The on-again, off-again sale on Google’s Pixelbook is on-again. Through September 3, you can purchase the base Pixelbook directly from the Google Store for $749, which is a $250 discount off the standard retail price. Note that the base model uses eMMC storage, which is slower than a traditional SSD drive; if you want SSD you have to purchase the highest price model, which is not discounted.
Students can also save an additional 10% through the Google Store thanks to a partnership with Student Beans: You’ll have to click this link to qualify and the discount is only for a direct purchase through Google. Update: The student discount is not stackable with this offer – Thanks for the info, Mark!)
Other retailers, such as Best Buy, also provide student discounts, so shop around for the best pricing and discount.
I’m often asked if the base Pixelbook is “good enough” or it makes sense to upgrade. That depends entirely on your budget and how you plan to use the device.
I bought the base model and it handles everything I throw at it, ranging from browsing dozens of tabs simultaneously, running a few Android apps and even using Integrated Development Environments when coding in Java and Python. The latter activity is done through Project Crostini, which supports full Linux desktop apps on Chromebooks.
The Core i5 processor in the base Pixelbook paired with 8 GB of memory and 128 GB of storage is more than enough to handle those activities. Of course, I rely heavily on cloud storage for most of my data: I still have nearly 90 GB free on Pixelbook as a result. If you prefer local storage, the next model up will double the capacity, however that model isn’t currently discounted through Google.
Keep in mind that a new Pixelbook is very likely to appear within the next few months as Google is rumored to have a hardware event in early October. The Pixelbook 2, as I’m calling it for now, will likely have newer Intel processors and a detachable screen — possibly with 4K resolution — so if you can wait a little while, it might make sense to do so.
7 Comments
I personally would not pay $749 for a laptop computer that comes with eMMC storage. That includes the Google Pixelbook and upcoming Acer Chromebook Spin 13. Windows laptops with advanced PCIe NVMe storage are currently selling for as little as $599.99:
https://store.hp.com/us/en/ConfigureView?catalogId=10051&langId=-1&storeId=10151&urlLangId=&catEntryId=3074457345618816826&quantity=1&color=Natural+Silver
Well, yes it would be great if there were more NVMe equipped Chromebooks. But the comparison you make isn’t realistic. The low end Pixelbook processor and screen are far superior to the components specced for the more basic Windows computer linked to. So, the suggestion that the Windows laptop offers better value doesn’t really hold.
I am not saying your choices are not valid, but I would argue that they’re rather niche.
why would you have a 1366 x 768 screen and worry about the SSD?
Just out of curiosity, I specced up a machine with a 1080 screen and the NVMe storage, which came to $669. And if I’m getting a 1080 screen, I’d probably not want to run it on a pentium level chip, so I changed that to the base Core i3. That brings the price up to $789. I also changed the WLAN to a 2.2 AC chip, and so now you’re looking at a cost of $809 which kind of brings it into parity (the Windows machine has more and faster storage), and I didn’t bother with a backlit keyboard. You also lost the 3:2 aspect ratio which you may or may not want, and you definitely lose the battery time.
It’s a lot to pay for NVMe to have a similar machine which has an OS that arguably takes better advantage of the faster RAM and you still end up with Windows.
As a quick FYI, the Student discount is not stackable with the $250 discount. If you go the student route you get 10% off the $999 price.
Ugh, that’s a bummer. I’ll update the article to reflect that. Thanks, Mark!
Best Buy has the Pixelbook on sale for $749 and you can stack a 10% student savings discount on top of it.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/google-pixelbook-12-3-touchscreen-chromebook-intel-core-i5-8gb-memory-128gb-solid-state-drive-silver/6131501.p?skuId=6131501
You sure can, and a friendly best buy employee kindly “enrolled” me as a “student” before I made my way back home to Australia making me one of the few Pixelbook owners in the country!!