Googlebook

So, I'm only slightly trying to be a smartass here, but... Who is this for? They are marketing what is ostensibly a computer for people who seem to not want to use a computer in scenarios that I don't think even exist.

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?

I see the vision here, which the top commenters (sorry, couldn't read all of them) seems to miss. This should be a moonshot bet on the next generation of user experience. People are complaining about apps, but the idea here should be to make apps irrelevant as a concept. You don't need "apps", you need data feedable to LLM and a visualization toolkit for presenting results. And maybe some tools to manually wrangle the data when precise manipulation is required.

On paper, this sounds amazing. Like "out of sci-fi books" amazing. The caveat, though? I very much doubt Google has the capacity to execute this properly. And we'll get another half-baked attempt at reskinning Chromium and/or Android.

Would prefer a 'Google Linux'—a native desktop OS with a unified UI philosophy, similar to a macOS experience but built on a standard Linux foundation. Instead of ChromeOS or Android as the base, treat them as subsystems for compatibility.

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 bought a Pixelbook during the middle of their product lifetime, and it was one of the best laptops I ever had. I genuinely don't know how broadly that sentiment was shared, but the cancellation of the product line suggests "not that broadly." Google has changed since that time and I am a bit skeptical this will meet that specific niche for me.

So this is essentially Android desktop mode with Android 17 Gemini integration. Please get rid of that top panel. I just don't get why this and desktops like GNOME tries to copy macos top panel when clearly in macos it is menu bar that host app menus but that concept doesn't exists in these other desktops and yet they have a top panel. This is just bad UX.

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.

Google seems to have made an official post on Reddit describing the feature set in detail:

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/

Gross. This is just more proof that corporations simply don't know how to market AI. Everything is an ad for an ad at this point. The very first thing they show this new machine doing is helping people shop for clothes using AI.

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.

I think if I wanted a cheap laptop I'd probably get the macbook neo, and if i wanted a non-gaming expensive one i'd get a macbook pro.

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 buy another google hardware product again after my most recent pixel experience. I was sent a phone with a defective modem that they refused to replace. This is despite having bought 5 other pixels and also using google fi and a bunch of other google products.

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

> Coming Spring 2026

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 :)

Awful branding aside this will be dead within 3 years.

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?

This is not a laptop announcement. This is an attempt at a software announcement disguised as a laptop announcement.

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.

For those wondering why this isn't using the Pixelbook brand, the Reddit post sheds more light.

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.

Off topic i know but, who goes from SF to Tokyo for a 6 day "vintage shopping trip" ? Who do they think their audience is here?

What CPU architecture does it have? No comment.

What operating system will it use? No comment.

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

I attended Google I/O in 2013 and was given a Chromebook Pixel, their $1300 laptop. The hardware was very, very nice, and I quite enjoyed using it for a while. One day, I dropped it and damaged the screen well outside of its warranty period. "Oh no," I thought. "This is probably going to be pretty expensive to fix." So, bracing for the damage, I called up Google and told them what had happened. They replied that there was no fixing it. They would replace the laptops under the warranty, but there was no repairing to be done. I was welcome to call around and ask local repair shops if they could do it. That went nowhere, of course.

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

All of society is heading towards an incredibly unpopular future. Nobody wants this. Tech was a mistake. I wish them all failure and shame. Feel bad and quit

Indulge some pedantry with me... Why "Googlebook?" Pixel was meant for first-party computing devices, I thought. Nest for smart home and Fitbit for fitness trackers.

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.

I imagine they're going to do the same thing with this as with Chromebooks: i.e. do enterprise deals with schools and so on? Google's iteration-style structure where they kill products is fine for SaaS type offerings that are free and that you don't build your world around, but buying a laptop they won't support soon enough isn't that useful. Ultimately, just like with Amazon and their phone, it's obvious even prior to release that this is not a priority for the company and the side gig type stuff doesn't work when you are selling hardware.

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.

Wait, it's... just all AI?

> 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."

> "Intelligence is the new spec."

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.

