20 MAY2020|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE
asource ofirritation withChromebooks.
There’s also aGoogleAssistant keywhere
you’dnormallyfind the Windows or
Command keys on otherlaptops, which is
less of an imposition.
Fortunately,the rest of thelayoutispretttttty
sensible.WiththeUKlayout,yougetanarrooow
butdouble-heightEnterkey.TheShiftkeys
haveadecentwidthtothem,asdothe
BackspaceandTabkeys,andthecursor
clusterisn’ttoocramped.
Thetouchpadworkswell,too.It’sspaciouuus
enoughtoallowyoutoperformmultitouch
gesturescomfortably,andtheclickdoesn’t
feeloverlyheavyorinsubstantial.Note,
however, that sinceit’s mechanical,clicking
doesn’t work at theverytop of the pad.
WHEREANGLES FEARTOTREAD
Theweakestpart of the PixelbookGohas tooo
bethedisplay,althoughit’sgoodenoughforrr
mostuses.It’sa1,920x1,080panelmeasuring
13.3inacrossthediagonal,andit’sperfectly
sharpandreasonablybright.Wemeasured
peak brightness at 369cd/m^2 ;not as high as
the brightest laptops, but it should be good
enough formostindoor situations andeven
some outdoor use in theshade.
It’s colour-accurate, too, andhas avery
high contrast ratioof2,275:1, ensuring
onscreenimageshavereal punchand
presence.Itisn’t without its issues, however.
The firstisthat viewing anglesare
disappointing: tilt thescreen left, right, up
or downand the displaydimsnoticeably
past around 45°.It’s also alittle grainy,and a
touch tooreflective –never agood
combination with middling brightness.
The touchscreen workswell enough forthe
fewtimes you’relikely to want to useit,
clickinglinks, scrolling through webpages and
the like. You’ll likelystick to thekeyboardand
tttooouuuccchhhpppaaaddd,,,bbbuuutttiiittt’sssnnniiiccceeetttooohhhaaavvveeettthhheeeoooppptttiiiooonnn...
Googlehas tuc toth
of 8th-
SSSlllattte,whhhiiichhhseemsllliiikkkeamiiissedddopporrrtttuniiittty
giventhat10th-genprocessorsarenow
available.Still, if the results of ourtestsare
anything to go by,there’s not much need for
moreoomphanyway.
DRAWN OUT
We’ve been happily usingthe Pixelbook Go as
awork laptopwith fewissues. Tens of tabs
openinChrome,with multiple largeGoogle
Sheets spreadsheets running, don’t faze the
Corei5chip at all.Wesuspect the Core m
might struggle abit more when youreally
loaditup, butit’sclear you don’tneed
anything faster than the processor and RAM
supplied withour model.
In Geekbench4,the Pixelbook Go scored
3,595 in the single-coretest and 6,271 in the
multicoretest, so again it has no generational
advantageover the previous Pixelbook (we
tested aCorei7model of thelatter,which
scored 4,020and 7,752respectively).Still,
iiittt’sssaaabbbiiigggsssttteeepppuuupppfffrrrooommmCCCeeellleeerrrooonnn-pppooowwwwweeerrreeeddd
CCChhhrrromebbbookkk 444 ;ttthhheffformerrrmanagedddonllly1 11 ,1 11444111
inthesingle-coretestand1,062inthe
multitaskingtest.Acer’sofferingismuch
cheaper,but the Pixelbook Go shows you
don’t need to scrimp on performance when
buying aChrome OS laptop.
Where thePixelbook Go stretchesout a
lead over all its rivals is battery life.Quite
simply,it’s stunning in this regard.Inour video
rundown test,itlasted14h 15m,which is
nearly five hourslonger thanthe Dell Inspiron
Chromebook14and nearly six hours longer
than the Pixel Slate. Thisreally is alaptop you
can work on all daywithout plugging it in into
the mains, and the fact that you can charge it
via USB Type-C only adds to the convenience.
GO FOR IT
With battery life this good andakeyboard
this usable, there are some very goodreasons
to use thePixelbook Go over even asimilarly
priced Windowslaptop.
Indeed,now that you canrun Androidapps
andddLinuxonChromeOS,therearebecoming
fewwwer reasonsnot to chooseit. Even the
Andddroid Lightroom appworks well,soit’sa
respectable device forimage editing as well as
gennneralbrowsingandwordprocessing.
Thedisplaycouldbebetter,butthatreally
istheonlyseriousmisstep.Allround,it’s
quitttesimplyasuperb machine thatgetsthe
balaaancebetweenusability,looks and
perrrformance spot on.Ifyou’re planning on
buyyyingalaptop this year,you should at least
connnsiderthe Google Pixelbook Go.
JonathanBray
Batterylife
0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100
See page 88 forperformancedetails
PRRROCESSORDual-core 1.3GHz IntelCorei5-8200Y•RAM
8GB•DIMENSIONS311x206x13.4mm•WEIGHT1.06kg•
SCCCREENSIZE13.3in•SCREENRESOLUTION1,920x1,080•
GRRRAPHICSADAPTORIntelUHD Graphics615•TOTAL
STTTORAGE128GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEMChrome OS•
WWWARRANTYOne year RTB•DETAILSstore.google.com•
PAAARTCODEGA00526-UK
SPECIFICATIONS
14h15m
