I'm on my 5th Chromebook in about 7 years or so. I don't recall exactly when I bought a long gifted away Samsung Chromebook or the next one which has also been gifted away, but you'll have to pry the latest one, the Google Pixelbook, out of my hands. I LOVE IT.
After 10 months of a Samsung Pro being the alternative to any one of always available MacBooks, MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros, I spent most of the last two months shifting between the Samsung Pro and a Dell Chromebook as I start to ramp up things again. And while my desk remains a MacMini, more and more I found myself needing the MacBook less and less. So when there was a nice price drop on Amazon on the PixelBook I sent a note to my good friend, and now Chromebook Guru, Kevin Tofel of GigaOm and JK On the Run fame.
Kevin has been diving into the Google designed laptops for a while, and back in the day he and I used to compare notes on the advances, as well as some cool things you could do with them. My dilemma was do I go for all the gusto and dive in with the i7 based Intel processor or stick with the i5, which is half the price. A quick exchange with him sealed the deal. The i5 would be more than enough for what I'm doing. And he was right.
After 24 hours of bliss, I'm delighted with the Pixelbook...Between the Chrome OS, living in the browser all day, the fact that it's a 4 in 1, my favorite feature is how smoothly it runs Android apps....that's the dealmaker...
Glad to hear you like it. Let me know if you still feel the same after the "honeymoon" period. ;) I think you will. Like you, I'm using Android apps which are running well and filling in the gaps when a web service isn't the ideal tool. But I've also been testing Google's Project Crostini since day one, which puts a full Linux environment in a secure container on the Pixelbook so there's minimal/no security concerns. I've installed full Linux desktop apps for my coding hobby, for example. I've even run Chrome for Linux inside of Chrome OS. No, that's not practical but I figured to try and see if it worked.
I'm buying the Cheesesteaks next time you're in town; you got the last round!
Posted by: Kevin C. Tofel | August 03, 2018 at 03:41 PM