Google’s senior VP for hardware Rick Osterloh told journalists at Mobile World Congress 2017 that the Chrome OS-powered Pixel laptops have officially been discontinued.
Osterloh said that Google has “no plans to do one right now” when asked if they are planning to make more Pixel laptops, according to TechCrunch. Google’s own laptop line has ended after just two iterations.
Google announced the first Chromebook Pixel laptop back in 2013, and followed it up with an upgraded version in 2015. The brand was Google’s way of showing manufacturers what a premium Chromebook is supposed to look like.
The original Chromebook Pixel from 2013. Photo: Google
The executive also added that they’ve already sold out all of its current Pixel laptops, and that they also have no plans of producing or selling more of those either. Going through the online Google Store, it can be clearly seen that Pixel laptops are no longer available to purchase. However, the Pixel C tablet is still on sale, as pointed out by The Verge. There are also numerous third-party Chromebooks avaialble on the Google Store.
For fans of the Chrome OS operating system, Osterloh says that it will continue to live on. “Chrome OS is a huge initiative in the company,” he said. “Google hasn’t backed away from laptops. We have the number two market share in the U.S. and U.K. — but we have no plans for Google-branded laptops.”
Osterloh later sent TechCrunch an additional comment on that last statement. “Regarding the future of Google-branded laptops (whether called Pixel or not), I should clarify that we don’t have any plans to discuss at this time,” he said.
This suggests that Google isn’t completely abandoning the prospect of building its own laptop. Perhaps the company is planning something new and is simply not ready to share any information yet. After all, there have been numerous rumors floating around that Google is working on a new operating system called Andromeda, which is supposedly a combination of Android OS and Chrome OS. Two things are clear however: the Pixel and Pixel 2 Chromebook laptops are dead, and Google’s next laptop won’t be called the Pixel 3.
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