24:32
Okay, so Google is dropping a brand new category of computer, new operating system, these new laptops. You know, with Windows doing Windows things and a bunch of other tides changing, maybe this is the perfect time to jump in. and shake things up. So enter. Googlebooks. I got my hands on. a couple of them here, and my first question going into this was basically, okay, it's Google, what is the difference between this and a Chromebook? 'Cause we all know what Chromebooks are, and this is supposed to be different, certainly priced different. So what actually is a Googlebook? So first of all, there's actually 5 of these things.
Google's not making. any Googlebooks themselves. They're trusting 5 companies to make them at launch. So there's an ASUS Googlebook, an. Acer Googlebook, a Dell Googlebook, an HP Googlebook, and a Lenovo Googlebook. And all these machines have a few things in common. They're all. premium. and lightweight. They start at 16 gigs of RAM going up to 32. all have 2K+ touchscreen displays, and they all have this colorful LED bar. on the back. called a Glowbar. The Glowbar only really does a few things. It turns red when the battery's low, it shows your charging progress when you're plugged in, and then it turns kind of purple when you're talking to Gemini, and. that's about it. But maybe most importantly, they
don't run ChromeOS. Technically. So they all run this new OS called Googlebook OS. which I don't think that's a good name. It's already kind of confusing because Googlebooks. exist, but there's also a separate product called. Google Books. So that's. confusing, but we'll let that slide, I guess. Anyway, the idea is that. this is supposed to be. a great laptop for someone with an Android phone, specifically a Pixel phone, especially at launch.
It's supposed to be giving you. the same level of continuity. and ecosystem as someone would experience with an iPhone if they were using a bunch of Apple products. and then sprinkle a little extra Gemini on top. So this here is the ASUS Googlebook that I've been using for the past week. Googlebook OS lets me get notifications from my Pixel on my laptop. I can text from my phone on the laptop. I can also share internet from my phone, so I basically have cellular wherever I go. And I can also access my files on the phone from the laptop super easily, literally a click and drag away, as long as they're.
under 200 megabytes. And if I start a task on my phone, like. booking a flight, for example, and then realize, you know what, this is a. big screen activity, I can just pick up where I left off. on the Googlebook with one click. And then the rest of the OS basically just feels like Android, more or less, like from the home screens with folders. and widgets, to the app drawer with. all of our apps, the quick settings. The quick settings even look straight from Android. Like they still have an. auto-rotate toggle in them that doesn't do anything on this laptop, but it's there. And it's funny, you can actually go into the About this device. and it actually says
Android 17. But of course, you know, there's some other tweaks to make it work. with a touchscreen or a mouse and keyboard. And the point is. it runs Android apps. So it has the Play Store, and you can install as many apps as you want to that internal storage. But if you don't wanna install a new Android app, you can just mirror it from your phone that already has it. So that's the main premise. And then there's a few. extra Gemini features sprinkled on top that ChromeOS doesn't have. The headlining one is this magic pointer feature with the cursor. And it's actually off by default, but once you enable it, it lets you wiggle your cursor to activate and then select something to ask Gemini about it or do something with it. So, you know,
mostly looking up images and then asking for more information about them, stuff like that. I think my personal favorite is actually the semantic file search, uh, 'cause there is. local storage, half a terabyte of it actually on this one. And there is a file system. So in case you don't remember the exact file name, but need to find something, you can search just a description of what you remember is in the file, and the Files app can still find it for you. This is actually very useful AI. And there's also Rambler, which is Google's new, much smarter speech-to-text. That removes the ums and uhs and works super quickly.
There's a dedicated button for it on the keyboard too, which is hilarious. And then there's also this Create My Widget feature where you can describe a new widget that you want with natural language, and it just makes it for you, which can be pretty sick when it works. They're not the prettiest widgets in the world, but hey, if it works, it's pretty convenient. So I like a lot of things about this, and I think I mostly understand. what a Googlebook is. But there's also some things about this that make it a little less clear. who would actually want to get one. And I think that all starts with the price. So the cheapest Googlebook starts at $900. and then they go up from there.
