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ZDNET's key takeaways

• The new Googlebook looks promising, but questions remain to justify their cost. 
• Chromebooks had a clearly defined use case that reflected a real consumer need. 
• The brand I most expected to see was absent from Google's announcement. 

Google just announced a new product line: the Googlebook, marketed as the successor to the Chromebook with more capable hardware and a compelling promise: the merging of Android and ChromeOS into something better. 

This as-yet unnamed operating system has been cited as "AluminumOS" through various leaks, but has not yet been officially announced by Google. Details on the devices themselves are also sparse, but Google says they will be a more premium product with higher-end hardware. 

Also: First look at Googlebook: A premium Chromebook alternative for Android users

So far, Google has shown off a limited set of features, but one of the primary is a re-imagining of the mouse cursor. On the Googlebook, wiggling it opens up contextual menus on whatever's on your screen powered by Gemini Intelligence, the on-device AI. 

Another feature we saw is the ability to use apps from your Android smartphone directly on the Googlebook with no additional downloads required. In the demo, it showed the user opening Duolingo in a window that looked a lot like MacOS' Phone Mirroring. This is ostensibly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to deeper integration between the smartphone and Googlebook; but if that's the case, I have one big question. 

Big shoes to fill 

A big reason Chromebooks were so successful was their well-defined niche: affordable hardware with a snappy OS that excelled at everyday tasks in Google's ecosystem. Even the most premium Chromebooks didn't break the $1,000 price ceiling (except the HP Dragonfly, but that was a unique device); more importantly, you could nab Chromebooks for the absolute lowest prices around.

A notable absence 

Google confirmed all five major PC manufacturers will be releasing their own Googlebooks later this fall: HP, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, and Asus. Within those five brands, we can expect a range of devices with different sizes and prices. For example, Lenovo released the Chromebook Plus 14 last year, featuring an OLED display and 16GB of RAM (the most of any Chromebook to date) so it makes sense to see that brand follow up with a similarly-specced Googlebook.

More questions remain

With Google's I/O developer conference next week, we can expect Google to release additional details around the Googlebook, its hardware, and software capabilities. As it stands now, there is not a whole lot to support the premium price beyond the promise of a unified OS and a handful of Gemini Intelligence features. 

Also: The best Chromebooks for students: Expert tested and reviewed   

There's also the question of Windows app emulation, as this has potential to be a huge improvement over the Chromebook, and part of an overarching justification for access to this new, more powerful operating system.