Having been a man of the desktop my entire life, this brave new world of the laptop, notebook, ultrabook, and now Chromebook is the stuff of mythos and legend,  Where design is more important than function, and portability is more important than power.

It makes me feel like an old man telling stories of “the old days” where we had to carry our heavy steel computers and CRT monitors to LAN parties – and we had to walk uphill, both ways!

But these days I use a Chromebook every day, and I must say, I am rather enjoying the future, and apparently I am not alone.  The Samsung Chromebook has been #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list for laptops every day since it launched 125 days ago in the U.S., and Chromebooks now represent more than 10% of notebook sales at Currys PC World, the largest electronics retailer in the U.K.

But now there’s another Chromebook on the horizon, the Pixel, and it looks more beefy than ever.

“This new device…it’s built to compete with the top end of the market.” said John Casaretto, on this morning’s NewsDesk with Kristin Feledy.  “This one is aimed at power users who fully live in the cloud.”

With the 4.3 Million pixels from which the device gets its name, this beefy Chromebook sports an i5 processor, LTE connection, 1TB of clouded storage, laser tuned glass touchpad and even stereo microphones.

The Chromebook Pixel’s touchscreen is going to be massive and Google touts it as the highest PPI available on the market today, and as Casaretto said, “It’s right up there with the best of the best,” but with all the positive remarks, why are we saying that the Chromebook’s success is a precursor to the Pixel’s failure?

Because money.

Value was the greatest selling point for the Chromebook, but this newer, faster version not only competes with the best of the best, but is also priced like them, too.

Casaretto pinpointed the problem very well, saying “If everything is all about apps, then it’s good for you, but most people play games, they install things, they have messengers.  They haven’t tuned themselves to making that shift yet.”  He added, “for the most part, this is a very elite product.”

So this really leaves us with a question: With the Chromebook Pixel sell once you’ve stripped it of its main selling point of being the inexpensive alternative on the market?  Only time will tell.

See the entire segment with Kristin Feledy and John Casaretto on the Morning NewsDesk Show.

 photo credit: Frances Berriman via photopin cc