Summary
Every Googlebook laptop we’ve tested so far has great hardware. The problem is the software. While Googlebook OS has exciting ideas for how a laptop and phone can work together, right now it’s mostly a frustrating experience filled with annoying bugs and lackluster app support. It often feels like using an Android tablet with a keyboard and trackpad grafted on, rather than a cohesive laptop OS. It’s too bad, because those keyboards and trackpads — and pretty much all the laptops’ hardware components — are great.
Googlebooks just aren’t ready
Our collective reviews of every Googlebook at launch: very good laptops hobbled by beta-level software.
Frankly, they should be. The cheapest is $900, a price where you start to expect quality processors, metal builds, higher-quality displays, good speakers, and great keyboards and trackpads (even haptic ones in some cases). The Googlebooks have those covered, and they also have very good battery life and at least 16GB of RAM.
Google wanted Googlebooks to feel premium, and HP, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, and Asus all delivered. It’s Google’s software that needs to catch up. In their current state, we don’t recommend you buy any of them. But it’s worth reviewing the hardware to determine which shows the most promise if the software one day improves — or if crafty modders manage to install other operating systems. Since the software is the same on all Googlebooks (save for some preinstalled manufacturer apps), and we’ve already covered that software at length, we’re strictly talking about Googlebook hardware here. The scores, however, cover hardware and software as they stand today. Brace yourself — the scores are bad.
If you’re a dedicated Google user or Pixel fan and you really want to be an early adopter / paying beta tester — or if you’re just here for some schadenfreude — here are our collective thoughts on each and every Googlebook.
The Good
- The most affordable of the Googlebooks (for now)
- Nice screen and build The Bad
- Googlebook OS feels like a beta
- No portrait orientation in tablet mode The Acer Googlebook 14 is the only 2-in-1 convertible of the bunch, and it’s one of the nicest-feeling and -looking Acers I’ve ever used at this price. It’s light, with a sturdy metal chassis and a great 2880 x 1800 / 120Hz OLED touchscreen with stylus support. I find 2-in-1s pretty handy, even if they look clunkier than tablets like a Microsoft Surface Pro or an iPad with a keyboard case, but Googlebook OS doesn’t yet support portrait orientation, which limits the Acer’s stylus potential. Like all Googlebooks, the Acer has an Auto-Rotate toggle in settings, but it only flips the orientation 180 degrees — a strange oversight. The speakers don’t have a lot of bass, and they can get muffled in tablet mode depending on how you hold the laptop, but they’re decent and sound balanced overall. The webcam is a slight weak point, as colors and contrast are a touch drab. But nothing here is bad. This isn’t like some of the Acer Aspires or Swifts I’ve tested in the past where you had to deal with a terrible screen and shoddy build quality for the sake of a good chip. It’s just an all-around nice package. That extends to the battery life, which lasted me eight to nine hours of light-to-mixed usage. If this was running Windows or a proper Linux distro with the same hardware and price, it’d be a rare bright spot in our ongoing RAMageddon hellscape. But thanks to Googlebook OS, it’s not. And an Acer rep told us its $900 launch price is only available for a limited time. That might sound like an incentive to buy one before a price increase, but please allow me to tap the “Don’t buy it now for what it might do later” sign. Actually, picture me tapping it as you read this whole article. — Antonio G. Di Benedetto, Laptop Reviewer The Good
- Small and light
- On the cheaper side of Googlebooks
- Great keyboard and trackpad The Bad
- Googlebook OS feels like a beta
- Anti-glare display has some issues
