Video shows touchscreen Chromebook Pixel, supposedly developed by Google

Chromebooks haven't been known for their extravagance and are known for their relatively low prices. However, we now have a video of a high-end, Google-designed Chromebook with a touchscreen. Dubbed the Chromebook Pixel, the laptop looks like it has a screen that’s better than most other Chromebooks.

The video doesn't offer much in the way of specifics, but it does mention that the display has 4 million pixels. According to TechCrunch, this could mean that the screen will have a resolution of 2560 x 1700 pixels. Take a look:



This video corroborates an earlier rumour about Google working on its own touchscreen Chromebook. Google was said to have assigned the manufacturing of its Chromebooks to China-based ODM, Compal.

Google may be taking a page out of Apple's book by designing its own hardware. This was also done by Microsoft when it manufactured its Surface tablets. By manufacturing their own products, companies retain profit margins and have complete control over how a product will look and function. This move by Google may help it compete directly with the likes of Apple, which already manufactures its own notebooks and desktops.

Chromebooks run on Google's Chrome OS and are usually on the lower end of the specifications aspect. The Chromebook market has been more-or-less dominated by Samsung's offerings, with other OEMs seeing only moderate success. HP seems to be testing the waters of the Chromebook market and some details of the HP Pavilion 14 were revealed through a leak on its own website. This would be the first time that the company has made a computer running on Chrome OS, but it has priced it in the same range as some of its Windows laptops.

The Chromebook is on sale on the company's US site for $330. That's only $19 less than the HP 200oZ 2C00 model, which comes with Windows 8. Compared to its rivals, the Samsung Chromebook (costing $249) and the Acer C7 (costing $199 and $299 depending on the variants), the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebooks seems pretty high-end.

But that’s not really the case, as for all that extra money, it offers lukewarm specs. With a 1.1GHz Intel Celeron 847 CPU and 2GB of RAM, it should perform a bit better than the Samsung model, which is powered by a lower-voltage ARM processor. But that Celeron processor is definitely not going to be blazing. Intel HD Graphics should be sufficient for some browsing tasks, but will be strained by HD videos and games.

Like most other Chromebooks, this one has 16GB of built-in flash storage and a 14-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit display with a 1366 x 768 resolution. Users also get 100GB of Google Drive space (free for the first two years) or can use USB sticks or external drives for storage.