My favorite “unnecessary” Star Trek tech is in the Holodeck.

A Starfleet officer calls out “Arch”, and an archway with a touchscreen appears in the holographic simulation. It’s an utterly silly 1990’s idea of how we’d interact with computers hundreds of years in the future. When you think about Trek Tech, there’s really no need for such an elaborate mechanism to appear. A free-standing touch panel is all you need, but you’re also standing in a holographic environment, so why not make any kind of control surface you’d want out of the same “hard light” hologram magic?

That mini-nerd rant aside, the Pixelbook Go has become our family’s “Arch”. And we love it.

When I originally reviewed the Pixelbook, I wasn’t planning on GLOBAL PANDEMIC being one of the review criteria. In the worst way possible, this has been an incredible opportunity to really drive our review devices. Consumers are leaning on their gadgets harder than ever before, and the Go has been up for most of our family computing challenges.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to both work in industries where we could work from home starting in late February. We’ve been sheltering strictly this whole time. We had to figure out work, play, and homeschooling in a short period of time.

Immediately, the Pixelbook became our daughter’s lifeline to friends and teachers. As we all jumped on Zoom conference calls, our four-year-old participated with group dance classes, online art and math lessons, and her Spanish class.

The Pixelbook shines as a communication tool.

The web cam is decent. The speakers are terrific. The onboard microphone is almost TOO good.

Our feed regularly hijacks group calls when there’s ANY slight noise in our environment. We quickly realized everyone could hear EVERYTHING happening around us. As an audio nerd, I really like that. I don’t feel like I have to YELL at my screen to have a conversation.

There’s also a peace of mind with ChromeOS, as this machine regularly ends up in my daughter’s hands. There’s a running joke in our household where if we look away for just a second, we’ll look back to see her hacking our country’s energy grid. Joking aside, she’s not quite five years old, so inadvertent interactions can do more damage on Windows than on Chrome.

She’s already becoming familiar with touchscreens. She’s still struggling with mice and touchpads. Tablets and touchscreen laptops are more direct interactions, and she seems more empowered using the Pixelbook over a traditional laptop.

She’s already clearly separating different products for different needs. Dad’s tablet is for games and art. The Pixelbook is for everything else.

My Wife and I have largely fallen in line. I use a beastly workstation for video editing. My Wife has a work-issued laptop. The Pixelbook has become the primary “just need a fast web browser” in our home. When we call “arch”, the Pixelbook is ready to go.

The awesome battery life is both a blessing and a curse. We just expect it to be ready when we need it. We’ve opened it up numerous times to find it shutting off for low power. Between all three of us, we get a bit lazy about plugging the laptop in to charge. It’s so good, we take it for granted.

Charging the Pixelbook is one of my pet peeves though.

The Pixelbook is a bit finnicky with what chargers it’ll play nice.

As a reviewer I have a small collection of chargers and portable batteries. Topping off the Pixelbook WHILE using it, the Go only seems to “like” its own charger. I’m sure there are other compatible chargers, but I don’t own any apparently. It’s odd. There really isn’t any reason some other 45W charger shouldn’t work. Even a portable battery, like my laptop grade RavPower PD PowerBank, won’t play nice to use and charge. We have to keep the Google charger on hand.

The other area which hasn’t quite lived up to my hopes for the platform, Android app integration is still somewhat poor. Nearly every app I install will “function”, but performance is often well below a mid-spec Android tablet.

Gaming kind of works, but often at a choppy frame rate. I can fire up a video editing app, and cut up some clips, but rendering usually produces a stutter-y mess.

A lot of us tech nerds have been clamoring for better interoperability between Android and Chrome. We rattle this off like it should be simple to staple them together, even if we know it’s really not that easy. It would seem we still have a ways to go improving support for ARM apps in an X86 environment. With the industry’s move to ARM computers, it’ll likely be easier to make a next gen Pixelbook with an ARM chipset to improve Android app compatibility.  Time will tell.

Because Android app performance lags so far behind a decently specced phone, I might have been inclined to ding the Pixelbook, rank it lower as a potential solution for someone as their primary laptop.

The saving grace for this portable, it has rekindled my interest in Linux.

It was an important section in my main review, and it continues to be a critical factor today.

I truly believe there is a class of computer user who really only needs a browser. There are people like me that require a versatile tool for work and play. There’s a spectrum of folks in between.

Adding Linux application support transforms the Pixelbook into a more capable platform. I genuinely prefer FireFox as a browser, and the Linux flavor runs well on a Pixelbook. Mobile apps don’t quite stack up to full fledged image editing programs, so GIMP is in regular rotation on the Pixelbook. Playing media in VLC. Recording and editing audio in Audacity. I pay for Microsoft Office, but LibreOffice is fantastic.

I can’t quite scratch my itch for a “Do-It-All” performer. The low power hardware wouldn’t be my first pick for video editing, but it might be nice to have a solid option for cutting up a few clips. If anyone has a good Linux solution for that, drop a comment below.

The Pixelbook is more flexible than it first appears. My profile on the machine is very different from my Wife’s. It takes a little set up to get there, but this is a refreshingly more capable platform than the classic, limited, browser-only original idea of ChromeOS. It can be a “proper” computer for people who want that.

That’s what makes the price conversation a little more complicated.

People have an idea of ChromeBooks as ultra-cheap, near disposable, netbook killers. Tech “enthusiasts” have a disastrously poor track record of evolving out of the “low cost” branding on gadgets. Look at commentary on the OnePlus 8 Pro, but I digress…

“Chromebooks were cheap! They should always be cheap! A more expensive Chromebook? Not worth it!”

Techies can be a bit lopsided at assessing pros and cons, then relating that to a price comparable to a machine’s performance.

I think there’s a natural comparison to be made between the Pixelbook Go and a machine like the Surface Laptop. The Surface Laptop 3 is a nicely improved iteration from Microsoft, which finally corrects for oversights like USB-C, basic repair-ability, and features a newer Intel chipset.

It’s now a lot easier to expand the functionality on both ultra-slim notebooks, adding an external display, or a USB hub for ethernet and a memory card reader.

Living with the Core i5 model of the Pixelbook, I still feel it’s in competitive territory. Seeing the Surface Laptop 3 is “on sale” for $130 more than the Go, this is a respectable showdown weighing price, performance, and portability.

Especially for how the Pixelbook feels a bit more like two machines in one.

Windows 10 has made significant strides towards simplified use, and the new Edge Browser is a more accessible portal for those who will only use the Surface in a near stock “out-of-the-box” state. In my opinion, ChromeOS is another step simpler, streamlined, and easier to use. I have fewer concerns giving less experienced computer users a Chromebook.

The Surface is more flexible out of the box. It will support a much wider range of X86 and legacy programs, but after a little tinkering, the Pixelbook isn’t far behind with Linux support.

The worst thing that can happen to any product segment is arriving at a single, clear, indomitable “winner”.

The laptop market of late has been excitingly competitive as different form factors are emerging. We continue to blur the line between traditional notebooks and tablets. I’m always happiest when I can get to the end of a review, a long-term revisit, and still say “there’s no winner”.

Better still, there’s something encouraging about how many products I’ve been testing of late that have been doing a better job of fulfilling a manufacturer’s marketing claims. Before the pandemic, while we were still traveling, the Pixelbook was a fantastic portable companion.

Sheltering in place, I’m glad we have a reliable “Arch”.