"Designed for Gemini Intelligence" is the primary marketing tag on the splash page. It's so underwhelming I'm not even going to bother to look into the details. Are people pleading for a laptop that is even more highly integrated with AI, above all else?

Unfortunately, there is almost no point buying this when the MacBook Neo exists, and runs a full-fledged operating system rather than ChromeOS or Gemini or whatever it is they’re calling it.

FWIW my mum is still rocking my 2013 chromebook pixel. It is on all day, every day, and has been ever since I gave it to her a decade ago. I have repasted it three times now, it's been covered in sugary crap, dropped, trodden on by my kids, had charger cables tripped over and ripped apart while plugged in (sans magsafe), and it still looks and feels almost indistinguishable from when I bought it. The keyboard and screen are somehow both still fantastic, speakers great, experience snappy. It is phenomenal hardware, and if this 'Googlebook' comes even remotely close (and I suspect it will), I'm buying one as soon as I can.

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.

It is not very encouraging that most of the marketing materials on the website show the Googlebook having filleted (rounded) edges similar to Macbook Neo, but the video shows the laptop having a bevelled profile similar to framework 13. Seems like a hastily put together attempt at a response to the acclaimed Macbook Neo. Literally zero information on the page apart from the "fall" release window.

How can Apple's competition be so bad? It's not even that complex: just make something quality. The closest so far is latest Framework Pro.

What is the product here? A chromebook with a different name, and some Gemini stuff thrown on top of the UI?

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."

For those wondering about the OS:

"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?

> Intelligence is the new spec.

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.

Omg. All the worst of Google embedded in a single device.

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 !

As someone with a closet full of dead Google devices, I just can’t get excited about new hardware from them.

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…

Wow. That has to be one of the worst announcements I have ever seen. A hardware launch that only talks about software and most of the software is AI. This announcement is nothing. This could have been a ChromeOS update.

I'm curious what this means for ChromiumOS and downstreams like FydeOS.

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?

There was a time where Google could've been competitive in this space, specifically against Apples MacBook product line, but that has long since passed. The 3rd party manufacturer path means Google isn't committed to this and won't have competitive hardware. It'll just be another Chromebook and limited to the Google Play Store too, which just isn't good at this point.

Not buying a laptop unless I can run Linux on it as the native OS.

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.

I guess it will be running Google's new operating system (a "modern OS designed for Intelligence") that combines elements of Android and ChromeOS.

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

A plastic macbook lookalike with no ports, a mobile phone OS, a 1366x768 display and probably the cheapest SoC they can scrounge from the parts bin.

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.

I can't stand websites like this. I get there's no substance to my complaint, but it just seems pointless to do this. If you want a slow reveal, do a video or something (but I won't watch that either).

I'm amazed by all the "people hate AI therefore this won't get anywhere". This is a first (perhaps real) attempt to envision what a desktop of the future looks like assuming AI progress continues. If I'm Apple, I'm very concerned about this, because it is the type of thing that will be tough for them to compete with if Google can pull it off. A traditional computer experience may be very different in a few years, and Google may suddenly be the company that can pull this all together...

Chromebook, Pixelbook, Googlebook.

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

I can't invest in Goolge products. I always feel like they're going to pull the plug or change the terms, pricing model etc.

Magic Pointer requires the user to be 18+...

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

I have a hard time seeing how any Chromebook above $ 349,- could still survive in an post-MacBook Neo age.

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.

Original Pixelbook was amazing and my fam still uses it. Wish they just stuck to the lineup and kept iterating vs giving up and trying to rebrand every few years.

I wish google would just go away. The thought of another product with googles tentacles in it makes me nauseous.

I sooooo want to buy it and have every single keyboard stroke, mouse and eye movement tracked.

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.

Although there's a lot of consumer tools that won't stick, because they just don't actually help, AI is going to make big inroads for lots of different categories of task (just not all). It seems software engineering (or the act of coding specifically) is going to be heavily affected, because a lot of the labs focus is going into developing AI coding skills, and because it's easier to verify correctness than it is in many other problem domains. I've moved my focus to retooling - consolidating much of my workflow in a tool I'm working on https://www.agentkanban.io - A remote kanban board with agent harness integration (Github CoPilot currently) and context management. It's a tool that I use everyday in my own agentic coding workflows, and I can honestly say that it improves the quality of the code produced and reduces friction in organising working on concurrent features.

