Pixelbook Go? More like Pixelbook Gone
Google’s own Chromebook offerings have always been somewhat aspirational, featuring high-end design and pricey components powered by an operating system that, while increasingly fully featured, can’t capitalize on raw horsepower the way a Windows machine might be able to. That approach, it seems, has caught up to Google, as a new report from The Verge explains that not only has an in-development Pixelbook device been canceled, but that the company is seemingly finished making laptops for the foreseeable future.
Citing an unnamed source with inside information, The Verge says the (now canceled) upcoming Pixelbook was well into development, but that the project was shelved amid wider cost-cutting at Google. The team that was responsible for building the laptop has reportedly been reassigned to other projects within the company. When reached for comment by The Verge, Google declined, saying it “doesn’t share future product plans.”
The Pixelbook lineage can be traced back nearly a decade to the Chromebook Pixel, released in 2013 (as the first Google hardware to bear the Pixel name). It featured an Intel Core i5 CPU paired with four gigs of RAM and 32 gigabytes of storage. The first proper Pixelbook, a striking, slim convertible, came in 2017. While it had its share of ardent supporters, its four-figure price tag and lackluster tablet experience held it back. The following year, the tablet-first Pixel Slate arrived to almost universally cold reception.
The $649 Pixelbook Go, Google’s attempt at a more traditional laptop, arrived in the fall of 2019 — and like its predecessors, was largely seen as a handsome but impractical alternative to many similarly equipped laptops available at the time. It turns out that laptop was potentially the last Google would ever make.
Last year, Google’s Retail Partner Manager for Chromebooks Chrys Tsolaki confirmed that no new Pixelbook hardware would arrive in 2022, adding that he was unsure beyond that point.
With form factors that shifted wildly from generation to generation and a high premium placed on form over function, it’s not entirely surprising the Pixelbook line has been abandoned. Still, this doesn’t necessarily spell doom for Google-built Chromebooks for all time. The company infamously swore off building its own tablets after the spectacular failure of the Pixel Slate, and now, three years later, we’ve got official confirmation that we’re getting a Pixel-branded tablet powered by a Tensor CPU sometime in the future.