- Only the two USB-C ports Here’s my theory: If Googlebooks are going to work anytime soon, they’re going to work as secondary computers. Maybe they don’t need to replace your primary work machine if they can instead be light, fast, simple, and fun to use. (Yes, I agree that 999, it’s one of the smallest and lightest Googlebooks available. (And unlike the cheaper Acer Googlebook 14, it doesn’t offer a bunch of flippy tablet modes that don’t really work.) Like the other models we’ve tested, it’s a lovely piece of high-end hardware; I love the keyboard and trackpad, I appreciate that I can open the thing with one hand, and the Qualcomm chip inside does its job fine for all my practical purposes. The battery got me through a full day of travel and then some. My only real complaint is with the anti-glare coating on the display, which does help tamp down reflections but also creates that slight rainbow-shimmer effect that makes the screen appear a little less sharp and clear. The coating also dims the screen a bit — I’ve used the XPS Googlebook mostly at max brightness, just to get it up to normal. I am generally extremely in favor of these matte displays, but I’d trade the XPS Googlebook’s for a glossy one in a heartbeat. As we keep saying, there’s simply no way around the fact that Googlebook OS isn’t ready. Google is fixing and improving it quickly (adding the ability to run any website as an app was a big win), but I can’t get past the apps that don’t work properly with a keyboard, don’t work on this size screen at all, or simply don’t exist on Googlebook OS (bring back Linux apps, now!). If you’re in the market for an overpriced second computer and you want easy access to Google Messages and your Drive files, a Googlebook might be exactly what you need. Someday. Maybe by then Dell will have fixed the screen. — David Pierce, Editor at Large The Good
- Sturdy, metal chassis
- Up to 1TB storage The Bad
- Googlebook OS feels like a beta
- One of the heaviest Googlebooks
- Limited ports HP’s Googlebook 14 is more proof that of all the problems facing these early Googlebook models, the hardware isn’t one of them. Starting from [1,200 laptop through and through — it’s the software where we still have questions. — Dominic Preston, News Editor The Good
- Lots of ports
- Great keyboard and a matte OLED display The Bad
- Googlebook OS feels like a beta
- Most expensive Googlebook (currently) Asus’ entry in the first slate of Googlebooks was able to keep up with me better than I expected, with solid hardware that helped soften the blow of software frustrations. At 1,299. For the same price, you could get the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air with similar specs or, for $100 more, you could also get Asus’ new Windows ExpertBook A7. — Stevie Bonifield, News Writer The Good
- Sizable OLED in a lightweight laptop
- Sleek color and finish The Bad
- Googlebook OS feels like a beta
- Keys are a little wobbly, making for an only okay typing feel
- AI Mouse is basically just an RGB mouse The $1,099 Lenovo Googlebook 15 is the largest of the launch lineup, and it’s low-key my favorite. I love a bigger screen, especially in a lightweight laptop. At around 2.8 pounds / 1.27kg, the Lenovo Googlebook is nearly half a pound lighter than Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air. It’s not as thin or nice as a MacBook Air, but it makes up for that with more ports (HDMI 2.1, two USB-C, and one USB-A). It also has a bright 2880 x 1800 / 120Hz OLED display and a large haptic trackpad that feels and sounds like a tight drum when you click it. Despite that sizable OLED, the battery easily lasted me an eight-hour workday of navigating Chrome tabs with a handful of extra apps like Apple Music and Signal running. And its light gray color and satiny finish is just charming. Of the three Googlebooks I’ve tested (I tried the HP as well), this has been the one I used the most because of that larger screen and satisfying trackpad. The speakers are good too, with a touch of stereo separation due to the laptop’s size, and they get surprisingly loud. On the other hand, the keyboard is only fine. It’s got a nice clacky feel, but the keycaps are slightly wobbly, and overall it lacks the tight, satisfying tactility of other Lenovo laptop keyboards (like ThinkPads). And while I love this laptop’s off-white color, the bright white keyboard backlight sometimes makes the legends harder to see unless you’re actually in a dark space (this is one place RGB backlighting would actually help). Also included with the Lenovo Googlebook 15 (at least, if you buy it directly from Lenovo or Google) is an AI Mouse. Uhh. It’s a Bluetooth mouse. It’s got a light-up button for launching Gemini. That’s about all that makes it an “AI Mouse.” Having a Glowbar that actually faces you seems like a nice idea, but just like the ones built into the lid of every Googlebook, the one on the mouse doesn’t do much. You can pick different lighting colors and patterns in the preinstalled Lenovo Vantage app, and the Glowbar does a brief colorful flourish when you summon Gemini — but that’s about it. It’s just a fine ergonomic mouse that matches this fine laptop hardware. And that’s the story with every Googlebook so far: The hardware is fine, and even great. But until the software is worthy of the hardware, that’s just not good enough. — Antonio G. Di Benedetto, Laptop Reviewer