Google release their own Chromebook laptop

After the somewhat spectacular failure of the original Chromebook, Google themselves have now released their own branded Chromebook laptop computer.

For those that completely missed it, and it was not hard to miss (although I did do a posting or two back then about the Chromebook), about 18 months ago Google released the Chromebook ‘operating system’; and a number of vendors actually made and released Chromebook computers. A couple that I can remember were from HP and Acer. Samsung may have also released a Chromebook. I can’t remember and I can’t be bothered researching it to find out.

Basically the ‘operating system’ on a Chromebook is (was) the Google Chrome browser. That’s it. Just the browser. So all you could (can) do with a Chromebook laptop is browse the Web. Full stop. Done. Nothing more.

Needless to say sales of Chromebooks was tiny. So tiny that on a pie graph of computer sales by operating system the Chromebook sales were in that slice of the pie labelled “Other”.

I have not actually seen a Chromebook computer and in my line of work I mix with a lot of IT junkies who buy almost all computing devices just to check them out.

Anyway, to get back to the here and now, not to be put off, and not to be outdone by Microsoft who have just recently released their very own computers (the Surface RT and Surface Pro), Google have just released their very own Chromebook. It is called the Chromebook Pixel. Here are a couple pictures of it.

[The first image above links to the Chromebook Pixel on the Google site. The second image links to the review of the Chromebook at The Verge]

It has some neat specifications, such as:

• A beautifully crisp high resolution 2560x1700 screen. So much better than the crappy HD 1080 screen on most laptops.
• A touch screen.
• A large high resolution touch-pad.
• A stunning back-lit keyboard.
• Five hour battery life.

If this was a Windows PC I would be seriously considering it—just for the screen resolution alone.

But … it is a Chromebook. Basically all it runs is the Google Chrome browser. When it boots up all you get is the Google Chrome browser.

And it is going to cost somewhere around $1400 in Australia when it gets here.

Hmmmm.

Seriously? I could be totally missing something here but I just don’t see the Chromebook Pixel becoming a sales run away. I fear the Chromebook is destined to remain in the “Others” slice of the pie for the foreseeable future.