Good screen and speakers
Fiddly keyboard folio; uninspired design; buggy software; laggy performance
Chrome OS is seven years old. Let that sink in for a moment. Its not new anymore. Its not a cute experiment. Its shipped in millions of products. Its used in tens of thousands of schools and businesses. But, judging by the Pixel Slate, its still an incomplete hodge-podge of neat ideas and square pegs. Worse still, in the Pixel Slate, its married to a tablet that combines all the worst parts of the Surface Pro and the iPad Pro. Squint really hard and you can see glimpses of potential, but thats not enough anymore.
Minimum viable design
The Pixel Slate is Googles answer to the Surface Pro and iPad Pro a hybrid computing device that blurs the lines between tablet, computer and mobile phone. It has an attractive high-resolution 12.3in display, an optional keyboard folio [£189] thats not really optional and phone-like features such as USB-C fast charging and cameras. Theres a fingerprint scanner built into the power button, support for the Pixelbook Pen and the spec sheet is full of impressive sounding things like a Molecular Display and stereo speakers which are algorithmically tuned to perfection. On paper, its a winner.
The reality is less impressive. Chunky bezels make the Pixel Slate look dated. Indeed, it looks like Google took last years Pixel 2 XL smartphone and hit the enlarge button on a photocopier. Yes, its slim and light, but the version tested will cost £969 before you add the essential keyboard folio. The screen is very good and those algorithmically tuned speakers are impressively detailed and rich, but this is the bare minimum expected of a £1,000 gadget these days. For all its clever sound bites, the Pixel Slate isnt exciting.
The keyboard folio is equally disappointing. To its credit, the odd-looking round keys are rather good. You can type all day and not miss a beat, and the large trackpad is fine, too. But the folio is heavy and hard to use. A flapping bit of fabric is all that holds the tablet steady when its on your lap, so it over balances. The Surface Pro isnt easy to use on your lap, but it does work.
Magnets let you adjust the screen angle in laptop and tablet modes and this works well, but switching modes is a faff of confusing folding and flipping that frequently results in the tablet falling out. The keyboard and tablet weigh 1.2kg combined, a sizeable 118g more than the Surface Pro with its keyboard and only marginally less than the new MacBook Air. The whole thing feels bulky and clumsy.
The Pixel Slate isnt without neat design touches, but it feels underdeveloped. It's hard to tolerate when the likes of the Surface Pro and iPad Pro are so refined and mature.
Software under construction
Its a similar story for Chrome OS. It has many strengths, especially if you do all your work in a browser, but the Pixel Slate exposes its flaws.
Unlike the iPad Pro, its easy to plug into a 4K monitor at your desk and use the Pixel Slate like you would a normal laptop. In this way, Chrome OS is somewhere between the upscaled mobile experience of iOS and the full-fat Windows ecosystem. You get the benefit of good security and the lack of bloatware, and you get a desktop class web browser for serious work. More or less anything plugged into the USB-C ports works as expected a common complaint against the iPad Pro and Chrome OS has basics such as a file explorer that make using it as a computer more bearable. There are numerous well-documented edge cases [theres no still no Photoshop web app] where Chrome OS falls short, but if you live entirely in the browser then its a decent experience.
Things get messy when you delve into the world of Android apps, which run on Chrome OS with varying degrees of success. When they work reliably, downloading and using Android apps on the Pixel Slate adds a new dimension, but youll quickly learn theyre more trouble than theyre worth. If theres a half-decent web app, youre always better off using it instead.
Spotify is a case in point. Like many Android apps, it opens in a phone-sized window on the desktop. This is fine most of the time and you can still use the app in a larger window, but performance is choppy. Playback often stutters, creating annoying distortions when listening over Bluetooth [theres no headphone jack]. The Slack messaging app, which is actually optimised for large screens, was equally sluggish. Altos Odyssey, a game that wouldnt trouble an entry-level Android phone, was unplayably slow at times. Some apps, like Netflix, work fine, but youre rarely far away from a deal-breaking bug or annoyance. Theres no section of the Google Play Store for apps certified to work on Chrome OS, so its a frustrating suck-it-and-see experience.
Sub-par performance
General performance is a mixed bag, too. On the Intel Core i5 version tested, the Pixel Slate handles 10 to 20 Chrome tabs with little difficulty. But you do see odd slowdowns where menu animations drop frames and theres a general lack of fluidity compared to a good Android phone or an iPad. Given these problems occur on an Intel Core i5 version with 8GB of memory, the cheaper versions running Celeron and Core M processors look like a bad idea.
Things degrade further when in tablet mode, where performance is noticeably poorer. All apps open in full screen by default, but not all Android apps support landscape mode, so will automatically force you into portrait and sometimes crash while doing it. These apps look odd blown up on the huge 12.3in screen. The touch-friendly elements introduced to Chrome OS are fine. Its easy, for example, to snap windows side-by-side, but its a barebones experience.
Much the same can be said of the Pixelbook Pen. Many of its functions, like capturing screenshots, acting as a laser pointer for presentations and invoking Google Assistant to identify what youre looking at, could be done with your finger. The note-taking, which is advertised as having "virtually no lag", is fine most of the time, but isnt immune to the Pixel Slates spotty performance. Unlike the keyboard, its by no means an essential addition unless you really want to make handwritten notes, and both the iPad Pro and Surface Pro do this better.