I was wrong: a Pixelbook with Tensor inside never actually made any sense

In my list of articles to eventually write, I’ve left a note about one day crafting a wishful, hopeful post about what my dream Tensor-powered Pixelbook would look like. Time and time again I’d consider writing it, but I’d always stumble on one, key point of the Pixelbook and Google-made Chromebook story that made me feel unsure that it would ever happen.

With Google now full-tilt in the SoC game with Tensor, it wouldn’t make sense for them to build an in-house Chromebook with anything else under the hood. Seriously, can you imagine how awkward it would be for a new Pixelbook with an Intel, Qualcomm or MediaTek chip to launch at this point. It would be weird, right? But, if you look at it with an objective lens, it also wouldn’t make any sense for them to actually build one with Tensor inside, either. Let me explain.

What Google-made Chromebooks were made for

To understand this point, it is first imperative that you understand why Google’s first-party Chromebooks existed in the first place. Along the way, devices like the Chromebook Pixel, Pixelbook and Pixel Slate all showed up at times when the ChromeOS market as a whole needed a bit of a shove in a particular direction.

Early on, the Chromebook Pixels showed manufacturers what a premium Chromebook could look like. The Pixelbook gave Chromebook makers a model of the convertible, pen-toting, slender-built 2-in-1s that we see all the time these days. The Pixel Slate was a showcase for the move to tablet-optimized software for Chromebooks and the Pixelbook Go was a shining example of what fine craftsmanship without every single high-end component thrown in the mix can deliver in a Chromebook.

They all served their purpose and I’d argue that they all accomplished the goals set before them by Google’s ChromeOS team. Granted, in the process they became a bit iconic and desirable, and in a market where Google chooses to partner deeply with OEMs for Chromebook releases, that can easily become problematic. After all, Google isn’t trying to compete in this space like they are in the smartphone world with Pixel. Instead, with Chromebooks, they are trying to lead, innovate, and shine the light to move the market forward.

Tensor is the only hardware change Google could make

So here in 2022, how exactly would Google move the needle with a new Pixelbook? What is left to introduce, change, or re-route? Like smartphones, I think laptops have largely come into their own and we’re now at the point where iteration trumps innovation. Seriously, what would you add to the Chromebook mix at this point from a hardware standpoint? Apart from better versions of existing components, what is left to add or subtract from the equation?

And if we can’t come up with any good answers for those questions, what are we expecting Google to do with a new Pixelbook? If competing with HP, ASUS, Acer, Lenovo, Samsung, and Dell isn’t preferable and there’s nothing new to encourage manufacturers to do, what else could Google do with a new Pixelbook that is different and a large change in this ecosystem?

Tensor. That’s what. Like Apple has done with their in-house M1 and M2 processors in Macbooks, we all looked at one another and thought that it would be a great idea for Google to make a first-party Chromebook with Tensor inside, giving them full vertical integration between hardware, software and the internal SoC. It all makes perfect sense, right? If Google is serious about Tensor and serious about ChromeOS, it really felt like this was the only path forward and we were all extremely excited to see it play out with a brand-new Pixelbook.

An issue with that line of thinking

But there’s a problem with that line of thinking that I’d not considered before this week, and this particular conundrum now has me thinking that unless some things change, we may never see a Tensor-powered Pixelbook.

First, we have to make the assumption that Google has no plans of sharing their in-house SoC with other Chromebook makers. They could choose do so, but with the recent revelation that the upcoming Pixel Tablets are going to be running on the phone version of Tensor (not some new, tablet-only version), the idea of Tensor in everything doesn’t exactly feel realistic right now. We really felt like there’d eventually be a desktop Tensor chip, a watch-sized Tensor chip, a phone-based Tensor chip, and maybe even a smart home Tensor at some point. Right now, that’s just not the case.

Now that we know there’s not a tablet-specific Tensor and the desktop Tensor we thought we’d see in the next Pixelbook is clearly not a thing, either, I’d wager we’ll see Tensor as Pixel-phone-only for a while. I could be wrong on that front, but the evidence is in my favor at this point, and that means instead of an abundance of Tensor all over the place, it might stay in one lane – the Pixel phone lane – for the foreseeable future.

That fact alone makes me that much more confident that Google isn’t preparing to make Tensor a shareable SoC with other manufacturers, and that means Tensor becomes a dividing force, not a unifying one in the Chromebook market.

Google doesn’t want to compete with Chromebook OEMs

If a new Pixelbook emerged with Tensor inside as the main, headlining new feature, that would put Google in direct competition with other OEMs. Imagine it for a second: Google shows up and makes a big hoopla about a new Pixelbook with premium build quality and the first-ever laptop-ready Tensor SoC inside. It is integrated and fast and the best ChromeOS experience yet: and Google’s the only one who can make it.

You see where this is headed, right? That sort of siloed thinking works for companies like Apple that don’t share their hardware or software with other companies, but it’s been a bit of a thorn in the side of OEMs that build laptops running Windows. With Microsoft now making top-shelf hardware of their own, they directly compete with their partnering OEMs and from the sound of it, many of those OEMs are not big fans of this.

At this stage of the Chromebook game, Google has no intention of taking this path. A brilliantly-built Pixelbook that only exists to show off Tensor would be spitting in the face of the same OEMs Google truly considers as partners. In an environment where Google is trying to foster growth and light the way for OEMs to make truly great hardware for their desktop OS, it would make absolutely no sense for Google to step on all those toes with a new Pixelbook just built to tout the Tensor SoC.

Why Pixelbook could eventually return

Does that mean we’ll never, ever see a Pixelbook again? I don’t think so. After all, they’ve just redistributed the Pixelbook team to other places in the organization, so when the time comes for a new Pixelbook, they can just get the gang back together and get to work. It just turns out that time isn’t now, and Tensor isn’t the right reason for a new first-party Google Chromebook to emerge.

Instead, I think the time for the next Pixelbook will come when there’s a need to explore new, untested hardware again. We’re not there at this point, but I could see a future where something like a Pixelbook Fold becomes a thing. Sure, big, folding laptops are in short supply and are priced out of most people’s budgets for the time being, but that won’t be the case forever.

In a few years, a folding laptop like the new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 will be thinner, lighter, and far more reasonably-priced as the tech becomes more standardized. In that future, I could see a Chromebook with this sort of functionality being sought after, and at that point a Pixelbook would be necessary to light the path once again.

But an example like this is a hardware move that all OEMs can replicate. Google highlighted convertible Chromebooks, inking experiences, detaching keyboards, 3:2 displays, glass trackpads, and superb build quality with previous Pixelbook hardware, but those are all hardware properties other OEMs can aspire to and realistically build. A custom, in-house SoC like Tensor isn’t that at all. Instead, it’s anti-competitive, and a very non-Google thing to do in the world of ChromeOS.

So that’s why as much as I wanted to see it, a Pixelbook with Tensor just doesn’t make any sense right now. If Google’s strategy around Chromebooks, OEMs, partnerships, and Pixelbook hardware changes in the future, this discussion will need to be revisited. Like they did after years of the Nexus program, Google could shift to becoming a true player in the Chromebook market. For now, however, they aren’t that, and it’s precisely because of that fact I think a Tensor-powered Pixelbook actually never made any sense at all. It’s a shame, though. It would have been quite excellent, I think.