This will follow same model as Chromebooks i.e different devices from different OEM partners and for x86 and arm. So soon someone will be able to create a generic ISO for this that you can boot on a standard x86 PC/laptop.

Samsung is also working on such devices but they will probably have Dex which is much better then the current Android desktop mode.

Beyond that, this is a laptop that is running a really shitty, 'apps only, no you cannot do anything useful with this' operating system. I have an awful lot of complaints about MacOS's relatively restrictive use cases, but it's still at least a General Purpose OS. Android on laptop is very much not.

This is an overgrown phone with all the trash that comes with a phone, and the very finite use cases that come with a phone, only now it has a keyboard. It's solving none of the problems with Android as an operating system and doesn't seem to even be interested in doing that anyway. The marketing is demoing use cases that don't even exist.

So I repeat my question: Who is this for?

The real 'next big thing' would be integrating an engine like Gemini with OS-level hooks (similar to the OpenClaw approach) so agents can manipulate app windows and state directly. Resurrecting Web Intents as 2-way App Intents would be the key to making this work.

Also, keeping prompts as local .md files with an Obsidian-like system editor would be a huge win for power users. Simply gating Gemini behind 'premium' Chromebooks feels like the old 'licking the cake' strategy from the Google+ days—trying to force a new product's success by coopting existing hardware rather than building a superior platform.

I can imagine having Gemini + local Gemma working with Agents, which have access to my e-mail (ideally on GMAIL, but also supporting outlook), keeping local history of my visited sites and messages... and using RAG or something even better, ideally with looking also on repos I have checkouted to my file system, and maybe even whole file system....

Work related e-mail about "sending invoice to customer"... it may suggest proper content for e-mail. Having "dashboard" with summary of todays communication to you, your tickets (at work) and so on....

Can Google build such thing? If somebody can - it will be them. Will they build it? Probably not, they would prefer to build 3rd version of Google Pay.

I simply don't trust Google, Don't want AI shoving into anything and the only way to be sure of that now is Linux because they can't shove it in.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1tb8xls/introducin...

[Edit]

And, the feature set references the 'AI mouse pointer' from this Deepmind blog..

https://deepmind.google/blog/ai-pointer/

> Check responses. Internet connection required. 18+. Results may vary based on visual matches and are for illustrative purposes only. Sequences shortened.

My next startup will be a company selling cars, with a little disclaimer at the bottom: "Car features not guaranteed to work. Drive infrequently and slowly."

No one is doing that, these people don't exist. No matter how hard corporate America wishes they did. This is why AI doesn't sell. This is why companies like Microsoft and Dell are pulling back on their AI claims and why Apple has nearly wiped it off their site all together, seriously go check out apple.com, not a single mention of Apple Intelligence.

At this point I'm convinced that marketing has been completely taken over by shareholder shills, marketing to customers they wish they had instead of the real customers that exist.

What does this mean? I'm in Australia so I would expect Sept-Nov.

But since I've only ever heard of American companies use seasonal typed release dates, my first instinct is to assume this is an American site and therefore American Spring - but Googling 'spring season usa' tells me Mar-May. And we are already in May.

So then I have to scroll to the bottom of the page to see what region this might be in, and it has got Australia selected. I change to UK, scroll to the top, and it has changed to autumn.

So, it is actually Australian Spring. That actually surprises me since most pages like this would not be updated to reflect my region, and so I would never expect this kind of text to be localised.

Let's just all use unambiguous wording and units :)

I really don't see the market fit for this, I guess the android integration. But my god, I'd die of cringe if someone asked me about my laptop and I had to say "googlebook". Believe it or not, these things matter a lot, particularly if you're trying to target a young audience.

I will never trust them with a hardware purchase ever again.

All that's shared about the actual laptop are renders. The website and the video spend much more time and pixels advertising hypothetical software features. The worst part is it's not a hardware announcement, but it's also not even a software announcement since the software is also just conceptual renders and nothing material. It's a website to advertise non-existent software features, running a non-existent google-branded laptop, for the purpose of what exactly?

I can imagine two reasons this website exists today. It exists because someone at Google has seen the possibility of getting a promotion by relaunching Chromebooks, and it was launched today hoping people will hold off a few months on buying the MacBook Neo, to weigh their options once this launches.

