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I was so excited to try this, but I don't think I've been this disappointed by anything in a long time. This is the new ASUS Google Book 14, and I thought that this could be the exact kind of laptop I'd actually want to use. Because I daily Android, I love Pixel, and being able to just jump from my phone to my laptop in a sort of MacBook Handoff sort of way is something that I've wanted for years. Right now, I use my MacBook Pro for everything. Like to edit these videos, I use Final Cut Pro, and I'm not sure anyone could pay me enough money to jump ship. But, for my everyday stuff, I thought this could be kind of what I was looking for. And when I unboxed this, I thought this is exactly it. Setting this
up feels like a Pixel. You open it up, the setup prompt appears on your phone, you scan a QR code, and a couple of minutes later, you are done. Like, it looks like a Pixel. It feels like a Pixel, and that's about as good as it got because I think this Google Book launch so far for Google has been an absolute disaster. The main reason I was so excited about the Google Book was how it is supposed to work with my phone. ASUS literally describes it as being designed to be in perfect sync with your Android phone across apps, files, photos, workflows. You're meant to just be able
to jump between them. And the two biggest features, I think, are Cast My Apps and Continue On, and I was very excited to try them. Cast My Apps basically lets you pull up your apps from your phone and use them on your Google Book. So, if you're working, you want to order Uber or some food, then you don't really need to pick your phone up. It can just sit there. And Continue On is supposed to let you start writing a Google Doc on your phone, or you can use Chrome, and then you can pick that task back up on the laptop. And that's exactly what I wanted from this. Google and ASUS, they say that you have a seamless cross-device experience.
Except there is one problem. This doesn't work. I just cannot get this to work. I've tried Pixels running Android 17, I've tried Pixels running the latest QPR beta. I've tried everything, and I'm not on my own. Hadley, who works for Android Authority, has the exact same laptop and the exact same issue. He was trying it with a Pixel 10 Pro XL and he couldn't get it to work either. And I was watching a video from Dave 2D who has the exact same laptop. He managed to get most of this working but couldn't get the calling side of the seamless app experience working. And I asked Google is this like a region locked thing so maybe it wouldn't work for me in the UK or Hadley in South Africa and they told
me it should just work but it doesn't. I've got this laptop right now and I can't use arguably its biggest feature. These aren't features that Google has announced that are coming in 6 months. They're supposed to be available right now. You can go and buy these laptops right now and because of that I just think that this is kind of like a disaster. I just don't understand why Google haven't either pushed out an update to fix this already knowing it was an issue because they must have known this or why they didn't just hold back a month or two before actually pushing out all of these Google books. Like that would have been a better move than shipping something
right now that doesn't work. I feel like this is one of the main reasons that people are buying these Google books and for me they're a huge part of why the Google book is interesting in the first place. And I have to mention this again. CScott who has the Lenovo Google Book 15 has all of these features working. I've been trying to get this to work all week. So I got this laptop on Monday. Right now it's Wednesday and it still doesn't work. Like I even had Michelle reach out to me on thread to try and help me get this working and it just doesn't work. So hopefully the only thing I can say is that this is going to be like an early adoption sort of thing or maybe that it's a software update that needs to be pushed but still to get
this on day one and not have any of those features actually work. I just don't get it. Like it's not good Google. You got to sort it out. The most frustrating thing about all of this is I really like this laptop because as an actual laptop it is great. It's so light. It makes my MacBook feel like a tank. This weighs under a kilogram and I love that. It's the kind of laptop that I can just throw in my bag and basically forget it's there. And that's a big selling point for me. Like ASUS have done a really good job with the hardware. It's so light that you can kind of just forget that it's there and
that's exactly what I want from a laptop that I might want to work with every single day. Although I do like how light it is, I don't think it actually feels as expensive as it actually costs. Like this is $1,299. The build, it's actually okay. It's this magnesium aluminum and it has a kind of like matte feel to it. It's very thin and ASUS has done a lot to try and keep this weight down and again, like I said, it's one of my favorite parts of this laptop. And on the back of all of these Google books you should have this little glowing light just here. And uh I think it looks cool, but I don't really get it. I say that because I never get to see it. It flashes when you're talking
to Gemini, but because it's on the back of my laptop, it kind of just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sure this is a whole thing from Google to let others know that you're actually using a Google book, but I kind of wish that I could see this. I know so far I've not been that positive on this whole laptop, but there is one part of this laptop that I really like and that is the screen. I love this thing. It's a 14-in 3K OLED. It's 120 Hz. It's a touchscreen and it's got a matte finish on it. And this genuinely might just be one of my favorite things about the entire laptop. There's definitely reflections. They're not eliminated completely, but there's barely anything. And this is what all