I know this is not for me. But if correctly executed, it could sell like piece of cake. It should be thin, light, massive battery life, fast and seamless. It seems Intel, Qualcomm and MediaTek will be supplying chips and curious to see how it will pan out. Do you think this will be a market disruptor similar to chrome books 15 years ago?

For a split second I thought this was a joke/commentary on Google and Facebook.

I'm pretty much at I need very strong justification to own something I haven't wiped and installed a clean and open operating system on. I'm certainly curious if this is easy to do with this device, but I suspect the intention is quite the opposite

It’s amazing to scroll through this whole product page and leave feeling like I don’t know what it really does / who it’s for.

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.

This is really cool (although they could've recycled the Pixelbook brand). I hope there'll be a way to dual boot Windows 11 on this.

The Gemini features would be so cool if they ran locally, but as-is, this reads like a laptop running spyware to me.

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

This page crashes in my Google-based browser. I can't scroll down more than ~50 pixels.

I bet you all share the same feeling looking at it: it will be pretty OK for 2 years and then become abandon-ware soon after, like it is with Google products typically. Or not, but you still have that scepticist gut feeling about it.

This looks like a better announcement page: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/platforms/android...

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.

What's funny is that these days if I see a Google product that I'm even remotely interested in, I just immediately write it off because I know it's something they will kill in a very short time frame.

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

Hey Google, take the cue from Microslops debacle with the "agentic" Windows : Nobody asked for this!

Most comments here are about Chromebook/Googlebook hardware. But IMO the more interesting part is AI-native OS features. Unfortunately it seems like not a ton, but I think the future is in custom software created from user prompts.

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

Normalizing compute rental + no privacy vs. actual ownership.

Typical of Big Tech spirit.

I hear people complaining about Windows shoving ads at them, then you have something like this from Google that makes me ask why would anyone in their right mind want to use an OS like this? Seems built to hook you into Google's services.

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...

Apple's best move was to steer away from AI lockdowns and focus on what consumers really need.

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

Maybe this will be a market success? My non-tech brother loves all the AI features on his Pixel phone.

Apple has a good story with Handoff to connect Apple devices. Google might have some success selling a Googlebook + Pixel phone combo.

Cons: Google cancels products that some people love.

Pluses: I think there is a real chance that Anthropic and OpenAI tank financially and Google might win consumer AI, with enterprise AI shared between Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

The second feature shown in this global launch is ... widgets. Like, Windows Vista widgets. And then, I could also open phone apps but not on my phone but on my computer (because I'd want to do that) and then the remaining feature is file sync.

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.

I could see myself getting a 16 GB model, assuming they are made available at reasonable prices.

Meaning OEMs, not the usual overpriced Google offers.

This can also be the final blow for Microsoft to finally get their act together regarding Windows quality, and the current mess in Windows native development after the UWP/WinRT adoption failure, mostly caused by schizophrenic management decisions on how to cater to devs.

One of the really nice things of the Macs (from Neo to Studio) is that they have a single UI (that might or might not be ideal for you, but it is unified,) yet underneath it has a Unix OS that lets you run standard compilers, docker containers, vms whatnot. The pixel and chromebooks were nice as a device to run a browser on, but not for development. Getting EMacs to run on them felt like a big achievement at the time.

I cannot think of a product I'd like to own less than a machine fully-integrated with Google. And I'm not some "never Google" guy—my company's entire email infrastructure lives on Google. It's a necessary evil for us.

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

The fact the team behind this came up with the name "Googlebook" doesn't give me a great confidence in the rest of the product.

I don't have any comment except to say that I think this is the first non-mechanical/custom keyboard in ages to have an F13 key.

All the comments here seem to be assuming this is a Google product, but it’s not - it’s not even a single thing.

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’.

Love the confidence of launching a teaser page with zero specs. I’m not emotionally prepared to be marketed to before I know how much RAM it has.