A Googlebook is something "above" a Chromebook (maybe the AI featureset imposes hardware demands that Chromebooks can't service) but is still made by third parties. I suppose they're keeping Pixelbook for first-party devices.

The most interesting part to me is the "Create your own widget". I'm really interested to see bespoke UI become a first class citizen. Why _can't_ I just ask Gemini to build a widget that serves the data I want how I want it?

Building "small" UI is for the birds, just expose the API and the basics and let users tell the AI what UI they want.

MacBook neo @ $499 and the ability to finance it leaves almost zero room in the US market for an Android laptop.

*edit

It looks like will be a ChromeOS successor and their demographic will be schools?

What operating system will it use? No comment.

Will I be able to play games on it? It has AI!

I've been pretty skeptical of Google laptops ever since.

If you don't want to associate with past Pixelbooks and want to highlight Gemini, why not Geminibook or something like that? Does Google not have faith in the Gemini branding?

Random thoughts from a nerdy mind.

Might have been more interesting if it were under a separate company that Google owned a large portion of, rather than carrying the Google brand. Then again, maybe the Google brand isn't toxic to the wider ecosystem of buyers. I still think consumer-hardware-wise Google is the Safeway Essentials version of Apple but others might think Gmail or Google itself which consumers consider best in class.

Oof.

Very upfront: "Don't pay attention to RAM, processor, battery, monitor, price, etc. We're not telling you that, because you'd laugh. We're selling access to web services. Lower your expectations, get excited for AI. Please clap".

Very rough. Moore's lesser-known cousin, Les, predicted transistor density-per-dollar would actually start to decrease over time. I guess Google's ready for that world?

And even the most virulently pro-AI people I know aren't using any of these services Google is trying to market as sexy. Who is this for? "Make a band poster for my kid", could they have chosen a sadder example?

It doesn't help that the first result on Google for "Google book" is Google Books. Even their "AI overview" is helpfully telling me about the specifications and pricetags of books on Google Books.

There are a lot of people here complaining about AI and Google and Android and Ads and clothes and marketing and whatever. I'm assuming a lot of that is HN anti-AI derkaderbs bias, with some Apple/Google tribalism for good measure. Yeah Gemini might be shite at writing code, but Gemini Web / Android is by far the best executed and most useful conversational/consumer AI assistant out there (at least in my experience, it's not even close).

I'm not a Google fan by any means, but credit where credit is due, I don't see a timeline where they don't end up completely owning genpop consumer AI. The more I think about that the more convinced I am, and the more I feel uncomfortable.

I can't just take generic hardware products hyped up as "AI" with software seriously. It's the new Windows button.

I swear if I see it in real life I'm going to spray holy water on it.

A.I., data collecting at every level, horrible incoherent ui.

Hit me daddy !

No, it isn't. If you're making hardware product, sell me hardware thats worth it. No spec sheet, just AI pushing. Chromebook 2.0 where the chromebook was a browser for an OS.

Not for me anyway.

This really just feels like an incremental upgrade to ChromeOS, with a new name to distance it from a brand that's synonymous with "cheap crap schools give to kids."

This appears to be an AI-device to mainly check the boxes for "low-complexity tasks", "high user-dependency" and "continuous flow of training data".

Perfect to catch the high-profit consumers of AI: They will use AI-services for the most mundane tasks, which won't be taxing on AI-infrastructure but also very sticky, as it will be a core of the desktop-experience.

So this is where we're heading with Desktop OS...

I think LLMs have the potential to make computers work how we’ve always envisioned them to (i.e. 60s sci-fi), but I’m also not convinced a dedicated laptop is the right form.

With that said, a 128GB RAM MacBook Pro is getting tantalizingly close to running useful local LLMs.

If the Googlebook was announced as a machine capable of running a small Gemini model locally, I’d probably enter back into the abusive relationship I have with Google hardware and preorder it…

If Google is now pushing this "intelligence‑first" desktop experience, how much of that work is likely to stay in the proprietary ChromeOS/Googlebook layer vs. land in upstream ChromiumOS?

This thing, like all other google/android products, will be DOA, and the ones actually duped into buying one will be left with a paperweight in a year or two when the cheap hardware inevitably breaks.

Edit: Probably Android at the core, and then a desktop-grade Chrome browser on top.

