GoKawiilRichard Priday / Android Authority
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It’s not every day we see a brand-new kind of laptop launch, let alone one with a new OS from a brand that’s never thought of as a rival to MacBooks or premium Windows machines. But Google’s giving it a shot anyway with its Googlebook family.
This is both a new line of products and a fresh operating system, or, as Google would prefer you think of it, an “intelligence system,” in one. And the goals are noble ones — to offer a premium laptop that works with the devices of billions of Android users worldwide and delivers AI features in ways other PCs have yet to offer.
I got to spend a couple of hours trying out the five different Googlebook models that Google is starting out with. These all offer the same software features, which we’ll look at first, but later we’ll check out the different form factors you’ll be able to buy come the start of October. There’s a lot to go over, but rest assured that everything Google and its partners have to show off adds up to some exciting productivity-focused machines with plenty of smarts and a number of fun touches.
Which Googlebook would you get? 40 votes Acer Googlebook 14 10 % ASUS Googlebook 14 15 % Dell XPS Googlebook 15 % HP Googlebook 14 5 % Lenovo Googlebook 15 15 % I'll wait for more Googlebooks 33 % I'm not interested in a Googlebook at all 8 %
Launching soon, and competitively priced
Pre-orders for the Googlebook open today — September 21 — for those who are already convinced to put their money down for one. For the more cautious among us, you can wait to see these laptops in person from retail launch day, which comes on October 4 in the U.S., and October 5 in Canada, the U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, and Australia.
Prices vary across the five different models launching under the Googlebook banner, but the starting prices range from $899 at their lowest to $1,299 at their highest, putting the collection roughly on par with a MacBook Air or a Dell Plus.
That’s not a price at which you’d want to snap one up on impulse just to see how it might work for you, but it should at least put it on your shortlist when shopping for your next workhorse laptop. Hopefully we see cheaper options, as well as some more powerful ones, in the future to suit the widest possible audience.
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