Googlebooks will havea glowbar on the lid.
Google is once again trying to reinvent the laptop, after introducing the Chromebook for web-based computing and the now-discontinued Pixelbooks. It just announced an all-new category of laptops: the Googlebook, which promises to combine the best of Android and ChromeOS to deliver a new kind of computing experience.
Googlebooks are the first laptops designed from the ground up for Gemini Intelligence, says the company. They put Gemini front and center in your user experience. And it all starts with the pointer.
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Googlebooks won’t have a traditional pointer. Instead, they’ll feature a Magic Pointer, developed by the Google DeepMind team to bring Gemini to your fingertips.
“For being the most often used tool on your laptop, the cursor has seen little change in the last few decades, since the right click,” says the Google blog post. So, it is rethinking the way you use your cursor. All you need to do is wiggle the Magic Pointer and it’ll trigger Gemini to offer contextual suggestions.
For instance, if you have an email with an important date, you can point at the date and Gemini will offer quick suggestions, like setting up a meeting. Or, if there are two images that you want to visualize together — say, your living room and a new table — you can wiggle the Magic Pointer, select them, and choose the Visualize option to see how the table would look in your living room. It’s like prompts but with swipes and gestures.
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Googlebook
Google’s upcoming laptop platform is promised to run “powerful apps on its own,” but it will also let you use apps from your phone right on your laptop. It is built to be “seamlessly compatible with Android phones.” You’ll get a persistent phone icon in the dock, which can be used to virtualize your Android phone on the Googlebook. According to the company, this feature will work with “compatible” phones, but we don’t have a list yet.
Googlebooks will have a new feature called Create your Widget (also available on Android 17). It will let you create custom widgets using prompts. This is where the company will utilize its plethora of services to give you personalized, contextual results. For example, Gemini will be able to connect your Google apps like Gmail and Calendar to create a personalized dashboard.
There’s another feature called Quick Access, which will let you view, search, or insert your phone’s files on your laptop without needing to transfer them from one device to another.
Google has announced a list of laptop manufacturers (Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Acer) that will launch Googlebooks, but we don’t have any hardware details or launch information yet. All Googlebooks will have a unique glowbar on the lid, and they’ll come in a variety of shapes and sizes. However, other spec requirements like RAM, webcam quality, touchscreen, etc. remain unknown.
As Google rethinks how we use our devices, Googlebooks can pave the way for a reliable Apple-like ecosystem of AI-first Android products. Imagine having a laptop that’s an extension of your smartphone, which also seamlessly connects to your smartwatch and headphones, and we might get the perfect Apple alternative ecosystem.
Chromebooks will co-exist alongside Googlebooks, at least for now.
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No. Well, at least not yet. Google can’t suddenly phase out a platform that’s being used by millions of users. It says they’re not going anywhere and will coexist alongside the all-new Googlebooks.
However, it will be hard for the two platforms to coexist unless the company differentiates them by pricing tiers. I don’t have the pricing details at the time of writing this story, but I imagine Googlebooks to be the more premium of the two and priced higher than Chromebooks.
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