Google Pixelbook Go 13.3" Chromebook - Intel Core i7, 256GB SSD + 16GB RAM - Just Black

Product Information

This is a gorgeous laptop. It’s slim, light, very nicely put together, and it has a big, bright 13.3in screen. With a comfy keyboard and large touchpad it’s a great all-round machine. And it houses, not an Intel Celeron as so many of its Chromebook brethren do, but a full-fat Intel Core i5 CPU. This is a proper laptop, in other words, albeit one that runs ChromeOS. The battery is where you’ll see a huge difference here. The Pixelbook has a 41WHr battery that promises up to 10 hours. The Pixelbook Go has either a 47WHr (FHD) or 56WHr (4K) battery, both promising up to 12 hours. Just in Google’s claims alone, the Go has a two-hour lead.

In real-world numbers, the Go has one of the best battery life endurances we’ve ever tested on a Chromebook. It lasted over 13 hours in both our web browsing and video loops tests. We saw good performance in the Pixelbook battery too, but the Go was our clear winner in this scenario. The Pixelbook Go is no Pixelbook 2 The Pixelbook Go not only sports a keyboard with comfortably spaced keys, but also top-firing speakers. Sure, they’re a bit small and, as a result, somewhat tinny in the high-end, but these speakers beat the vast majority of laptops of this size, normally found with bottom-firing speakers. Now, let’s discuss what you’ll spend your entire time staring at: the display. Short of the highest-end configuration, the Pixelbook Go utilizes a 1080p touchscreen, which we find to display colors with the vibrancy and accuracy we expect from laptops within the high-end price range. However, we do wish that Chrome OS could render at native resolution without scaling – the most legible scaling produces an effective 1,600 x 900 resolution, cheapening the impact of its 1080p standing somewhat. Emitting up to 421 nits, the Pixelbook offers tremendous brightness, which enables strong colors at up to 75 degrees to the left and right. That beats the 290-nit category average, the 284-nit Yoga 920, the 376-nit Samsung Chromebook Pro and the 292-nit Asus Chromebook Flip C302CA. The iPad Pro (555 nits) shines even brighter.The Pixelbook earned a score of 145 on the JetStream JavaScript benchmark, which measures the performance of web apps. That's above the 126.6 from the Samsung Chromebook Pro (Core m3-6Y30, 4GB of RAM) and the 127.32 from the Asus Chromebook Flip C302CA (Core m3 6Y30, 4GB of RAM). We saw a higher mark from the Yoga 920 (277.9). Despite this solid build quality, the Pixelbook Go is featherlight. It weighs 2.3 pounds and measures 0.5 by 8.1 by 12.2 inches (HWD), extremely competitive dimensions for an ultraportable with a 13.3-inch display. Compare them with those of the MacBook Air (0.6 by 8.4 by 12 inches, 2.75 pounds) and the Pixelbook (0.4 by 11.4 by 8.7 inches, 2.46 pounds).

The Pixelbook Pen works beautifully as a stylus, offering plenty of pressure response as well as tilt support, which makes drawing on the display a pleasure. The display’s snappy response helps the digital ink follow close enough behind the pen that any delay is indiscernible. In addition to the weight-saving glass construction, part of the reason for the Pixelbook Go's light weight is that it doesn't need a lot of room to cool powerful, heat-generating components. My review unit is equipped with an Intel Core i5-8200Y CPU, a dual-core processor that consumes just 7 watts of power, compared to the 15-watt CPUs common in today's thin laptops. The base model is equipped with a Core m3 CPU, while the top configuration boasts an Intel Core i7. Other component options include either 8GB or 16GB of memory, and 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB of solid-state storage. Add “Go”, “Lite” or “LE” to a product’s name and the immediate assumption would be that it’s had its function or appearance curtailed in some way. That’s why I was surprised that Google chose to go with the Pixelbook Go as the name for its latest flagship Chromebook. I’ve been working on the laptop for nearly a week now with no issues at all. Tens of tabs open in Chrome, with multiple large Google Sheets spreadsheets running, don’t seem to faze the Pixelbook Go at all. I suspect the Core m3 might struggle a bit more when you really load it up but it’s clear you don’t need anything faster than the Intel Core i5-8200Y or any more RAM than the 8GB supplied with the review device.

The Pixelbook earns the ‘pixel’ when it comes to the 3:2 display. At 235 ppi with accurate color reproduction, the Pixelbook display rivals some of the best around, Chromebook or otherwise. It’s in the same class as the 227 ppi 13-inch MacBook Pro and the 267 ppi Surface Pro 6. In both cases, however, we tend to find that Intel Core processors feel zippier, maybe even overkill, for basic Chrome OS functions. It’s when you dive into the Android and Linux aspects that you may feel the pinch of these “Y” chips. Chromebooks aren’t meant to run AutoCAD or Destiny 2, but you should see good performance using web applications and non-graphics-heavy Android apps. Portability This will be an incredibly useful tool for students, particularly, but users in general will benefit.