Chromebook Lunch Impressions

Today I got to play with ChromeOS on a Chromebook Pixel and I really liked it. It is a goofy mixture of desktop Chrome, Android apps, and Progressive web applications (PWAs), but I really like it so far. I’m able to run my work apps for Teams and Outlook in tabs and then use Android apps like Google News, Youtube Music, Todoist’s tablet version, Google Calendar, and Lifesum for inputting my lunch. I really liked using the Twitter and Google Photos progressive web apps because they let me resize things into a single column. The touch response on the trackpad and touchscreen are spot-on and very fast. This product is definitely the inverse of the iPad Pro in the sense that it is a laptop-first, which I think I actually prefer for work purposes. The pen seems responsive, but I’m going to have to play with that more. I do like how Android notifications go into the simple notification pane at the bottom next to the time. Overly, I am really impressed. The hardware does leave a lasting impression, especially with now brilliant the screen is, and the added functionality of the Android apps really help to close some of the gaps left by ChromeOS. I’m looking forward to playing with this more in the future, but this gives me a lot of hope that Google has a real Windows competitor now.