Google Pixelbook Go 13.3" Chromebook - Intel Core i7, 256GB SSD + 16GB RAM - Just Black

Product Information

The Pixelbook Go's audio quality is also excellent, especially given its light weight. The grilles for the stereo speakers flank the keyboard, instead of being located on the bottom of the laptop as is common on other ultraportables. This made for robust, clear sound even at the highest volume setting during my testing.

Before I joined the tech-journalism ranks, I wrote on topics as diverse as Borneo's rain forests, Middle Eastern airlines, and Big Data's role in presidential elections. A graduate of Middlebury College, I also have a master's degree in journalism and French Studies from New York University. Add “Go”, “Lite” or “LE” to a product’s name and the immediate assumption would be that it’s had its function or appearance curtailed in some way. That’s why I was surprised that Google chose to go with the Pixelbook Go as the name for its latest flagship Chromebook. READ NEXT: These are the best Chromebooks you can buy Google Pixelbook Go review: What you need to know Now, let’s discuss what you’ll spend your entire time staring at: the display. Short of the highest-end configuration, the Pixelbook Go utilizes a 1080p touchscreen, which we find to display colors with the vibrancy and accuracy we expect from laptops within the high-end price range. However, we do wish that Chrome OS could render at native resolution without scaling – the most legible scaling produces an effective 1,600 x 900 resolution, cheapening the impact of its 1080p standing somewhat. Still, we’d feel much more confident editing photos on this laptop screen than most other Chromebooks. As for the 4K Molecular Display option, while we haven’t experienced it in person, we find it to be completely unnecessary for a Chromebook.In real-world numbers, the Go has one of the best battery life endurances we’ve ever tested on a Chromebook. It lasted over 13 hours in both our web browsing and video loops tests. We saw good performance in the Pixelbook battery too, but the Go was our clear winner in this scenario. The Pixelbook Go is no Pixelbook 2 The Pixelbook earned a score of 145 on the JetStream JavaScript benchmark, which measures the performance of web apps. That's above the 126.6 from the Samsung Chromebook Pro (Core m3-6Y30, 4GB of RAM) and the 127.32 from the Asus Chromebook Flip C302CA (Core m3 6Y30, 4GB of RAM). We saw a higher mark from the Yoga 920 (277.9). Lasting for more than 16 hours on our battery rundown test, the Pixelbook Go is an excellent choice for a laptop to accompany you on your next flight, or even just a day of meetings with no chance to visit a power outlet. Since our wider suite of benchmarking software doesn't work on Chrome OS, I evaluated the Pixelbook Go's performance on a casual basis during a few days of use. The system went through a firmware update when I first turned it on, taking just a few minutes as opposed to the hour or more that major Windows and macOS updates can last. Once updated, the Pixelbook Go proved exceptionally snappy at starting up (13 seconds from pressing the power button to the appearance of the login screen) and installing apps. I’ve been working on the laptop for nearly a week now with no issues at all. Tens of tabs open in Chrome, with multiple large Google Sheets spreadsheets running, don’t seem to faze the Pixelbook Go at all. I suspect the Core m3 might struggle a bit more when you really load it up but it’s clear you don’t need anything faster than the Intel Core i5-8200Y or any more RAM than the 8GB supplied with the review device.

November 10, 2017 update: We incorrectly stated that the Pixelbook ships with a 15 W Core i5-7200U. This has been corrected to the 7 W Core i5-7Y57.) There is one disadvantage when comparing the Pixelbook Go frame design to its predecessor and competitors at similar prices: it’s not a 2-in-1 laptop. This certainly impacts the laptop’s versatility, but personally, this editor doesn’t care for convertible 2-in-1 laptops anyway. That makes us wonder why Google would include a touchscreen at all, but that would severely limit the amount of Android apps the operating system (OS) could support. That “Y” denotes the use of extremely low power on mobile devices. This translates to fanless designs because the chips aren’t generating lots of heat, but that doesn’t mean they’re slow or underpowered. For Chromebooks, the Pixelbooks represent the high-end in terms of performance because of the light and efficient design of Chrome OS. In addition to the weight-saving glass construction, part of the reason for the Pixelbook Go's light weight is that it doesn't need a lot of room to cool powerful, heat-generating components. My review unit is equipped with an Intel Core i5-8200Y CPU, a dual-core processor that consumes just 7 watts of power, compared to the 15-watt CPUs common in today's thin laptops. The base model is equipped with a Core m3 CPU, while the top configuration boasts an Intel Core i7. Other component options include either 8GB or 16GB of memory, and 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB of solid-state storage. The Pixelbook is ideal for those who want a long-lasting, self-sufficient and travel-friendly Chromebook that just so happens to also have a glossy tablet mode for Android Play Store apps. If these strengths are not tempting, then a cheaper Chromebook like the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 or Asus Chromebook Flip with Play Store support can accomplish just as much and with a wider variety of integrated ports.First off, we’ll just say that it’s a damn shame that the Pixelbook Pen is excluded in the price of the Pixelbook, as it’s arguably crucial to the experience. However, we’re not about the say that the stylus isn’t worth the price of admission, because it 100% is worth it – if you can spare it. I've appeared on CBS News, in USA Today, and at many other outlets to offer analysis on breaking technology news.

