If you’re looking for a new ultra-portable Chromebook, laptop, or an Android tablet this Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you might want to consider the 2018 Google Pixel Slate. While it is now one year older compared to the newer Pixelbook Go, Google’s original Microsoft Surface Pro competitor is now on sale for $450 at Best Buy with the keyboard and pen included in the price.
At this price, the Pixel Slate is hard to turn down if you really want a premium ChromeOS device for under $500. Typically the keyboard for the Pixel Slate alone would be a $200 purchase, and the Pixelbook Pen would be another $100. Altogether, the deal puts the Pixel Slate ahead at the top of the list in our picks for the Best Cheap Chromebook devices.
Under the hood, this Pixel Slate is powered by Intel’s Whiskey Lake 8th-generation Intel Core m3 processor. That is similar to the one found in the newer 2019 Pixelbook Go. It also has a total of 8GB of RAM, and 64GB of SSD storage. This makes the Pixel Slate a very capable machine for most web browsing tasks, as well as for watching videos, or just simply playing Android games.
We also found that the Pixel Slate unites both Android and Chrome OS together as one. We also liked its incredible display, long-lasting battery life, and its stereo speakers. Of course, since the Pixelbook Go is a convertible, we also liked its touch-friendly versatility, as well as its folio keyboard.
The keyboard is unlike any other you’ll find in a 2-in-1 of this nature, as it sports a magnetic connection that attaches to the back of the device. It emulates the feel of a real kickstand as you can smoothly change the angle of the screen to fit it to any angle you prefer. It also offers up a good typing experience, as the round keys were quite snappy and quiet during our tests. We also found the touchpad under the keyboard is also quite big, and even better than the one on the Type Cover on the Microsoft Surface Pro 6.
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