Google loves to just remake the same-ish thing again in hopes of adoption.

"1. Check responses. Internet connection required. 18+."

I don't know about you but these AIs ran out of internet data to train and I volunteer all my blood, sweat, tears and movements to improve them.

Say what you want, a cheap Windows laptop at least has an edge on obscure software compatibility over MacOS and a notebook running any modern Linux distro gets the luxury of user control. ChromeOS meanwhile has neither. Paying more for worst in class software compatibility inferior build quality, design and restrictive lock-in sounds about as appealing as a chicken tartare from the value bin.

Prior to (again) getting a MacBook Pro, I wanted to make a high end Laptop (ASUS ProArt P16, about € 3500,- back then) work with Fedora, but purely on a basis of build quality and input feel, it was unusably poor. That trackpad deserves a place in hell and if that (or likely a worse one given cost cutting) is what the Asus and Acer models get, competing with the Neo is a cruel joke.

HP and especially Lenovo fare better, I can at least live with those though a Neos input is nicer if we compare their current devices at the same price, so unless Google is willing to heavily subsidise a brand that, let's be honest, is unlikely to garner any loyalty, I can't see them being overly competitive either, given the software limits of ChromeOS.

The Android app casting does sound amazing though and that alone would make a full on Linux machine with MBP level build quality compelling.

I guess there are some people who want to be locked tightly in an ecosystem which will be a lifelong dependency for them. Meanwhile Google extracts thousands and thousands of dollars from the "user" over their lifetime.

Oh I get why they do this now...

It’s a class of laptops. Or, really, an operating system for laptops, not a new device from Google.

“We’re working with Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo to make the first Googlebooks.”

So, there will be (if they all actually get released) at least five laptops that are ‘Googlebooks’.

Why are these features compelling? I went through the whole page and still don’t know what OS runs on this laptop… the value prop for this is incredibly unclear.

Typical of Big Tech spirit.

I had a belly laugh. They're trying so hard to be like Apple with these, but without the clear explanation of user benefit.

Coupling these with Gemini is so detached, especially when everyone screams Local LLM.

This laptop though? Uhhhh who would EVER buy this over MacOS????

It's just never worth the hassle of buying/using a Google product. Never.

I am just lost. I wanna watch a documentary on how this kind of thing gets thought out and made and approved by a lot of people and then comes to being annouced as an actual hardware product.

Ie the other day I wanted to track my clipboard history, and I preferred to trust a locally coded & executed AI-generated clipboard history mac app over a random github project.

Now obviously trusting AI has its own concerns vs trusting people, but interested in other ways companies will reimagine interfaces with AI

I wonder if 1) it's actually going to be like that and not just an aesthetic for the ad, and 2) if I would ever get used to a cursor working that way.

As much as we want to point fingers at MBAs, but isn't this the exact kind of things they teach as cases to not do?

Google basically said “here’s a mysterious glowing rectangle” and expected us spec junkies not to immediately start clawing at the walls for a datasheet, and losing sleep for weeks on end until we get them.

But... Google owning my hardware? This feels so out of left field. I must not be the target audience.

1- Chromebooks have made huge inroads in schools because they’re easy to maintain, share, upgrade, and they’re very cheap.

2- Obviously, running desktop software is a huge new piece of the ecosystem, but isn’t this customer already opting for Windows/Mac, who have extremely robust 30-year ecosystems and suites like Office, iLife, Adobe, etc that will obviously never build for this platform

There’s no way Google OS ever hits any kind of parity of exclusive software that is unavailable on Windows/Mac. Best they can do is run Android apps. This also introduces a high new threat vector to their existing customers who might not want it.

Lastly, what will this do to Chromebook buyers who are now wondering which OS will be actively developed in 5 years?

They should design one for users.

This is a landing page with basically no details, but if it’s a thin console that calls home to Google it loses on latency and privacy immediately.

If the Macbook Neo didn't exist, both of sleek designs might of tided people away from Apple, but the price on the Neo, with the hardware polish from Apple is hard to beat if you're content with MacOS.

Here’s my optimistic take - Google is already supplying Gemini/Gemma models for the next generation of Apple Intelligence. It makes complete sense for them to enter the hardware market.

I’d be happier if they use more on device models by optimizing their hardware for the next generation of Gemmma models.

