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The Pixelbook Go Can Do More Than You’d Expect
I relied on the Chromebook — even at work — for a week. It worked great.
When Google announced the Pixelbook Go in October, many complained it seemed too expensive for a Chromebook, with prices starting at $649.
That’s because Chromebooks have generally been viewed as lightweight computers that are fine for watching Netflix at home, but aren’t great for work. They run a Google-built operating system called ChromeOS, and because they’re optimized for the web — built to run Google’s browser Chrome as quickly as possible without zapping the battery — they don’t include any desktop apps like Excel, Visual Studio Code, or Photoshop.
But I think this reputation is a little unfair. After relying exclusively on the Pixelbook Go for a week, I’m convinced that it is much more powerful than it gets credit for.
Google has positioned the Pixelbook as a “go-there, do-that” laptop with a battery that lasts all day and light enough to throw into a bag and take everywhere. As a manager dragging around a chonky 15-inch MacBook between meetings all day, it was an alluring sell for me. I dived in head-first, testing out the black version of the Pixelbook Go with an i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM.
