Comments on: Google unveils Chromebook Pixel, a high-end, touch-enabled cloud machine: My impressions

By: Steven Rogoff

Steven Rogoff — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 01:12:21 +0000

“I’m glad Google is starting to focus some efforts on high-quality hardware. But their business is mass collection and distribution of data, and ultra-niche products like the Pixel are not aligned with that business model.”

In case you haven’t notice, Google is already expanding its market base. I won’t be surprised if they start taking over the desktop market as well.

“But what consumers, and how many, will fork over $1,300 for a cloud laptop? A few hundred? The Chromebook has not been a sales success. The Pixel will do far worse.”

It’s just a cloud laptop, for now.

Keep in mind that ChromeOS, just like stock Android, is easily upgraded. Which means that Google can easily integrate Google Play for the Chromebook. With that hardware, its the only logical path.

By: Telecom Dude

Telecom Dude — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 19:02:01 +0000

“If you have photos on an SD card, then the device will automatically find and upload them to Google Plus Photos, a somewhat creepy and evil tactic by Google …”

Really?! Without the user’s consent and knowledge?

By: renur

renur — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:44:24 +0000

I don’t know if this is their secret plan or not, but I think this is clearly headed in the right direction and google’s model of open experimentation has merits over closed secretive model as this is a very good example.

The next big opportunity in the client is to take Windows PC out of the enterprise (for bulk of the mobile enterprise users). There have been various attempts at ‘Thin client’. But I was hoping RIM with its infrastructure and a tablet would have filled that gap. Alas it did not. The notion of a high quality device, that is secure with all data in the enterprise private cloud with the local flash as a cache is the right model for enterprise clients. I think they are getting the hardware and testing the usage paradigms. The software stack has to be further tweaked to address a few things 1) security model (like RIM) and 2) access to legacy apps (unfortunately – very do-able today though).. The big shift that could happen is enterprise apps being developed with Android API as the primary API could be the next big opportunity. I would hope Apple would get there, but this is case of knowing the consumer vs knowing the enterprise user.

By: Christian Moskal

Christian Moskal — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 11:00:00 +0000

The 1 TB allotment on Google Drive should be available throughout the entire lifetime of the device. Why set an arbitrary limit of three years? Are buyers then supposed to pay the going rate for 1 TB on Google Drive, just buy a new Pixel or what?

OT: In a similar vein, I have never understood why the default 5 GB of Apple iCloud storage aren’t granted “by number of devices purchased” but rather once per account. We have a lot of iDevices floating around in the family and five of those use the iTunes family account. But I can’t even do a basic backup of all of our devices without paying Apple extra for it. Does that seem odd to anyone else?

By: Trefor

Trefor — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 09:26:29 +0000

You were a bit unfair on the earlier Chrome book. The Samsung is a brilliant 2nd PC for a non-techy missus. Because:
1. It’s Cheap.
2. Doesn’t need anti-virus software.
3. Software automatically updates.
4. No need for regular back-ups as it’s all stored in the cloud.
5. Wirelessly prints to the PC in the Home office via Cloud printing.
6. Boots in less than the claimed 7 seconds (my wife can’t believe how long it takes for the Windows/Dell to boot).
7. Small power consumption (so no need to carry a brick around).
8. Good emergency back-up PC to get on-line if the main Windows PC in the house fails.

My product of year for 2012 (based on the needs of “real” people, rather than the digital elite).

By: carsly

carsly — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 02:22:09 +0000

Om,

Keep in mind they aren’t testing a product. I see them testing three things here:
1 – a price point – potentially for Google Glass
2 – size of their early adopter market at said price point vis a vis (1) and whatever else they have cooking
3 – business model for cloud delivered services (the included terabyte of web storage you noted

Of the three, we only have transparency today to one of them (3). The other two won’t become apparent for years but will be obvious in hindsight.

By: Josh Vazquez

Josh Vazquez — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 23:08:35 +0000

ChromeBook Pixel Shame, Weird how similar these two spots are!! http://t.co/b8XhGRCRX2

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 21:36:47 +0000

So, like what MSFT did with Surface, “see what we can make”, a reference point? If so, it has a great chance to fare as well as Surface (RT + PRO)

By: Madlyb

Madlyb — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:08:41 +0000

Considering how much grief Apple got for the limitations of the Air, it is hilarious that Google builds an even more limited product in the same price range. Someone needs to do some market research at Google.

The other thing that strikes me is much Google still banks upon the ubiquity of connectivity and nothing could be further from the truth. The cloud is for backup and cloud services that aren’t critical path to my needs (Think News sites, FB, etc.). Everything else (Apps & Data) should be accessible when I don’t have connectivity or you fail in your value proposition.

By: Dennis McDonald

Dennis McDonald — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:26:03 +0000

One way of looking at this is that in the near future we’ll start seeing pictures on the web of meetings of Google engineers sitting around using Pixels not MacBooks.