I’m a Google fan, but there has always been one product that I’ve been hesitant to try: Chrome OS, Google’s desktop operating system that powers all Chromebooks on the market. If you’ve ever heard anything about Chromebooks, chances are that you’ve heard the stereotype that it’s just a “glorified web browser.” I’ve been following Chrome OS for years and I know that there is so much more to it now—Android apps, Linux support, etc. But I never actually ditched Windows and exclusively used a Chromebook as my only laptop—until now.

The Pixelbook

My current Windows laptop, a Dell Inspiron 15R 5520, was old (6 years to be specific) and bulky.

It had a 1TB HDD, 8GB of RAM, a Core i5 processor, a 15-inch 720p display, and terrible battery life (about 2-3 hours tops). But it worked! And it still ran relatively fast despite its aging state. However, going to college in less than a year for a computer science degree finally prompted me to shop for a new laptop. Enter the 512GB NVMe SSD, 16GB of RAM, Core i7 Google Pixelbook. After much research and uncertainty, I finally settled on the maxed out model during Google’s Black Friday deals.

Design and hardware

Before I get to the Chrome OS part, I want to talk about the Pixelbook a little bit. Price aside, this is definitely a very nice premium laptop. The entire frame of the laptop is made out of aluminum and is super thin (0.4 in, and the size of the USB-C cable when open!) and lightweight (2.4 lbs). My only complaint about the design of the Pixelbook (and I understand that this is more personal preference) is that I would have liked if there was also some kind of stealthy black color to choose from. In addition, some form of biometrics such as facial recognition or a fingerprint sensor would have been nice.

The keyboard is phenomenal and the trackpad is one of the best ever in any laptop. The keyboard is far better to type on than the low-travel butterfly keyboards on recent MacBooks, but I still think that the large Force Touch trackpads on the MacBooks are superior due to their size and the fact that the Pixelbook’s trackpad doesn’t physically click down in the upper corners. That being said, though, both are an absolute joy to use.

Display

The screen is fantastic. It’s a 12.3″ 2400×1600 QHD LCD with a glossy panel. It gets reasonably bright and pretty dark as well, but I find the sweet spot to be between 40-70% screen brightness. Moving to a smaller display and different aspect ratio (16:9 to 3:2) definitely took a bit getting used to. However, within no time, I was completely hooked on to it. 3:2 is where it’s at, especially for a Chromebook.

Do I wish it had smaller bezels? Of course. Heck, even my old Dell laptop from 2012 might have had smaller bezels than the Pixelbook (and even those were large still). Fortunately, once you use the Pixelbook extensively, you don’t really notice it that much anymore.

Now, the main gripe I have about the display is the random screen flickering that I experience. But as this is a Chrome OS bug, in fact, I’ll discuss it more in the later sections.

Battery life

Battery life has been pretty solid. However, I definitely don’t get the 10-hours that Google claims, which I presume was tested with the baseline model. On my i7 model, I get around 6-8 hours of use, but this is only after I learned that discharging the battery and letting the device die completely isn’t good for it at all. (On a side note, this would also cause the keys to repeatedly flash for whatever reason when trying to power it on.) Anyhow, I stopped allowing that and pretty soon my battery life got better.

Ports-wise, you get two USB-C ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the Pixelbook. However, the best part is being able to fast charge over USB-C. So if you’re traveling, you can just take a single cable for both your phone and laptop (that is if your phone also uses USB-C). Thank God for no proprietary connectors or fragmented AC chargers.

Performance

It’s great, which is kind of what you would expect. With a relatively light-weight operating system like Chrome OS, this thing is flies through everything. It very occasionally drops frames on some sites or when opening the Overview mode, but it’s not frequent.

You should know, however, that the chipsets on Google’s laptops aren’t “true” Intel Core chips like those found on high-end Windows laptops and PCs. They are Y-series processors which are designed to be fan-less and prioritize battery life. In addition, only the i7 Pixelbook contains an actual SSD while the i5 model uses eMMC storage, even though Google’s site says otherwise.