If it ends up having ML-centric hardware, like a version of their TPUs, the story could change, especially if they don't try to keep it locked within their ecosystem. Local AI is the future.

[0] https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en

- Annoying startup animation (at least it's skippable)

- Minimalist copy that is that is also very hard to parse for meaning.

- Elements jarringly appear and disappear as you scroll.

- Only has examples of tasks that are easier to do on your phone.

I use gemini extensively (and claude). But - do I need this integrated in my laptop? Don't quite see it. And it's hard to beat Apple on hardware now.

I'd be more likely to believe them if they had already implemented this feature on their Pixel phones, but they haven't so I expect it probably isn't "done".

Google should totally be experimenting with what can be done, but it seems to be a bit odd that they put something so uninspiring front and center like that.

I can’t wait for local llms to get more powerful

This keeps users locked in.

Then there’s this thing. Who is this even for?! How does it fit into the ecosystem? It’s another rebrand instead of what was needed which was an ecosystem upgrade.

On the other hand, if maximized windows work properly and Linux apps are still supported and they have a Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme version, I might be interested. The Snapdragon is very competitive with Apple's M5 even including single core performance and battery life.

I personally would want to also be able to switch off the telco signal.

Perhaps the bay would be in the laptop screen itself and the two screens could operate side-by-side - or in the main body and the phone would go dormant.

Is this a laptop with a built-in integration with Google's cloud models? I suspect so. And if so, it's the integration that's special, not "the laptop."

People do this when the system is stuck or something is not working for some reason, and this will just add extra burden when that happens.

It's such a bad idea that I can see Microsoft immediately adopting this! (Opens up three variants of copilot, one deprecated and spins without getting the API handle right.)

Also, I find it funny that they have burned through the "chromebook" and "pixelbook" branding already, leaving them with the less snappy "googlebook." Not sure if the third time's the charm here.

One day an exec will say lets reduce wasteful projects and cut this.

i have always liked netbooks more than chromebooks (but I really only ever had the samsung NC10, specifically for the keyboard). i really miss that thing. these days i am wary of the gewgly eyes on my digital person, so i'ma pass on this til someone less on the radar makes another platform pop.

where to next! linux on risc-v? steamOS on ARM? screenless lozenge wirelessly coupled to an EEG that makes me hallucinate images?

I wish it was framed around the OS and how it can run on a wide range of devices (similar to android and chrome os) and become something more in time (maybe with apps that can be developed outside the android ecosystem with a desktop experience in mind).

I don’t know what normal person wants this though. The Neo is enough for most, and if I need more I’m probably going to want a real os. Not ChromeOS++

Well, I am still waiting for the price. If it is $450 or higher, I'd just get a MacBook Neo at that point.

We are supposed to buy this because.. AI?

Zero chance in hell this surveillance device comes into my home.

Except given their recent behaviour I have very little trust that they won't execute that in the most user hostile fashion they can come up with.

- laptop manufacturers and customers preferring Linux over Googles os shenanigans

- Apple Unified Business Platform, that is going to take an enormous piece of the enterprise pie

Don't get me wrong, I'm still disappointed. But mainly because it looks so superficial. I was trying to work out what's new and it just looks like an Android device (or Chrome? I can't tell) with some party trick Gemini features sprinkled on it. There isn't anything technically interesting here.

I'm still waiting for someone to ship a truly AI native device - something with the right sandboxing and UI layers to let an AI model truly understand and work with the device natively, but safely. The OS SDK itself should natively incorporate all these elements as first class primitives. And the model would be trained heavily to explicitly understand and work well with them.

- it's owned by Google. Google is the worst tech company out there to trust your data

- it has AI all over the place. Overuse of AI depresses me. And a laptop is something very personal to me. I don't want to be depressed every time i open my laptop

- the "files" functionality is cloud-based. That's insane. I don't want my files in the "cloud". I want a file system

I run linux, and still own Macs (because their hardware is great on laptops). Of course I'm not the target audience. But still.

Such a nice Latop!

Google really struggles with product. Money doesn't buy everything.

Edit: spelling

That's the killer feature of the Neo. This is going to be the killer feature of this one. Working alongside pixel. You have some sort of a platform.

What are they after? Your data, obviously. I doubt they have such a success, I don't see THAT many Pixels around.

