Google Chromebook Pixel Laptop: a $1,300 Web Browser!

What is Google thinking? Comparing the Chromebook Pixel laptop with a 13? MacBook Air is just insane, if not plain stupid and misleading.

The Google Chromebook Pixel is not a real computer and at $1,300, it's a ripoff!

Yes, the latest 12.85? Chromebook is thin (0.64? vs. 0.68?), has an aluminum body and a backlit keyboard. But that’s pretty much where the resemblance ends. Despite a touchscreen, the Google laptop is still “just” a thin client capable of running Web applications through the Chrome web browser.

A Ripoff!

But at $1,300, the Chromebook Pixel is simply put, a ripoff! The 32 GB Chromebook Pixel is actually $100 more expensive than the 128 GB version of the 13? MacBook Air and just $200 short of a MacBook Pro with a Retina display. And I thought Apple was on the expensive side of the laptop market! Perhaps Google execs thought it was actually a deal, considering the 1 terabyte of online storage included for 3-years with the device and worth $1,800!

Actually, Google’s “premium” Chromebook is not even a real computer. Any Mac or Windows laptops are an order of magnitude more capable than the Chromebook Pixel i.e. web browsing, plus run locally thousands of native applications available for Mac or Windows.

So who is Google really targeting with Pixel? That’s a tough question, because nobody on its right mind should spend that kind of money on a laptop – which isn’t really one – that does so little. But don’t get me wrong. I really like the concept of an inexpensive, instant-on web browser that updates itself automatically like the $199 Acer C7 Chromebook . But I’m flabbergasted to see that Google spent precious engineering talent and resources to come out with something that is simply “out of touch” from the reality of the market.