All SSD storage isn't created equal. I assume you don't mean the Pixel as an example of the reasonably priced machine. Before that you had the Acer Chromebook w

All SSD storage isn't created equal. I assume you don't mean the Pixel as an example of the reasonably priced machine. Before that you had the Acer Chromebook with a normal hard drive, and the Samsung ARM Chromebook with a tiny 16GB eMMC drive. Any eMMC devices I've used in the past have had pitiful throughput, low iops, and random stuttering. Barely good enough for something like a tablet. Not really for a general purpose computer. Now, I haven't seen any detailed benchmarks of disk IO on the ARM Chromebook. Maybe it's got some new advanced controller that's capable of decent performance. But I'd bet that it's still far behind a high quality SATA SSD controller. And that's going to cost real money, and won't be present in a $200 device.