Google's Chromebook Pixel is bravely taking on the heavyweights of the laptop market, with its premium price tag, and premium-design putting it up against the leviathan MacBooks and a host of Windows Ultrabooks. Google has taken the cloud-focused, browser-based Chrome OS and provided it with a showcase platform, designing and building the device itself, with a little help from OEM partners. It's designed for 'people who live on the cloud', and to that end it's always going to have a tough time against its more established peer â€" Mac OS and Windows machines that are still much more about local computing. But at least it gives Chrome OS a device that is indisputably high-end, and confident enough to battle at the top end of the market. Look and feel Make no mistake about it, this is a beautiful looking device, not unlike a MacBook Pro but distinct in its own right.The Pixel is gunmetal grey with a huge glass black touchpad, a black 'chiclet' style keyboard and corners that are sharper than Macs but still nicely rounded. It's a very square slab of laptop, weighing in at a not-inconsiderable 1.52 kg; but the key difference is the wonderful screen. Interestingly Google has gone against the trend for 16:9 or 16:10 displays and opted instead for 3:2. They believe the extra height is better for those people that scroll through web pages â€" and you can certainly understand the sentiment, with the extra real estate noticeable and welcome. But the screen is much, much
Comment