The Pixelbook Go is a wheelchair user's best friend

As someone who needs a wheelchair, I can let everyone know a secret — if you have to use one, you'll spend a lot of time sitting down. All jokes aside, there are a lot of things that are no longer easy to do if you substitute wheels for fully-working feet or legs. An interest in tech and a love for tech products, like smartphones or Chromebooks, is not one of them.
Rubber feet aren't much help unless you have your laptop on a table of some sort.
That means I use a lot of them. And so far they all have one thing in common, and it's that the little rubber nubbins on the bottom don't do a lot of good when you're using them on your lap. And I don't mean just cheap laptops here, either. My Pixelbook or my MacBook Pro like to slide around after a bit of time perched on my knees and neither are what you would call cheap. After fidgeting around for 30 minutes or so, it's usually time to find a table or something so I can get this laptop off of my lap because I'm tired of keeping it in place.
Right about now most people are probably thinking I'm crazy. That's OK because chances are your legs work a little better than mine and you can adjust them to keep your laptop from fighting you. It's not that easy for everyone, and finding a design that lessens the problem, even if it happens to be a side-effect, was awesome. And with the Pixelbook Go (opens in new tab), I've found that product.
The ribbed bottom was meant to make things easy to carry. Lapability is a great side-effect.
Like everyone else that wrote about it recently, I've been using my review model for about a week. there are some things I love, some I don't. But the thing I needed and had no idea I needed it, was the ribbed bottom. It was designed to make the Pixelbook Go easier to carry around but a side effect of not being a smooth flat surface with tiny rubber bits at each corner is that it slides around a lot less than any other laptop I've used. Because it's not fighting me about staying in place, I can spend more time using it to do whatever it is I wanted to do with it.
I get the luxury of taking a bit more time before I write up my full impressions of the Pixelbook Go. Daniel Bader worked hard and wrote a great review to give you an idea of what he thinks about it for the first wave of initial product reviews so I get to keep thinking about what I love and what I hate about google's latest Chromebook. What I can say right now is something that isn't going to change no matter how long it takes — I've never used a laptop that is this comfortable and stable on my lap. And when you're in a chair and always have a lap in front of you, that's pretty damn important.
The Pixelbook Go isn't like other laptops when you look underneath. And those ribs make it great for spending more time on your lap.
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Jerry is an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic. There's nothing he can't take apart, but many things he can't reassemble. You'll find him writing and speaking his loud opinion on Android Central and occasionally on Twitter.
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Jerry,
I would assume that the ribs at the bottom would help with any device and the heat it gives off. -
Also - for her pleasure.
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I needed to do this to my MacBook Pro for my Toronto GO train commutes. I purchased a high-grip vinyl skin for the bottom of the laptop only (not top). Most of those decorative vinyl skins are for both top and bottom but some vendors let you buy them for just the bottom. The grip of vinyl is almost like tire rubber — it is surprisingly 10x stronger than the slippery MacBook and also improves lappability. I chose the silver “simulated brushed metal” vinyl which was actually textured and actually improved grip even further, while not dramatically changing the colour of my MacBook bottom. (I think it was a DecalGirl brand) The traction of grippy vinyl suddenly stopped my MacBook from sliding around in my lap, and down my angled legs, during the vibrations of my train ride! The upgradefeel was much more relaxing, almost as comfort-improving like wrangling an easy-to-hold iPad rather than wrangling with a laptop. More laptop makers need to be aware of this lap problem of laptops!
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Thanks Jerry for a great article. The slippery surfaces of laptops, tablets are a problem for me. The grip is not there and I've had to buy non-slippery outer skins to compensate the issue. Iam going to look into Pixel Go.
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Thanks for giving me yet another incentive to upgrade to the Pixelbook Go. My main incentive is still the light weight. Also though, after using the Acer Spin 13 (Intel Core i5 8250U) that I bought for my wife, my old Asus C100PA (Rockchip RK3288) now feels sluggish. Finally, a really decent pair of speakers would be a special treat.
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