The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review
by Brandon Chester on March 16, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Chrome OS
- Chromebook
- Chromebook Pixel
CPU Performance
Chrome OS is extremely lightweight, which makes sense for an operating system that has to run on processors that range from Intel's Core i7 at the high end, to Intel Atom and ARM processors at the low end. Most devices running Chrome OS are closer to that lower end, and that coupled with the web application nature of Chrome OS doesn't make it a large target for benchmark developers. The situation is arguably even worse than mobile benchmarking since the only benchmarks a device can be tested in are web benchmarks, but we have to work with what we have. The new Chromebook Pixel is powered by Intel's Core i5-5200U processor, which is one of Intel's new Broadwell-U parts.
Additional Performance Results | ||||
Acer C720 | Acer CB13 | Toshiba Chromebook 2 | Chromebook Pixel (2015) | |
CrXPRT | 96 | 55 | 61 | 161 |
Spacerocks (WebGL - FPS) | 18 | 30 | 11 | 45 |
The CPU performance of the original Pixel could be described as completely overkill for running Chrome OS, and the same is true for this year's iteration. The Pixel gives you whats is undoubtedly the smoothest and fastest Google Chrome experience available. While I find the performance of an Intel i5 to be unnecessary to do something as simple as run Chrome and web apps, it definitely comes in handy if you're running some other version of Linux overtop of Chrome OS.
WiFi Performance
The 2013 Chromebook Pixel had dual spatial stream 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0. In early 2013, this was fairly common among laptops, although 802.11ac adoption on high end laptops began not long after. The 2015 Chromebook Pixel uses Intel's Intel 7260 WiFi + BT 4.0 module, with 2x2 802.11ac support. This brings the max theoretical WiFi speed up to 866Mbps, a substantial improvement over the 300Mbps max on the 2013 model. Real world performance will almost always be lower than theoretical maximums, and to test WiFi performance I've used iPerf to get an idea of what the maximum throughput is on the Pixel.
In most of our tests I've compared the Pixel to other Chromebooks, tablets, and smartphones. This is mostly due to the previously mentioned benchmarking limitations on Chrome OS. To keep consistent with this, and to avoid making unfair comparisons to laptops which aren't tested using iPerf, I've just run the Pixel through our smartphone/tablet WiFi benchmark. This still gives an idea of how fast the Pixel is, without comparing it to other laptops that were not tested in the exact same manner.
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BrandonVillatuya - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Oh sure the specs aren't the highest specs. But the point IS that it's a chromebook. It gets no viruses, it will outperform anything with the same specs including macbooks when it comes to the web, it has the fastest bootup times of any computer etc. The battery life is also hours better than similar priced macbooks and PCs. You are paying for what you aren't getting. For people who don't do much but surf the web, type documents, or any of the basic functions, it becomes worth the money as a long term investment. On top of that chrome os is growing in functionality at an extremely fast rate. I have a PC laptop, but I don't do heavy photo or video editing. Literally when I don't have WiFi my laptop is just as useless to me as a chromebook.FutureCTO - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
1. USB C? Awesome. Now at $1300 dollar, PLEASE let me USE MY OWN devices for productivity???? ~ Specifically I only need Two Technological Marvel's to Work, products specifically the Optical LG M-Disc media burners, and any Xerox "Solid Snake" Printers.2. Also what Intel I/O port chipset controller is Google 2015 Pixel i7 attached to or using?
3. Am i the only one who finds it stange, that the open source generic drivers of these devices or the LPT print standard are not supported by Chrome OS? Google owns all your work and gets to read and block or delete your every scholastic discovery? I love learning. Quit deleting me findings from my google account !
4. What are Free & Accepted Mason good for? Not enough. National Insecurity & Religious War or G'od.
bwilliams - Sunday, February 28, 2016 - link
How did you manage to run iPerf on your Chromebook? I'd be very interested in this