Forget Apple’s Macbook Or Microsoft’s Surface This Is My Perfect Laptop

My living room is littered with technology. This is part of being a consumer technology journalist: you're constantly surrounded by things that need to be examined - and you're constantly examining those things. Like a forensic investigator whose lab is their dining table. 

Technology crams my bookshelf, peppers my dining table and fills my draws. From my borrowed Motorola Edge and HTC Vive Cosmos, to my Microsoft Surface Book 2 and my partner's MacBook Pro. These mostly loaned devices come and go from my house, but there's one device that I continually come back to, that has unintentionally become part of the furniture: my Chromebook Pixel. 

Or, more specifically, my Chromebook Pixel 2015. The five-year-old Chromebook has become the central gateway through which all living room internet activity - that requires a bit more dexterity than is offered by a smartphone - flows through. Firing off a lengthy email? Flip open the Chromebook. Doing some serious internet shopping? Flip open the Chromebook.

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There's good reason for this, too. After five years my Chromebook Pixel still boots up instantly. That's not hyperbole, I truly mean instantly. You open the lid and you're good to go. In the time it takes to get my Surface Book going, which is quick anyway, I'm already looking at colour options for window blinds on my Chromebook. 

It's not that the device still works, it's that it shows no signs of wear or age - this really is the Zlatan Ibrahimović of laptops. If Google were to repackage the 2015 Chromebook and sell it as a new 2020 invention, nothing would give away its age apart from the thick display bezels and hazy 720p camera.

The original selling points of the laptop - that it's fast, secure and long-lasting - are as true today as they were when Obama was still President and Twitter was still a fun place to be (RIP fun Twitter). 

I know you're wondering about battery depletion. And yes, it must be true that the lithium ion battery isn't as efficient as it was on day one, but I honestly have not noticed a significant drop in battery life in the same way I do with older smartphones.

My short, intermittent use (apart from press trips, general trips and holidays) of the laptop has probably slowed down the decline of the battery.  I'm still confident about taking my Chromebook out for a day to work remotely without bringing a charger along.

No stress security

This flies in the face of what we understand to be modern consumer technology usage: devices have a shelf life and need to be regularly replaced. As traditional laptops slow down under the weight of increasingly bulky OS updates, or groan under the mass of cumbersome and unused applications, the Chromebook stays agile because the OS is untaxing and its applications are lightweight. 

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For the uninitiated, Chrome OS - the system that powers a Chromebook - is a Linux-based operating system. It's designed to be fast and is essentially the same as the desktop Google Chrome browser. Almost everything goes through the Chrome browser, save for whatever Play Store apps you have installed that aren't browser extensions.   

This is why the device is so quick. It had good specifications when it was released (2.2GHz Intel Core i5-5200U processor and 8GB of RAM) but it was by no means future proofed. The OS is the reason for its longevity. 

It's this stripped down, pared back, approach that also makes Chromebooks safer to use. There are a few reasons for this, from instant and automatic updates to the device checking every time it boots to make sure the system files haven't been tampered with (known as Verified Boot). You can read Android Central's excellent breakdown of how safe Chromebook's are here, but this is an important point. 

"The Linux kernel [that Chrome is based on] is very good at separating individual processes from each other when they are being computed. Chrome leverages this and keeps each and every application and individual tab in the browser inside its own secure sandbox. That means they can't access any other app or the data from any other app directly and have to use the properly secured methods to share anything. 

"This has proven over time (iOS and Android were built on this model) to be one of the best ways to prevent malware from getting a foothold on an account or system and older operating systems like Windows and macOS are in the process of doing the same."

But...

….my Chromebook will no longer be supported with OS and security updates from next June (2021). This isn't uncommon, some Apple devices will be supported for up to eight years and Microsoft laptops will survive until the next Windows release. But those devices are notably slow by the end of their life cycle, whereas my Chromebook is not. 

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It could comfortably go on for a few more years with no noticeable slow down. With a battery replacement it could do many more. So this cut-off date that renders it useless is entirely artificial and arbitrary. It's planned obsolescence at its worst. 

This device also cost $999 when it launched in 2015. In my initial review five years ago I wondered who this was for, or how it could possibly justify such a high price-tag given how limited it is (my exact words were "best Chromebook, worst value"). Five years on and I've answered my own question. The Chromebook Pixel is, plainly, excellent value for money. I was wrong.

Although, the device has clearly improved from those early Chromebook days. Over the years Google has encouraged developers to make apps that work better on Chromebooks. The PlayStore is more organised for Chromebook optimised apps too. 

The Zoom app on Chrome OS is good, as is the Adobe Lightroom app. No you're not doing serious creative work or gaming on a Chromebook - you need a powerful laptop for that (or a hulking, loud desktop in my case) - but you can do virtually anything else and comfortably, too. 

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Years after my 2015 review, I realise now that it's hard to review a new type of device like the Chromebook Pixel. It made no sense at the time, and I'm not even sure Google fully understood how this device would be used or who it was for.

But as it found a space in my cramped living room and forged an initially niche reason to exist - and eventually promoted itself to Most Important Laptop - it all makes sense now. The speed, security and battery life, plus offering the dexterity of a full laptop that a phone or tablet doesn't, makes my Chromebook Pixel an all-rounder in a way nothing else does. 

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