Move over, Chromebooks, Googlebooks are coming. That’s right – Googlebooks. These aren’t just laptops, you see – they are “designed for Gemini Intelligence”, which sounds like Google desperately wanted to have a name that sounds close enough to Apple Intelligence, but maybe we’re reading too much into it.
Anyway, Googlebooks will help Google move “from an operating system to an intelligence system”, and they feature “the best of Android” and Chrome OS. This sounds like it is, in effect, the much-anticipated Aluminum OS, even though Google has not once called it that.
There will be Android apps and the Google Play Store housing them. And of course you’ll get the Chrome browser. Google is only sharing a sneak peek now, and promises it will reveal more details “later this year”. The Googlebooks are “a new category of laptops built with Gemini’s helpfulness at its core, designed to work seamlessly with the devices in your life and powered by premium hardware”.
You can wiggle the cursor to get access to Gemini, which will provide quick contextual suggestions every time you point at something on your screen. You will also be able to create your own widgets by using text prompts.
Googlebooks will integrate very well with your Android phone, unsurprisingly. Apps on your phone will be accessible on your Googlebook, and you get notifications from your phone too, which you can instantly act upon inside each of your phone’s apps, on your Googlebook. You’ll also easily access files from your phone right on your Googlebook through its file browser.
Google says it’s working with Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo to make the first Googlebooks and promises each of them will be “built with premium craftsmanship and materials” and will come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Each Googlebook will have the glowbar, pictured above, which Google bills as “a statement that is both functional and beautiful”.