X
Business

Google's Chromebook Pixel lives on, but you can't buy one

It turns out Google is still making its own high-end Chromebook laptops. It's just not going to sell them to customers.
Written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Senior Contributing Editor

I love my Chromebook Pixel. This 2015 high-end Chromebook is my go-to laptop. And, with its spectacular 2560x1700 IPS, 239-pixels-per-inch display, it still draws admiring glances. Alas, I won't be able to replace it with a next-generation Chromebook Pixel.

Chromebook Pixel

Google will keep making the Rolls-Royce of Chromebooks, the Chromebook Pixel, but you won't be able to buy one.

At the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Rich Osterloh, Google's hardware chief, said Google has "no plans to do one [a 2017 Chromebook Pixel] right now." This did not mean that Google was giving up on Chromebooks. After all, as Osterloch said, Chromebooks have "the No. 2 market share in the US and UK -- but we have no plans for Google-branded laptops."

By 2015, Chromebooks outsold Windows laptops. And the next year, for the first time, they outsold Apple's Macs. Since then, both IDG and Gartner show Chromebook sales increasing, while Apple and Windows-based PCs continued their long decline.

Most of those sales weren't for high-end laptops like the Pixel. They were for lower-end systems for the education market.

It turns out that reports about the death of Google high-end Chromebooks were exaggerated. In a tweet, Osterloh said, "Hey all, Google's own Chromebooks aren't 'dead' as has been reported. They will live on, we just have *no plans to share at this time* ;)."

Well, that's sort of good news. But, come on, Google. Some of us really, really want a top-flight Chromebook!

What about Lenovo, HP, and Dell? If Google won't do it, will they? Some of us will pay top-dollar for a Chromebook with 16GB of RAM, a great screen, and say a 7th-generation Intel Kaby Lake processor. I'm just saying!

Related Stories:

VIDEO: Samsung's new Chromebook Pro hybrid can run a universe of Android apps

Editorial standards