Emitting up to 421 nits, the Pixelbook offers tremendous brightness, which enables strong colors at up to 75 degrees to the left and right. That beats the 290-nit category average, the 284-nit Yoga 920, the 376-nit Samsung Chromebook Pro and the 292-nit Asus Chromebook Flip C302CA. The iPad Pro (555 nits) shines even brighter. One huge benefit of Chromebooks is that they normally all come with squeaky-clean installs of Chrome OS, and naturally the Google Pixelbook Go is the cleanest of them all. However, this also means that this laptop doesn’t really offer anything truly unique in terms of software or features that isn't already offered by other Chromebooks. However, one huge flaw in the Pixelbook Pen is that it doesn’t attach to the laptop in any way, not even via magnets, like the Surface Pro. This oversight makes it that much easier to lose this stylus that cost you so much money. Plus, it runs on AAAA batteries, whereas a rechargeable solution would’ve been much more worthy of the price tag. Screen: 12.3-inch QHD (2,400 x 1,600, 235 ppi) LCD touchscreen (400 nits, 72% NTSC color, 3:2 aspect ratio) It's not technically rugged but the Pixelbook is the most durable Chromebook you can buy. We dropped 11 of the most popular Chromebooks from heights of 2.5 feet and 4.5 feet onto carpet and concrete, and the Pixelbook came out on top. In fact, Google's laptop looked like it had just been taken out of the box for the first time, even after our brutal side-drop test from 4.5 feet.

This will be an incredibly useful tool for students, particularly, but users in general will benefit. Despite this solid build quality, the Pixelbook Go is featherlight. It weighs 2.3 pounds and measures 0.5 by 8.1 by 12.2 inches (HWD), extremely competitive dimensions for an ultraportable with a 13.3-inch display. Compare them with those of the MacBook Air (0.6 by 8.4 by 12 inches, 2.75 pounds) and the Pixelbook (0.4 by 11.4 by 8.7 inches, 2.46 pounds). Results are inconsistent from most of the Android benchmark apps. For example, Ice Storm Physics and Geekbench single-core benchmark scores are 70 percent and 100 percent higher, respectively, than the Exynos-powered Galaxy Note 8. Meanwhile, the very high PCMark Storage score rivals the Huawei Mate 10 Pro while AndroBench favors the Huawei smartphone by over five-fold. Interestingly, graphics-intensive benchmarks show the Pixelbook struggling against current flagship smartphones while most CPU-intensive benchmarks show the Chromebook to be well ahead. The Pixelbook is a convertible 2-in-1, meaning you can flip the screen beyond the traditional clamshell design in most laptops. Google followed up with the Pixel Slate which is a detachable 2-in-1, another word for a tablet with an optional keyboard that combines to make a laptop. The Pixelbook Go, then, is just a traditional clamshell laptop. In this sense, Google covers all three laptop styles under the Pixel umbrella. The integrated Intel HD 615 graphics chip in the Pixelbook powered its smooth visuals on the WebGL Aquarium test, where it rendered 2,000 fish at a rate of 60 frames per second. That's better than the 48 fps from the Samsung Chromebook Pro (Intel HD Graphics 615) and the 50 fps from the Asus Chromebook Flip C302CA (Intel HD Graphics 515). The ultraportable-notebook average is a higher 269 fps.