Google Pixelbook Go Review: A Premium Chromebook Experience

As much as we like the Pixelbook Go, it's not without shortcomings. In addition to the limitations inherent in any Chromebook -- even one as beautiful as this -- there are a couple of other caveats to consider with this new Chromebook.

First there's the dearth of biometrics: a fingerprint reader or facial recognition app would have been a welcome addition. Another issue is the lack of expansion: an SD card reader would have been a useful touch, given that many may purchase configurations lacking in local storage. Note, though, that the Pixelbook Go has no trouble at all recognizing and allowing you access to any number of USB peripherals, including external drives, flash drives, and more. This includes CD-ROM or DVD drives, but keep in mind that the latter can be used only for data storage; playing a standard DVD movie is not something that this or any Chromebook can do without jumping through so many hoops that it may not be worth the effort. Finally, for a machine called a "Go," the lack of LTE connectivity stood out to us at time when many laptops are integrating this feature. This may be especially true when you consider a machine like a Chromebook is more or less intended to be used online and connected for much of its web-driven app functionality.

And yet, this new made by Google device still remains a great example of a modern Chromebook. For a fairly large constituency, the Pixel Go is the perfect computer; it's light, thin, secure, and relatively fast for what it does. Chromebooks, and especially the Pixelbook line, have matured a lot over the past couple of years. Not only will the Pixelbook Go run many Android apps but it's also much better these days at multitasking -- and at allowing the user to move and resize app windows, etc. You can even run Linux on the Pixelbook Go, and that means you've opened up a whole new world of applications. If you're a coder, that means you can run various development environments that, until now, were simply unavailable on a Chromebook.

Heavy-duty content creation types, gamers, and graphic artists may not appreciate the Chromebook model and only realize enough performance and capability with Windows or Mac machine. However, much of the mainstream market is not made up of videographers, gamers, or graphic artists, but rather they just consume content, do research, write, edit and communicate vie email or social media, and maybe create or edit an image here or there. The fact is that many users will get by with the simplicity of a Chromebook. If the Chromebook ecosystem as it exists today satisfies your personal requirements, and if you desire a premium Chromebook experience, the Pixelbook Go may be one of the best options on the market right now.