Chrome OS

Alright, let’s talk about Chrome OS now. Chrome OS is, well, interesting. It runs the web better than any other computer (as it should), but it’s also got support for Android and Linux apps. However, I think that even die-hard Chrome OS fans would agree with me that Chrome OS can be a joy to use most of the time, but unfortunately, sometimes, it can be super frustrating.

Android apps vs. web apps

It’s nice to have the Google Play Store right there on your Chromebook, but from my three months of using Chrome OS, I’ve found that progressive web apps (PWAs) are far more superior than Android apps. Unless the developer has actually optimized their app for Chrome OS, Android apps are still a hit and miss. Sometimes, you’ll find some really great ones, but other times, a PWA is really just a better option.

That said, the coolest Android app on Chrome OS is definitely CrossOver, in my opinion. Essentially, you can full-fledged Windows programs right on your Chromebook. However, it’s still in beta and most of the stuff I tried running, such as Office 365, still lagged quite a bit.

Linux apps

Just a few months ago, Linux beta support was added to the stable channel of Chrome OS. And to be quite honest, this is what makes Chrome OS an extremely viable option for me. Being able to run IDEs and other developer tools right from my Pixelbook is amazing. However, audio, hardware acceleration, peripherals, and other things are still yet to be supported in Linux.

What I like about Chrome OS

Right off the bat, Chrome OS just looks so much cleaner, prettier, colorful than Windows 10, strictly from a visual standpoint. It’s particularly nice to see some of the design consistencies between Chrome OS and Android.

I love having the Google Assistant just a tap away on my device to control all of my home’s smart devices. Moreso, I just love the speed, simplicity, and security of Chrome OS. For the most part, everything is quick, snappy, and smooth. Especially, updates! Gone are the days of wondering when in the world your laptop will finish updating. Chrome OS updates are done in less than 30 seconds.

To be quite honest, though, I think the best part of Chrome OS is its multi-operating system environment: Android, Linux, and Chrome (possibly even Windows too in the future with dual-booting).

What I miss about Windows

Stability is probably what I miss the most, but I’ll save this for the next section.

I also miss Paint 3D for whatever reason. I still can’t find a simple, easy, and light-weight image editor on Chrome OS to just quickly edit a photo or add some shapes. The closest I’ve found is PaintZ, but even then, it still lacks in features and ease of use compared to Paint 3D.

I’m not much of a gamer, so not having PC games wasn’t so much of an issue to switch. Not having the desktop Office programs does suck a bit for the few times I used them for documents like a resume and such. Google Docs is great but not the greatest for formatting, and, as I said before, CrossOver still lags considerably. There are the Office Android apps, but they still feel and look weird to use on a Chromebook. Hopefully, Microsoft can improve on Office for the web or even bring Office to Linux!

What I dislike about Chrome OS: The bugs

Bear with me here, as this section will be a bit lengthy. The majority of these will be bugs, unfortunately.

Time remaining indicator

In my three month time of using Chrome OS, I’ve found that the time remaining indicator for the battery to be super unreliable. Supposedly, it changes based on what you’re doing currently on the device, but it fluctuates so much that it’s never accurate for me. Fortunately, most of the time, it undershoots the time remaining and my Pixelbook usually lasts longer than what’s indicated.

Mouse scrolling settings

I have a Bluetooth Microsoft Surface Mobile Mouse paired with my Pixelbook. (Side note: Sometimes, I don’t even find myself using my mouse because the trackpad is so good.) Connectivity wise, though, I haven’t had any issues with the mouse. My problem is with its scroll wheel speed/acceleration. I find its scrolling to be a bit too fast for my taste, and while Chrome OS lets you adjust the mouse cursor speed, there aren’t any options to adjust the mouse scrolling speed.

Earlier on in my testing, I recall reading on a Google Product Forum thread (which I can’t seem to find again anymore) that Chrome OS engineers acknowledged this feature, but turned it down stating something along the lines that it would be too complex for the end user. Bummer.

