Google announced that it has begun taking pre-orders for a new laptop called Googlebooks. The first models of these devices come with Intel Panther Lake and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processors. Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo all offer their solutions. New products start at $899.
Image source: Google
Googlebook laptops run the Aluminum OS operating system, which is essentially Android optimized for desktop computers. This system supports native Android applications, Gemini AI functions and Linux development tools.
As early as May, Google announced its return to the notebook market under the Googlebook brand. While little information was initially available about the new devices, data about Googlebook models from Lenovo, Asus, and Acer has leaked onto the Internet in recent weeks.
The main feature of Googlebook is an Android-based software platform that is common to laptops and smartphones. Features like Resume allow you to continue working on your laptop from where you left off on your mobile device. Smartphone applications can be displayed directly on the Googlebook screen, providing a more familiar desktop experience. Google notes that the standard Docs app lets you view data on the laptop itself and on connected mobile devices.
While Google doesn’t put much emphasis on the operating system name in its marketing materials, these laptops essentially run a version of Android that the company calls Aluminum OS internally. Unlike ChromeOS, where Android apps run in virtualized containers via the ARCVM (Application Runtime for Chrome Virtual Machine) environment, on a Googlebook they run as full-fledged native programs – no need to waste resources on emulation and direct access to the hardware.
Users will be able to run web apps and programs from the Google Play Store, as well as use Chrome extensions. According to Google, Aluminum OS uses the same security architecture as ChromeOS – Google Titan – to provide hardware root of trust and malware detection directly on the device.
Googlebooks also solve one of ChromeOS’s major problems. Previously, accessing a Linux terminal on ChromeOS required launching the Crostini environment through developer mode. Aluminum OS provides the pKVM hypervisor, which is certified to Level 5 security standards. It provides a built-in isolated Linux environment with full terminal access, allowing you to run any Linux development tool or AI agent.
In addition, Googlebooks also integrates many functions supported by Gemini AI, which are integrated into the operating system. For example, the Magic Pointer feature allows you to call Gemini and manipulate any object on the screen simply by moving your mouse. You can build your own desktop gadget using simple natural language text queries.
Googlebook laptops support Rambler voice dictation, which converts spoken speech into coherent documents (first introduced in the Pixel 11 series of smartphones) and activates it with a single button press. In addition, every Googlebook comes with an anti-gravity platform for developing artificial intelligence agents. Developers can use the AI agent workflow in a full terminal environment through the Antigravity command line interface (CLI) and Claude Code tools.
Google’s main partners in producing chips for Googlebooks are Intel, Qualcomm and MediaTek. Currently, laptop models based on Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) processors and SoC Snapdragon X Elite are already available.
All Googlebook models come standard with 16 GB of RAM (expandable to 32 GB) and a 45 TOPS Neural Processing Unit (NPU). For laptops, battery life is said to last up to 14 hours in video playback mode, or up to 16 hours of web surfing.
The Googlebook is available for pre-order now from Google, Best Buy and other retailers, starting at $899. The device will go on sale in the US on October 4th, and on October 5th in Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia.
The first wave will offer premium devices from manufacturers such as Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. All Google Books come with a one-year subscription to Google AI Pro with 5 TB of cloud storage, and three months of subscriptions to YouTube Premium, Adobe Photoshop, and other services. In addition, buyers of all Googlebook models will receive a free one-year subscription to Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service.
Google promises to provide regular feature and security updates for Googlebooks for 10 years.
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