The Chromebook Pixel Review
by Jason Inofuentes on May 31, 2013 8:00 AM ESTBattery Life
Like our performance tests, our battery test borrows more from our tablet reviews than it does our notebook reviews. The inability to run any native software here limits us to... well, to the browser. So, we start with our web browsing test. The idea is straightforward, we’re cycling through four websites, disabling any background services that might interrupt the process and setting the display to our customary 200 nits. This test is designed to challenge ARM cores, giving them just enough time to render a page and go back to sleep before asking for the next page. This isn’t as challenging for Ivy Bridge silicon, which is able to complete the render and rush to sleep much faster, which we know can yield better average power consumption and better battery life. The other factor that affects battery life in this scenario is that display. With over 4 million pixels to light up, the panel is going to chew through power a lot faster than something less dense. Only one way to found out how it goes, though.
The Pixel ends up eking out 6.5 hours on WiFi, besting the Surface Pro by a bit, but it’s much more a wash, the larger battery’s added capacity is exhausted by the more power hungry screen. On LTE the Pixel puts up 4.08 hours of stamina; enough for a few hours at a cafe, but not an all day untethered session.
Our video test loops a 720p video encoded with H.264 with an average bit rate of 4 Mbps with the screen once again set at our traditional 200 nits. Running this test on a Chromebook is a little different than any other platform. The video player does exist somewhat outside the browser, but the software is written in HTML5. Hardware accelerated decode of H.264 content is a staple of Chrome and HTML5, though. Right?
This is really awful, and surprising performance. The best explanation we can muster is that an issue in the video player is preventing this file from utilizing hardware decode resources. In that case, decoding and then scaling the video to match the display might tax the system enough to cause this sort of poor performance. If that's the case then an update could drastically impove this score; until then, though, the Pixel does not make for a good media companion on the road.
Ultimately, what we’re really seeing in these charts, is that the rush to sleep advantage Ivy Bridge has over ARM is not enough to overcome ARM’s power envelope. The Pixel’s silicon is a 17W part. Even the most power hungry ARM SoCs in this table clock in below 5W. That’s a deficit that’s going to be hard to overcome... for now. There’s a very real reason to suggest caution in buying anything with Ivy Bridge right now, Anand made the same case in his Surface Pro review. A Haswell alternative in the future should exhibit better battery life, with equivalent performance. There’s also the Atom refresh (Silvermont) to consider; a quad-core Baytrail part could provide plenty of performance while drawing a lot less power than the Ivy Bridge part we’re using today.
Is the Pixel going to let you sit in the park all day, working on the great American novel? No, it won’t. Heck, it might not get you through a longish movie during a flight. If untethered stamina is a prime concern, look elsewhere than really any of the Chromebooks. If you’re near an outlet most of the time, this performance just isn’t great. When you design a thin, modern notebook, you have to make compromises, and in this case, battery life was one of them.
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jeffkibuule - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
There aren't any slower, cheaper ULV chips.Guspaz - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
There are definitely slower ULV chips. Some of the i3 ULV chips are slower, and one is lower power. They're not any cheaper, though; they are all the same price or more than the $225 i5-3337U.Flying Goat - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
I think they should have increased the RAM to 8GB...And increased the price by $25. At its price, $25 isn't going to make a huge difference, but the extra RAM will.robco - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
I would guess that they chose to keep the RAM low because currently Chrome is 32-bit. It can't make use of more than 2GB of RAM anyway. Chrome is 32-bit because most web plug-ins are 32-bit - like Flash. I would imagine that Google would love to drop Flash support in the near future, but for now, there are plenty of sites that still rely on it.zogus - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
Chrome attaches a separate 32 bit process to each tab, so each tab is limited to 2GB of RAM, but the application as a whole can use a lot more than that.csxcsx - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
what is there to rave about an OS that updates often? linux does this, updates roll around very often, it is free and nobody raves about it. if you need a GUI, just use ubuntu or something. also it can be installed on most machines and can be ran pretty well on older hardwarelmcd - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
This is basically a Linux distro with constant updates but no supported apps except a browser. And, well, there's never dependency conflicts, no malicious app sources (affecting the kernel, anyway), and a lot less bloat.jigglywiggly - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
wonderfulbeautiful laptop ruined by chrome os, low memory, and bad battery life
Calinou__ - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
Low memory isn't a problem, this laptop is mostly intended for web browsing.Chrome OS? Fun fact: you can install Linux.
makerofthegames - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
I was thinking just that - if this were less expensive, it would make a great Linux machine. I'd buy it at maybe $1000 or so, but not at $1500.