind of
stuck with oftentimes two separate apps
or two separate icons that do
essentially the same thing that took a
little getting used to the Android apps
work and I haven't had much issue but
they don't look made to scale obviously
for a screen of this size
what surprised me about the pixel book
first was battery life and it was gonna
be awesome but I'm getting upwards it's
like 10 to 12 hours of battery life
which is crazy the facts in 10 days I've
had it I think I've charged it twice and
even need to charge it just
out of habit charged it and it'll charge
via one of the two USB type-c ports
which I guess is nice to have doing work
on the pixel book it was a little bit
frustrating doing stuff and slack was
easy I was able to download the Android
versions of Microsoft Office and that
works really well did a lot of work in
the Google suite kind of stuff what I
missed was having an actual desktop
experience I know there's a local
storage on here there's a decent amount
of it and there's a full file explorer
it's just not as elegant as a typical
laptop and I guess I shouldn't have
expected it to be that I found
workarounds for everything I was able to
do all of my work on the pixel book it
wasn't as easy as it would be on say a
Windows PC or a Mac laptop and obviously
the area is where it excels is in Chrome
I loved you can launch Chrome apps as
their ona windows and you can pin them
to the dock you get more of a desktop
test experience but things in chrome
obviously were awesome watching and
watching YouTube videos watching movies
browsing TechnoBuffalo any other
websites those kind of things were
really good the touch screen added to
responsiveness of course the touch
screen it's a really high res screen
that works well Ben Yoder's our scroll
and just use your finger was certainly
nice to have that option there's still a
decent amount of hinge wobble we'll talk
about the hinge a little bit more in a
minute but it was nice to have and it
was a great chrome experience as good as
any I think I got on a Windows PC or a
Mac laptop I do want to add for extra
functionality to the Chromebook and this
isn't unique to the pixel book but there
is chrome remote desktop lets you access
a Windows PC from a Chrome browsers if
you need that does work pretty well I'm
not a hardware side there's a lot of
stuff to really like about this
I love the silicon a little pads on the
left and right of the trackpad it's
thanks for really comfortable experience
the keyboard is absolutely awesome it's
one of the best laptop keyboards that
I've used trackpad is glass and works
great the two-finger scrolling through
through websites or document is really
smooth incredibly responsive so that's
nice to see here so I talked about the
the hinge I thought I could sort of bend
it and I could watch movies I could put
it up in a tent mode to show my wife's
and stuff I was working on I can use it
to read scripts when I'm editing videos
and working on certain things that are
coming up the added functionality of
that hinge is nice it's not unique to
pixel book
a lot of convertible laptops that have
that but each time I use a reminded of
how nice it is sort of have that option
the bezels are huge on this and I know
the argument is that when you're holding
it as a tablet so your fingers someplace
to go but there are other convertibles
with much smaller bezels that you can
still use a tablet so I've got a hard
time buying that argument it's almost an
excusable on a laptop that cost this
much you can spec this thing up to cost
about 1700 bucks
another weird design Q so it's
incredibly thin it doesn't weigh that
much the nice to put in a bag but it's
strange that when it's closed
I can still push down and click the
trackpad there's a weird annoyance that
I noticed there are other nice things in
the keyboard we've got a button for a
Google assistant another sort of desktop
UI asking essentially things I become
your app drawer and settings are all
here and sort of built right into the
keyboard when I bought to fix the book
it also came at the pixel book pen and
I'm sure you guys probably saw our
márquez's review at the pixel book and
when the pen first came out it was not
very useful he had a ton of issues with
responsiveness it didn't work that well
and evidently got some software update
excited no issues like he had my spy
responsiveness and moved quickly when I
was scrolling around the screen app took
advantage of what it could do work
really well essentially I just use it to
see if it worked I'm not a big pen guy
and besides that there's nowhere to
stick this thing I was absolutely gonna
lose it it's about a hundred bucks you
want to buy it separately if it's not
bundled I don't see they use with it I'm
not an artist it's cool you can serve
circle stuff and I'll do Google searches
with it but you know so when I got this
I initially figured I was gonna use it
for like a two weeks and kind of return
it like I was it was fun to try it is an
extravagance and there's a lot of other
lower priced Chromebook option Samsung's
got some awesome choices it's hard to
say yeah you should spend a thousand
bucks on a Chromebook it is like I said
not a necessity for anybody's world and
the crazy extravagance but I think I'm
gonna keep it I like having a computer
that boots up really fast
I'd like to having to take out you know
another computer at home have this just
always be at home it's able to do almost
what I need it to do for me boil down to
Chrome OS is good at a lot but it's not
really great at anything what I've
needed to do I found workarounds I liked
having it but it's nice and it's worked
well for me so I'm gonna chalk this up
to something I certainly don't need
something I'm really glad to have so I
want to thank the folks at acorn
collective for making this video
possible if you've ever liked
crowdfunded something you back something
you probably know about crowdfunding
maybe you try to use it yourself
crowdfunding or quickly sort of
supplanting venture capital firms as the
way entrepreneurs are getting money but
the big VC firms there's some like dirty
secrets behind it the big one is that
they're all equity backed so that's
gonna mean that they focus on projects
that sort of give them the best return
and the best entry are stupid high and
their policies make it next to
impossible for people from developing
countries to get their ideas on there
potentially get their ideas to turn into
something real a core collective is sort
of turning that entire thing on its head
so the platform is backed by blockchain
technology so you know it's going to be
secure and reliable and then one of my
favorite things about it's gonna be
completely free for use in any country
so matter where in the world you are if
you have an idea you could get it funded
it's totally awesome the early backers
aren't equity holders they're token
holders surging some of the cool stuff
about blockchain with cryptocurrency
their token is OHA they're in a presale
right now but time you watch this video
they'll probably be already available
link to it down below if you want to
learn more about crowdfunding you've had
an awesome idea for crowdfunding you
haven't found a platform to bring that
idea to life a core collective is a
really sweet way to do it again it will
link to it down below you should
definitely check it out so that that's a
pixel book it's well-designed hardware
it's a beautiful screen for like an
unnecessary amount of money you guys
really interested through Google's core
of products did you guys pick all these
up did you try one in the store I'd like
to know what you think about it it's
definitely a polarizing computer yes you
can even call it a better one don't you
guys think leave a comments down below
of course subscribe it's a little bell
icon next to it we got more picture book
videos coming up until next time i'm
generating gherkin TechnoBuffalo
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