laptops should be. This is also the first time that I've ever had a touchscreen laptop and oh my god, I love this. Like I cannot tell you how many times I've gone to tap the screen on my MacBook and move things around just to realize, oh yeah, it's not a tablet. So this has been really useful. Like I'm a big fan of this one even if it does collect a few fingerprints, but that matte display kind of eliminates that just a little bit. So the build quality of this laptop, ASUS have done a very good job. I love that it's touchscreen. I know that's not groundbreaking. I love that matte display. And actually, the feel of this whole laptop is just great. And the fact that it is so light, this is what is
going to make me want to use this laptop every single day. Like, it is very good. My problems though, they're not with the hardware. I think it's actually a decent laptop. But, the problem is still with the software. There are quite a few smaller annoying things that I've noticed. The way it is just a little bit slow for me. It's not awful, but it's slow enough that I've noticed it. The fingerprint reader as well, this is not great, especially during setup. This was a little bit annoying. And I wish there was more ways to unlock this. So, at the moment, it's fingerprint, PIN, or password. But, if my phone is close enough to the laptop and connected, I wish it would just let
me automatically like swipe up from the trackpad and unlock the laptop. Or, if my Pixel Watch is connected to my phone, which is then connected to my laptop, I wish again, just like you can do on a MacBook with an Apple Watch, it would just unlock it for you automatically as you open the lid. I'm hoping that Google might be able to bring this in an update, especially when the whole point of this is supposed to be how well it works with the rest of your Google ecosystem. I also wish there was a 5G option for this laptop. And I know it's only a small thing, but I feel like that would kind of complete the experience a little bit more. With this being Google and obviously having Gemini
baked into it, I know you might be asking, "How well does Gemini actually work and is it useful?" I um I don't know about that. One of the big Google Book features is something called Magic Pointer. So, you wiggle the cursor and then Gemini appears. But, I kind of don't get it. Magic Pointer, it seems a little bit clunky and it's never quite in the right place. What I'd have preferred is like a cursor version of Circle to Search, where you just circle a few times where you want Gemini to help with. To me, that makes a little bit more sense. There is a really nice way to open Gemini though. So, if you press the G key and the space bar in the bottom right corner, you will get that pop-up from Gemini. And you can ask
it any sort of question, which I think is actually very good. So, if you wanted to do some troubleshooting or ask it for step-by-step instructions for something on your laptop. The problem here is though, as soon as you click off that, say onto another tab, Gemini then disappears. So, you can't actually read those step-by-step instructions. So, I wish that this would just stay in that bottom right corner, because again, it makes sense that it would just kind of hover there until you're finished with it. There are some other AI features as well. There's Rambler for voice-to-text, which I know people love on their Pixel phones. But, I just don't think that I'm going to be sat in a coffee
shop talking out loud to my laptop. And then there's Magic Cube, which has never really worked for me on my Pixel phone, and again, it doesn't work for me here, either. There is something that this laptop does very, very well though, and so far that is battery. Asus say it can do up to 18 hours, and I'm nowhere near ready to tell you exactly how long this will last in a proper real-world test. I like that it charges quickly. It's quiet, and for all the normal stuff that I've been doing, so Chrome, Docs, emails, watching YouTube, the battery has not been an issue, and so far, the performance equally hasn't been an issue or anything that I've thought about as well, which is probably the best compliment that I can give this laptop. This is why this
laptop confuses me. It's got great battery life. The hardware is very good, but the software, which is what makes this laptop, is kind of letting it down, and I just don't know who this laptop is for. As I said, there's a lot about this Google Book that I really like. The setup is easy. Having access to the Play Store for pretty much any language is kind of a dream. And more than anything, I still love the idea of this. This genuinely feels like Google trying to make the Pixel of laptops. But, that question is still there, like, who is this for? This isn't some cheap Chromebook that you buy because you need something for browsing the web or doing Google Docs. This is a proper premium
laptop. And once you spend almost $1,300 on this laptop, it starts to compete with some very good laptops. The one standout that could make this Google Book feel very different from any other laptop is that integration using an app without having to take my phone out. That is exactly what I thought the Google Book was going to be and right now, I cannot use this properly, which is why this is so annoying. I did say at the start of this video that I think this whole thing is a bit of a disaster and I don't think the laptop is a disaster, but the launch of this really is a disaster. I can't get half this stuff working, but there is a laptop here that I really want to like and if Google can get all of the stuff
that actually makes a Google Book a Google Book working properly, I think I might like it. But then I'm still sat there thinking that is this enough? Is being able to just connect your Google phone enough when essentially you can still go into Google Docs and carry on what you've done on your phone anyway. It's kind of like a nice software experience from one device to another, but I think when you charge $1,300, you need to give this a little bit more and I don't think even if all these features were working, that Google have done that. So, let me know what you think in the comments below and also let me know if you are having the same problems as me because it surely it can't just be
me. This has to be more of a widespread thing. So, please do let me know in the comments and let me know which Google Book you are using. If you can subscribe to the channel before you head off, then I would massively appreciate it. Thank you very much and if you do that, then I'll see you in the next one and by then we might have this Google Book actually working. See you later.
