So this isn’t the first time that Google has unveiled a Pixelbook, with the Chromebook earlier launched in 2017. But it came at a pretty hefty price. The tech giant has now announced an altogether more affordable option alongside some other Pixel devices: the Google Pixelbook Go.
Google says that at a cheaper price—US$649 (about RM2,716)—the Pixelbook Go still has a lot of the features that the original Pixelbook has. It has a larger 13.3″ touchscreen, an improved (and affordable) version of the keyboard from the original Pixelbook, and Google promises battery life of up to 12 hours on the Pixelbook Go.
It weighs just over 1 kg with a magnesium build, and if you couple that with the 12 hours of battery life promised, you get where Google is coming from with the naming of their latest Chromebook. And according to them, fast-charging via USB-C (one port on each side of the device) will get you two hours of battery life with just 20 minutes of charging, which is certainly decent.
Google has also designed the Chromebook to be used—as per its name—on the go. It has a “grippable” design, with the bottom of the design featuring a ribbed finish that is still made out of the same material as the rest of the Pixelbook Go.
In essence, the Pixelbook Go is a Chromebook for those of you on a slightly tighter budget, but it still promises quite a bit for what it’s priced at. It has a conventional laptop form-factor (no flippable screens or anything of the sort), and configurations offer up to 16GB of RAM and an Intel Core i7 processor. That’s complemented with up to 256GB of storage and a range-topping 4K “Molecular Display”, which retails for US$1,399 (about RM5,856). Unfortunately, there isn’t a microSD slot so storage isn’t expandable for the Pixelbook Go.
Only the top-spec variant comes with the 4K display, however, with the remaining three all sporting Full HD displays instead. For the base model, you’re looking at an Intel Core m3 processor, 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, while the middle variants have Intel Core i5 processors and a storage option of 128GB paired to either 8GB or 16GB of RAM. As for colours, you’ve got 2 (cutely-named) options to pick from: Just Black and Not Pink.