They go well into the 4 digits. And. this is playing in that, like, you know, I like to call this like. the premium entry-level category, like, which is where MacBook Air has sat for a long time. So. at that price, what is the argument for getting Googlebook? Google actually confirmed that some Chromebooks, probably a lot of new ones, will be able to upgrade. to Googlebook OS, and I guess essentially. become Googlebooks, but it hasn't really said which models or when. But if that includes things like. the Galaxy Chromebook Plus, for example, that's already a really nice, premium, super lightweight AMOLED laptop, full-size ports and everything. That's only $750. So that's kind of an unknown question right now. But the other, maybe more interesting one,
is just about what apps. you will actually. be able to use. 'Cause I said it ran Android, and I said it had the Play Store, which is something that's not exactly the same as a Chromebook, but then there's some asterisks to that. Because Googlebook OS, like I said, is a new. OS after all. And so compatibility is not perfect across the board. I was able to run. a lot of Android apps on this, but if you go through the Play Store, you will see that there is a. A spectrum of compatibility with how well the apps actually work. There's actually these labels next to each.
app when you search through these that say Made for Desktop, Optimized for Desktop, Compatible with Desktop, or Better on the Website, or Built for Mobile. So the Made for Desktop badge is basically the best case scenario, right? Where this app was. made for Googlebook OS. And you'll see this in a handful of those featured apps, which is cool. What you'll see a lot more of is the Compatible with Desktop or Optimized for Desktop, which kind of seems to mean you have a large screen version of the app that works with the mouse and keyboard controls instead of just a stretched phone app. But then when you see Better on the Website, first of all, it's just a burn, but hey, this app is just not good. on the desktop right now.
You might as well just open it in the browser and use it on their website instead. And then Built for Mobile just means you're straight up getting. a phone version of the app, not optimized for the big screen, at all. So. most apps in the Play Store, at least right now. at launch, are not built for Googlebook OS. And that's. the issue right now. There's like a desert of desktop-class apps, like, that are truly. really, really good on a Googlebook. And that's not an issue that Windows machines or Macs or even. Linux machines will have right now. So like having the Play Store is nice and it's a big improvement over a Chromebook, to being able to say you have millions of apps that run. on the thing,
but a huge amount of these apps are not going to be a great experience. or be premium or. optimized very much at all. So if you're someone who's like in the market for a new laptop and there's one or two apps that you know you have to have. on this machine, and it turns out that those apps aren't very good. on a Googlebook, then this doesn't really solve that problem. over Chromebooks for you. The thing is, I happen to think this ASUS Googlebook. is really nice. It's incredibly ultra, ultra lightweight. Like, that's the first thing I noticed out the box is it's super easy to travel with.
It's barely over 2 pounds. The battery life is also great, especially the standby time. I got multiple days out of this thing. It has full-size ports, so 2 USB Type-C. and USB Type-A and HDMI. The 1,000-nit OLED panel looks great, and it has this anti-reflective coating, so it blocks reflections really well. And you know what? It passes the one-finger open test, which is underrated. The keyboard is solid, you know, a little bit of deck flex here and there, but nothing terrible.
Large trackpad with haptic touch, fingerprint reader in the corner, even has a webcam cover slider, which is nice. This is a really likable, solid, thin-and-light laptop, and it costs $1,300. That is, that's MacBook Air money, literally. This Dell one with the 2-year-old Snapdragon X Elite chip, starts, starts. at $1,000. and goes up to $1,800. So, you know, the ARM chip is. great because. then, you know, the apps that are optimized for desktop probably also optimized for ARM. So they at least. run more natively than they would on the Intel-based Googlebooks, which are in some sort of translation layer. But I didn't find that to make a whole huge difference in the experience for me. So I don't know, I really like the idea. of a super. minimal laptop
that's even thinner and lighter than a MacBook Air. But if it's gonna cost just as much and run way less apps, then. that's. when you start losing people, either to. a much cheaper Chromebook. or to that MacBook Air. So I think as fun as these things are, they really do have quite a long road ahead of them until they're actually good idea to buy. It's possible that someday, Googlebooks will match the experience of Windows and macOS as far as. app support and. offline usability, but today is not that day. And I always say, buy products just based on what they are today, not on the promise of future software updates. But hey, it's technically first generation. This is a first-gen Google product. So, you know, do you wanna go for that ride?
