Google Pixelbook A laptop-tablet without Windows

Is Chrome where the heart is?

Complain about the hassle and expense involved in owning a car and you can guarantee someone will reply by advising you to get a bike. They mean well, don’t they? But cars and bikes, while both are useful in their own ways, often don’t suit the same purposes.

The same objection springs to mind whenever we see a Chromebook. Why not do away with Windows, with its gigabytes of wasted space and huge overheads in PC processing power? Why not get a laptop equipped with a tiny, lightweight operating system that doesn’t put stress on your hardware while accessing all your work from the ‘cloud’? Well, because most of the software you need requires Windows, that’s why. Chrome OS, which limits you to web browsing plus its own Chrome Apps and a few Android apps, is very different to Windows.

It has a version of Microsoft Office, for example, but for the same Office 365 subscription cost (£59.99 a year) you get fewer features than with the desktop programs. For creative software or games you’d have a wider choice on an Android or IOS device, never mind a PC. And if you need specific programs for work, they’re probably not available.

Most Chromebooks also have very limited storage, because you’re expected to keep everything online, which is problematic if you need to work with large files or without a fast, unlimited internet connection.

It can make sense if you mostly work in a web browser or if you edit basic documents – and that does apply to some users, from schoolkids to web designers. It’s the latter group who are more likely to consider the Pixelbook, which costs more than most Windows 10 laptops.

That might sound as daft as a bike that costs more than a car, but the Pixelbook is exceptional. It’s Google’s test bed for its advanced features, and, with its touchscreen (which supports the £99 Pixelbook Pen stylus), it can run more apps successfully than any other Chromebook.

The 8GB of memory and 128GB of storage is relatively generous, and its Intel Core i5-7y57 processor (what used to be called an m5) is more than adequate for Chrome OS to feel extremely smooth, while lasting eight hours 30 minutes in our video-playback test. The 12in screen is wonderfully sharp and bright, suiting apps like Adobe’s Lightroom CC photo editor (free, or £10 a month for the pro version), and the aluminium chassis is beautifully built, with a solid keyboard.

If you can live without Windows, it’s a smooth operator with a stunning screen