Agents will need a different level of understanding of your activities across different surfaces to act effectively, IMHO the OS is the perfect place to offer it.

It's hard to treat this part seriously while seeing HP logo on the page.

I wish they'd just make ~ pixelbook with ubuntu... it'd be such a powermove, and they if anyone could pull it off

I was excited at first by this, but the "designed for gemini intelligence"... like what does that even mean

Nobody wants AI embedded into the OS spying on you every move.

Just think of all the times that you're happily using a browser and now these sites are going to demand you install an app after they detected you can because of the user agent. Ugh.

I'd be interested in knowing the specs, more about the OS, software details, platform... A laptop integration like this based on android is cool to me. I couldn't care less about the AI crap though. This is a fascinating concept because phones themselves can provide a full desktop experience when you plug them into a screen. So could help encourage mobile computing more.

"We’re bringing together the best of Android, which comes with powerful apps on Google Play and a modern OS that’s designed for Intelligence, and ChromeOS, which comes with the world’s most popular browser."

https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/platforms/android...

Many have tried desk/laptop and phone integration before, but it never seems to work smoothly, which surprises me because it doesn't seem that hard, at least to run phone apps on the larger screen (with some icon modification, etc.); and it doesn't stick as a feature, which surprises me because I'd think almost anyone would want to easily integrate the two.

I wonder why this time will be different? Is there demand now? Does Google have some trick up their sleeve? Do they have a universal development platform that makes it easy to write apps for both platforms?

Is this a rebranding of Chromebook Plus? For those who haven't been following the laptop form factor recently, Chromebook Pluses with Mediatek Kompanio Ultra SoCs are the best deals in laptops today. If this is just a Chromebook Plus with a fashion light bar, I'm not interested.

It does feel as if AI wrote that copy. Then again, this looks like a slop making machine; a slop landing page seems weirdly appropriate. Maybe no human is meant to look at this announcement for more than a few seconds.

I'm sorry but these Taiwanese brands Acer and Asus are the bottom of the barrel. Bad build quality, clunky keyboard, bad speakers, everything plastic etc I never had a "premium" experience ever having the luck using one. They just can't make something simple as a Macbook Air/Neo

Either they live in their own bubbles where their lives revolve around constant shopping, traveling, throwing parties, and doing creative work...

Or they're not bothering to do basic observational research around how normal people live.

> 1. Check responses.

Eh sure. Everyone will totally check the vibe coded "widget". Is this really all that's necessary to discount all responsibility when that widget deletes your disk and kills your grandmother?

They missed a great opportunity to create a special user interface experience supporting multiple tasks (e.g. Gemini-CLI, anti gravity, Gemini-chat, browser) while sharing the same context . It could have been an awesome developer device . Imagine virtual desktops all sharing the same context with various tools : Gemini-CLI working on infra and artifacts, Antigravity running development , Gemini chat generating graphics assets. Hardware enabled with special shared memory / NPU.

Instead, I see a Chromebook with the nagging MS Edge “right click for copilot”.

If their intention is to target the general public, then I think they're out of touch with reality, and it doesn’t seem targeted at AI enthusiasts either.

Let me elaborate if it isn't obvious. If it is higher, people will just use their regular laptops ie. there will be no use case. If it is low, it will find it's use. Like when I am travelling, this would be amazing.

Are Google PMs really just saying "let's take existing product and shove AI into it"?

I'm shocked, SHOCKED how bad google is at copywriting, and it clearly not mattering.

Maybe someone could invent a format for presenting text and images over the internet that didn’t each require each text presenter to write custom (buggy) shader code?

Any one would be a slightly bad sign for quality, all five are awful.

Yet another product range with lots of options, but not a single good one.

Plus the fact that they’ve clearly just ripped off the exact shape of a MacBook, but thicker and shitter.

Gross. I thought the Windows 11 miscreation was bad enough.

also, second question in re sideloading:

do the Googlebooks get the 24 hour fuckoff window for enabling sideloading or can I just walk granny through loading an .apk direct on the laptop

Oh god, it's a curse. In 2026 we should be getting laptops with 128 GB of RAM. Instead we get some "new model" over and over, with 8GB.

Hard pass.

I hate AI.

Launch blog post up top perhaps: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/platforms/android... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48111082)