 Let me tell you two true things about Chromebooks. The state of them right now is both amazing and kind of terrible. Here's what's amazing. In the education market, you can get really cheap Chromebooks that do way more than you expect. But in the terrible camp, Google's been trying to push the state of the art forward with partners and the hardware hasn't gone that well. Google's also trying to get Android apps to work well in Chrome OS and that also isn't working. All in all, we haven't had a true flagship, spare no expense Chromebook since the Chromebook Pixel 2, which was two years ago. Spare no expense, you say? How about a Google-made Chromebook that starts at a thousand bucks and can go all the way up to $1,650? It's this, the Pixelbook, and I can't tell if it's taking in Windows or the iPad or what, but I can tell you it's a pretty incredible piece of hardware. Now, this is a laptop and laptops mean specs and so we have to start there. Basically, if you're hoping for a high-end laptop spec, there's actually a pretty good chance that it's here. The base $1,000 model comes with an Intel i5 processor, the seventh generation Kaby Link. That's paired to eight gigs of RAM, which is quite a lot for a Chromebook, and there's also 128 gigs of storage, which is also a lot for a Chromebook. The touchscreen is 12.3 inches in a three by two aspect ratio, which works out to 2400 by 1600 pixels. There's two USB-C ports, a headphone jack, a backlit keyboard, and a battery that Google says is good for around 10 hours of mixed use. There is no SD card slot, though. If you want, you can drop money on a faster processor, more RAM, and more storage, all the way up to that $1,650 for an i7, 16 gigs of RAM, and 512 gigs of storage. You can also spend an extra $99 on this all-new Pixel Pen, which is a Wacom-style stylus with pressure and angle sensitivity. It lasts for about a year on a simple quad-A battery. The Pixelbook weighs just under two and a half pounds, and it's only 10 millimeters thick. And get this, there are no fans, even on the top-tier processor. Those are the specs, which are important, because if a $1,000 Chromebook didn't have top dollar specs, that would be bad. Now let's talk about design. Damn, if this isn't one very good-looking, well-made laptop. It's entirely aluminum, and it shares some of the design with the Pixel phones, because it has this glass shade on the back for the Wi-Fi antennas. When you have it closed, it looks pretty much like a solid hunk of aluminum, except for the hinge and this indentation for the keyboard. The palm rests are made out of, as Google calls it, advanced silicone, but they're comfortable to rest on, and they also protect the screen from the keyboard. When you flip it around, they also double as anti-skid feet. The trackpad is glass, and it feels just right. The keyboard has.8mm of key travel, which isn't very much, but it feels much more like a traditional keyboard than what you'd get on, say, a MacBook or the Surface Pro tablet. And really, I just dig the aesthetics. There's this symmetry between the pad on the keyboard deck and the shade on the lid. This is the kind of design that I think Google could stick with for a very long time, and I kind of hope it does, because it's great. Google is also introducing some big changes to how Chrome OS works on the Pixelbook. There's a new launcher that looks a little bit nicer, and it makes it easier to distinguish between Android apps and Chrome apps. You still launch it with the same key, it's the one where your caps lock usually is, and it still has a good old Google search field on it. But there's a whole new button on the keyboard. Well, okay, technically there's two, but I'm not counting the hamburger menu button. That new button is the Google Assistant key. Google Assistant on the Pixelbook works pretty much the same as it does everywhere else. You can speak to it, or you can type to it, and the Assistant will respond audibly or not depending on how you ask your question. One clever thing it does on the Pixelbook, though, is it automatically offers search suggestions based on what's on your screen when you hit the button. But if you want, you can opt out of that. You can also use the Pixel Pen to circle stuff on your screen, and then the Assistant can search for stuff based on that, too. But for me, the bigger deal is that Android apps on Chrome OS are finally, finally coming out of beta. They're supposed to be a lot faster and more stable now, especially on this very fast machine. You can resize Android app windows and generally just use them like desktop apps. And some companies like Adobe and Microsoft are working really hard to release versions of their Android apps that work better on Chrome OS. It has a 360 hinge so you can put it into tablet mode, but unfortunately tablet mode still doesn't support split screen apps. And I'm going to have to test all of this to see if it works as well as Google claims. But if nothing else, I'm glad that I finally actually get to judge the quality of Android apps on Chromebooks without having to put a beta asterisk at the end of it. Oh, one more thing. If you have a Pixel phone, you can turn on tethering automatically from the Chromebook, just like it works on Apple laptops with iPhones. I don't have quite as much to say about the Pixel Pen. I do think it's neat, but it's another thing I want to test before I can give it any sort of final judgment. One nice thing about the Pixel Pen is you don't have to pair it at all, and you don't have to plug it into any weird ports on the side of your device to charge it. I'm just not sure if it's worth $99. And I know you're waiting for me to talk about the price, so let's address it. I get the feeling that Google is sorry, not sorry about the price. If smartphones cost $1,000 now, why shouldn't a Chromebook, especially one that's this good? Google is confident in this thing, and it's going to be selling it in stores in the US everywhere starting October 31st. So who on earth is this thing for? Well, it's for people that just want the best thing, and this is very clearly the best Chromebook that you can get. But Google will also tell you that this is about the future. All your most important apps are made for phones, and the web, hopefully, isn't going away anytime soon. And this device is built for that future. And if Google can make Android apps work better on Chrome OS, then that future might actually come to pass.