Skip to main content

Chromebook Pixel

So I bought a Chromebook Pixel - as a Chromebook user I just could not resist this device especially as it comes with a terabyte GDrive.

There are lots of reviews online already - so this is my personal views on the device rather than another analysis of the specs. To consider buying this device you need to be sold on the idea of cloud based working and in particular Google Docs/Apps. I use it with my school Google Apps account and my private Google Account.

I own a Samsung Series 3 ARM based Chromebook - after unboxing it I just logged on and got going. From turning it on to working with all my apps was probably less than a minute (most of that was typing in my WiFi key!). This is what I like about Chromebooks and Google Apps - log on and get going. If I had bought a new Windows machine, I'd still be installing software a couple of hours later. I've got to the point where I like an easy life!


The Hardware

Very solid construction - perhaps a tiny bit heavy.
Keyboard - excellent and variable backlight.
Trackpad - best I've ever used by a long shot.
Touchscreen - very responsive and surprisingly easy to use  with ChromeOS. Some websites make use of the pinch zoom better than others. Maps for example is great - but most don't support any multi-touch yet. Mail does have a touch enabled view which works well.
Screen - beautiful and crisp - probably the best laptop screen I've seen.
Audio - very good for a laptop.
Battery life - around the 5 hours mark - but still testing.

The OS

Came with ChromeOS 23 that upgraded to 25 straight away on the stable channel.
Not much difference to my Samsung - a nice HiDef movie thing to show off the screen - thats the only difference I can see. No sign of Quickoffice yet.
To manage Windows systems I use ChromeRDP which is a great native rdp client that works very well on the Pixel.

For me it is the ultimate laptop at the moment - but I live in the Google eco-system. If you are not then it might not be for you. You might be better off trying a cheaper Chromebook to get the idea. In my experience, the more you use a Chromebook - the less you want to use a PC (and I have a 4.6Ghz Core i7). It simply allows you to do the things you need to do without any of the hassle. The Pixel allows you to do it in style. 

Just an update - the wifi is very good. The ping from Speedtest.net is as good as my PC connected via ethernet. The range of the wifi is also very impressive - especially on a 5Ghz connection. 




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Delete a specific email using GAM

If a user send an inappropriate email to a loads of people or get stung by some sort of email exploit you can quickly delete the email from all of the recipients using a GAM command. Step 1 - get the email header Go into Google Vault and search for the offending user or someone known to have got the message. Click show details and grab the email ID. This will be a long string of characters followed by @mail.gmail.com Step 2 - find out who has the email Go into Google Vault and find the original message sent by the offending user. Look at the details to see who got it. Copy the list and dump it into a spreadsheet. Clean up to just a list of emails with a column header 'mail'. Save as a csv file. Step 3 - delete messages with GAM Put your CSV file in your GAM folder - this e.g. assumes its called mail.csv Run: gam csv mail.csv gam user ~mail delete messages query rfc822msgid: MESSAGEIDHERE doit The alternative nuke option is: gam all users delete messages query rf...
Post a Comment
Read more

Adding subdomains to G Suite

This is how I add subdomains (so basically new schools) to out G suite setup. I've got these steps documented on a scruffy set of notes that I've now got in Keep - so time to document them - for myself as much as anyone else! Steps in order (roughly) Add the new domain Verify the new domain Add MX records to hosting Add SPF record for Google to hosting Turn on email authentication Add DMARC record to hosting Setup custom Directory and restrict students OU to this. Create an admin quarantine for the domain. Configure SPAM setting for the domain. Turn on and off services as appropriate. Map a blank Google Site to the naked domain - if required. Setup some basic groups - allstaff, allusers (for directory) and students with appropriate permissions. Deploy custom wallpapers. So the steps in a bit of detail: Add the new domain & Verify ownership Click on Domains in the admin console: Add/remove domains followed by "add a domain" At this...
Post a Comment
Read more

My favorite GAM commands - well a few of them at least!

Where would be without GAM? Paying for expensive syncing tools or doing tedious manual tasks in the admin console. GAM can automate most things you might want to do in G Suite. So these are a few of my favourite commands - one I use either as part of a batch file - or just standalone. There are loads more - but these are ones that are used daily. Classroom Create a spreadsheet of all your domains classes -  gam print courses todrive Create a spreadsheet of a teacher's classes:  gam print courses teacher fred@mydomain.com todrive Bulk create classes: gam csv classes.csv gam create course alias ~alias name ~alias section ~subject teacher ~teacher status ACTIVE where classes.csv is a list of classes you want to make. Add teachers: gam csv teachers.csv gam course ~alias add teacher ~teacher Add students: gam csv students.csv gam course ~alias add teacher ~student Sync Students (in this example to a group - but could be an ou/csv file) gam csv grou...
Post a Comment
Read more