You know, many of those rides have ended in the killedbygoogle.com graveyard, and that's a very common story we all know. But, you know, it could go up and up. Pixel fans, this could be the one. Maybe. Matter of fact, I think it's time to bring back that handy grading system that I first created. for the MacBook Neo review. So if you are considering getting one of these laptops, this can maybe help you out. So let's start with the obvious one, Pixel fans. A. This was made for you. And if anyone is familiar with waiting way too long for something to be as good as it should have been years ago, it's us. right?
Why not give it a shot? Hang in there, brother. Okay, next up: students. This is funny. I actually don't think this is a very good idea, mainly because it's basically a Chromebook, which is made for students, but with a little extra sauce. And I don't think you need that sauce. for the most part. The connecting to your Android phone, the Gemini intelligence. In school, really? I don't think you need that. It's just getting unnecessarily expensive over the Chromebook that's already made for you. Just get a Chromebook. They're not going anywhere.
College. Okay, there's a little bit more nuance here now, just depending on what your major is, which is what we talked about last time. And so I think I can kind of average it out. to somewhere in the B- range. You know, college for me was a lot of note-taking and reading and studying. and things that Gemini Intelligence could have potentially been very helpful for, which is kind of cool. But again, the second there's that like one app. that you need for your major that's not in the Play Store. then. that kind of makes this a non-option. So, something to be aware of ahead of time. Also, in case you're curious which Googlebook has the best speakers for watching movies, because we do that in college too, it's the ASUS.
Okay, next: Writers. I consider myself a bit of a part-time writer with these videos. It's pretty good for that. I wrote a lot of this review on the ASUS Googlebook. The keyboard's pretty good. The battery life is very good. The screen is more than enough. It's all been fine. I mean, word processing, web browsing, emailing, it's all right up their alley. And then there's the Google stuff on top. If you don't use the Gemini stuff so much, you can still get just as much computer for less with a Chromebook, but. I find that stuff useful. Then: photographers.
I wanted to write the whole word here, but it didn't fit. B-. So there's like Photoshop Express and Lightroom for Android and Snapseed, things like that. Like not really full-fledged editing suites, but good enough for light retouching. The display is bright enough, especially on the ASUS, the 1,000-nit OLED. Like, these are fine displays. They're not particularly great for color, but just for the casual edits, that's fine. The high-end stuff, you already know, you're not looking at a Googlebook. Then: coders. Okay, this turned out to be like sneaky one of the things that I don't have so much experience with, but it turns out these might actually be great for.
Mostly because Google happens to have a bunch of really robust agentic coding tools like Android Studio that work really well on these machines so long as you give them an internet connection and enough local memory. And they did give them enough local memory, so that's good news. Then: video editors. Okay, so no Premiere Pro, no Final Cut Pro, no Resolve, but you do have CapCut and LumaFusion. You know, I mentioned earlier, you can drag and drop files from your phone back and forth, from the computer to your phone, and that's cool, but it's only for files up to 200 megabytes, which does kind of rule out a lot of the bigger video files.
I don't think people who are trying to get a laptop specifically for video editing are looking at getting a Googlebook. Gamers. I don't know if you even made it this far into the video, but thanks for watching. And then: Grandma. Okay, great. Yeah, so I don't think you're gonna need one of these. I know, Grandma, I know you like to shop. I know you like to web browse. I know you like to email all of the grandkids, and that's really cool. But I feel like for $1,000, we can get you a better computer for less.
We can do more with $1,000. Either way, I think that's about it. Hopefully that was helpful. Uh, I do enjoy reviewing these things when they're new first-generation products, but a lot more to come. Thanks for watching! Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.
