GoKawiilThere’s a good chance that my next laptop will be a Googlebook. If you’re an Android user like me, then yours might be too, because Google is making a compelling pitch: The Googlebook does for the Android phone what the MacBook does for the iPhone (and then some).
John Maletis, Google’s head of laptops and tablets, said at my press briefing that the Googlebooks were designed to “work seamlessly with your Android phone.” You can start using an app on your phone then pick it up on the laptop, navigate your phone’s files from the laptop, run any phone app from the computer, and manage all your notifications in one place.
It’s a good pitch. And after spending a couple of hours playing with the first five Googlebooks — from Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer, and Asus — I really hope Google delivers on it.
The enhanced integration begins at setup, which lets you link your Google account and Android device so that the laptop syncs your contacts, passwords, preferred settings, payment details, and more, just like it would when you switch from one Android phone to another.
Googlebook OS is built on Android’s codebase, but its interface is a blend of Android and ChromeOS. The layout mostly feels like a Chromebook, but the details of the UI are drawn from Android, specifically the Material 3 Expressive design language found primarily across Google’s own Pixel phones. Everything from widget design to the notification tray looks and feels like Android, only blown up a little to fill the space.
Widgets and other parts of Googlebook OS look identical to the software on Google’s Pixel phones.
Connect a Googlebook to your phone and each is supposed to feel like an extension of the other. Notifications are shared, and dismissing or reading them on one device will carry through to the other. You can also use the laptop to send in-line replies to messages sent to your phone.
File sharing is intended to be just as simple. The Googlebook file browser lists a paired phone among the hard drives, letting you go straight in to browse, open, edit, and copy files. No more uploading and downloading files with Google Drive or sending them as email attachments just to move them to the laptop.
There’s a version of Continue On, an Android 17 feature first introduced for tablets this year. It allows you to start using an app on your phone and pick it up on your laptop, though only certain apps are compatible. You can also open any phone app directly from the laptop via a dedicated app drawer. Apps are run on the phone itself, and simply cast to the laptop, where they’re displayed in a floating portrait window — though you can’t mirror the full phone itself, only individual apps. It’s less flexible, but also less fiddly.
A dedicated app drawer lets you cast specific apps from your phone. They appear in portrait windows, and Google expects people to use them for quick tasks rather than extended work.
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