If you had plans to purchase one of the beautiful Pixel Chromebooks Google released in 2013 and 2015, then you’re probably out of luck according to Rick Osterloh, Google’s head of hardware.
In a meeting at Mobile World Congress, Mr Osterloh told the assembled journalists that Google has ‘no plans to do one right now’. This doesn’t mean Google is pulling away from laptops though, not by a longshot, just that they won’t be doing more Pixel branded Chromebooks.
The Chromebook Pixel sold out both runs in 2013 and 2015, but only sold in limited markets – basically in the US and the UK where they sit as the number 2 in laptop market share. They were beautiful machines, but prohibitively expensive for what most saw as a fairly limited device.
Functionally Chrome OS has come ahead in leaps and bounds with the inclusion of Android apps, but so to have Chromebooks themselves with convertible devices like the Samsung Chromebook Pro and Plus hitting the market now. It’s these devices that are coming which shows Google that device manufacturers are warming to Chromebooks in their range.
We’ve got limited access to Chromebooks here in Australia, but hopefully with a growing market in education we may see them return to retail stores in the near future.
The Pixel Chromebooks are lovely, and you can actually find them for a decent price second hand on-line, if you can grab a 2015 Pixel with Android app support it’s a good investment if you’re after a Chromebook.