Printing

The best way to print on a Chromebook is to get a printer that supports Google Cloud Print. This ensures you get the best experience printing on Chrome OS. However, if you don’t own one, you can still add a classic printer, but you’re limited to whatever printers Google has drivers for. My Dell printer wasn’t listed and while there’s an option to manually upload your drivers, Chrome OS wouldn’t recognize them. I was stuck choosing a Dell printer that was similar to the one I owned, and, fortunately, it worked for the most part.

However, a couple of things don’t work at all: my printer still prints in color despite me checking the option for black & white and double-sided printing doesn’t register.

Laptop to tablet mode

This bug I experienced within Day-1 of owning my device, and, at first, I feared that I had gotten a defective unit. Essentially, folding the Pixelbook into tablet mode and vice-versa would not switch the UI automatically. Sometimes, it would even take a few seconds to transition. Well, it turns out that if you have a Bluetooth mouse paired to your Chromebook, there’s a bug in which your mouse “breaks” the switch in modes. A quick workaround to this is to disable Bluetooth or disconnect the connection with your mouse.

Screen flickering and tearing

Occasionally, on my Pixelbook, I get some spontaneous screen flickering. It happens the most on dark websites or Incognito mode. For example, while watching a YouTube video and opening the quick settings menu, the screen will sometimes lighten/glow up. The same happens when typing in the Omnibox in the Incognito new tab screen.

On Reddit, there are times where I’ll get some visible screen tearing and my background or a black box appears through the content very briefly.

These seem to have been bugs since the release of the Pixelbook, so it’s quite mind-boggling that they’re still not addressed.

Incognito crashing

This was a weird bug which took me quite some time to resolve. Almost every time after using Incognito mode and closing it a few moments later, the entire OS would crash and respring. It turns out, this was actually an issue caused by extensions. If you have any extensions enabled in Incognito mode (in my case, an AdBlock extension), there’s a Chrome OS bug in which the entire OS crashes upon exiting Incognito mode.

Dropped frames with Night Light

And lastly, there’s a Night Light bug. I have Night Light set to automatically enable at 8 PM, and every time it reaches 8 PM and automatically turns on, Chrome OS drops so many frames and my mouse or video lags and stutters for the first 20 seconds or so. Afterward, it’s perfectly fine and even manually enabling Night Light from quick settings doesn’t reproduce it. The lag only occurs right when it automatically turns on.

Conclusion

The bugs on Chrome OS probably irritate me the most, and I really hope Google spends some more time on refining the operating system rather than rushing all these new features out. Notably, tablet mode still needs some work. Dare I say, I feel like I ran into fewer bugs with my old Windows laptop.

But despite all this, I’m sticking with Chrome OS. It’s no longer an operating system where you can’t get work done on, and regardless, PWAs just might be the future. Even gaming could come to the web.

As I wrap up this piece, though, news broke that Google is allegedly downsizing its in-house laptop and tablet division (alternate source). If true, it’s definitely a little concerning for someone who just entered the Chrome OS ecosystem recently. While Chromebooks from other manufacturers will for sure continue to be released, if Google is calling it quits on laptops, it is a bit of a bummer as Google’s Chromebooks are generally the best ones out there. Fortunately, the current Pixelbook is guaranteed updates until at least June of 2024.

Coming from Windows and moving to Chrome OS, you quickly discover the plethora of alternatives to the programs that you use. For example, Photopea and Gimp (through Linux) are great alternatives to Photoshop.

Another nice thing about Chrome OS is that it’s one of the most secure operating systems out there. Everything is sandboxed between Chrome, Android, and Linux, which makes getting a virus much harder compared to Windows.

Chrome OS isn’t too complex for the average Joe, but it’s still feature-packed enough for the power user, which makes it extremely cool. Google is constantly adding new features to it to make it more powerful, and that makes ditching a Windows laptop that much easier. One day, everything we do will be able to be done on the web, and Chromebooks are the perfect vision for that. In the meantime, though, I’m looking forward to using a Pixelbook for college and studying computer science with it.