The main appeal of the Chrome-powered notebooks to this point has been their super low price, but Google's brand new touchscreen Chromebook Pixel laptop starts at $1,299, a full $100 more than a 13-inch MacBook Air. The Chromebooks have been praised as a lot of computer for the price — Samsung's model costs $250; the Acer one is $200. That made sense for a computer that operated completely in the cloud, $1,200—even if it comes with a "drop-dead gorgeous" 2,560 by 1,700 resolution touchscreen and 4GB of RAM—does not.
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A tough sell: "It’s a lofty goal, considering that the Chromebook doesn’t have some of the power and graphics capabilities of the MacBook, and only runs Web-based apps, which aren’t as robust as native desktop apps. Factor in the high price, and it might be a tough sell." — AllThingsD
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A tough sell: "It looks like a solid laptop, but it's definitely being sold as a high-end offering. The Wi-Fi-only version will set you back $1,299, and the LTE version $1,499. Chromebooks may have a certain appeal, but it could be a tough sell when they're the same price as more capable laptops from companies like Apple and Toshiba." — NBC News
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A hard sell: "Like we wrote in the beginning, the Chromebook Pixel is clearly a premium laptop, but that's also an incredibly steep price for a device that primarily runs just the web and web applications on a relatively new OS... particularly when it also has a screen with an unfamiliar resolution and aspect ratio that developers will need to target. When you can get a similarly premium laptop that does far more in the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display for $1,499, it could be a hard sell." — The Verge
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It's expensive: "Google just announced its first premium Chromebook, the Chromebook Pixel. It's gorgeous. Unfortunately, it's so expensive that I can't think of a single person who should get one." — The Wirecutter
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WAY TOO EXPENSIVE: "The thing costs $1,300 (or $1,450 plus a data plan if you want LTE), which is a lot of money. It's enough money to buy a solid Windows 8 system or a very nice MacBook Air. It's just $50 short of enough to buy a MacBook Pro that has a similarly retina display. The nice thing about these other options is that they're real computers, as opposed to the Pixel, which is a ripoff." — Gizmodo
Hefty price. — CNET
No value proposition: "Just like Google’s ill-fated Nexus Q, the Chromebook Pixel seems to be a beautiful piece of hardware built with nobody in mind. I can’t imagine any consumer would prefer an expensive laptop with limited capabilities over a shiny new MacBook Air, or buying a cheaper Windows 8 Ultrabook and having money left over for a tablet. There’s no value proposition with the Chromebook Pixel; it’s just a severely limited machine with a baffling — VentureBeat
$1299 for a laptop that only runs chrome. "$1299 for a laptop that only runs Chrome, with janky touchscreen scrolling. Great idea. I bet it outsells the Nexus Q." — Daring Fireball
You get the picture. But, there are some people who might see this as a deal. Google offers a terabyte of cloud storage for 3 years, which The New York Times's Claire Cain Miller pegs as an $1800 value. Google also sells an LTE connected one for $1,499. For you power cloud users out there who this might appeal to the schmancy laptop goes on sale today.