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.

Competition is always good. I got a Mac Neo recently to supplement my larger 16” MBP and they really nailed it. It’s the perfect laptop for kids and travel. Most importantly it feels like it’ll last for a decade like my MBP. I hope it’s the same for googlebooks but even pixels have issues with surviving beyond 5 years.

What does Google gain from this? They already struggle in hardware, or am I missing something - has something changed?

"open apps from your phone on your laptop" only thing there that I thought: "that would be pretty awesome ngl." It would be a way to easily test android apps in a real environment with an actual large screen. Yes, I know android studio has a good emulator but emulators are still a horrible platform compared to the real thing. Particularly the networking there is nothing like how it works in the real world.

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.

I’m not sure I understand the customer use case for this.

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?

Mostly dismissive comments, it seems. Maybe justified. But I think a more interesting conversation is what happens if this or other devices like it become a hit? I wonder if the next generation of users will look at computers with no AI features the way we look at MS-DOS.

It was super disorienting for me to see the cursor pointing different directions depending on which direction it was moving.

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.

Why would they disable comments on the youtube video

In the Android IO event on Youtube today: "We're taking Android from an operating system to an intelligence system"

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

> Designed for Gemini Intelligence

They should design one for users.

A new high watermark in absolutely content-free marketing webpages.

- 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.

Overall, it's an interesting idea. Although it's Google and it's packed, it's going to be packed with Gemini and Google AI and whatnot. My problem is not the AI, nor is it that it's an undefined territory for what a laptop use case is. My problem is Google's attention span. Google is notoriously bad at paying attention to any product for more than 18 months. I'm not going to spend money on buying a piece of hardware where it's going to be totally irrelevant from a manufacturing point of view in 18 months and be left high and dry holding the bag.

The gemini/ai part aside, but I really like this revival of passion for PCs and Laptops. Totally anecdotal here and I could have definitely spend couple of minutes to research the marketing numbers, but I cannot help but feel happy with Framework, Panther Lake and Dell XPS and of course the mini Mac and Macbook family. I feel like there were years when center of attention had turned to mobile/ipads (and consoles) which were severly locked down to the point of no use point their intended creators purpose. I felt bad my siblings never get hooked into my old PC, as they went from PS3 to phones.

Seems like they want a MacBook for people with Pixel phones. Okay. I assume it will be an ARM based system running some Android variant, if you can seamlessly launch Android apps on it. "Designed for Gemini Intelligence" is somewhat repellant - look at how poorly MS has done pushing Copilot on people. Overall I'd need way more info to know if this is a device I'd be interested in at all, but since I have a MacBook and iPhone, I don't think I'm the target market. Perhaps their ideal target market, but it seems like this would be best for people who are already knee deep in the Google ecosystem.

I believe that the change from cfs scheduler to eevdf scheduler will give a great boost to desktop applications based on linux kernel and this will be a great help for google, steamos and so on .

I used to use Chromebooks as a souped-up iPad with Linux terminal support.

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”.

The very first thing I thought when I read this is "Hmm, wonder how long this one will last before Google kills it."

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

Wow, so they looked at the copilot+Windows11 and thought that would be something they want to emulate...

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?

Built for the vibes... It looks nice and i guess this is Google's answer to the Apple Neo, i expect it will be priced exactly the same $599 but will be bundled with 6 months free Gemini Pro.

Phew, good to know LLMs still can't make a good product or market it properly. Yes, people will buy it--if that's your standard for "good product", you should apply to Google :)

Disregarding whether I like it or not (I don't), it's a strategically interesting product.

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 really wanted to stay in the google chromebook / googlebook echo system. But the hardware was expensive for what you get. Apple announced the macbook neo and I picked one up. Great hardware. can run light weight mac software. I don't run much beyond chrome and wahoo SYSTM (bike trainer app). It's really solid hardware and cost $600 or so.

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.

Related: How is it possible for Google in 2026 to get away without a cookie banner that allows you to manage your tracking preferences? The cookie notification only links to a "Learn more" [0] page but provides no specifics on how cookies are used on this site? Is this some legal wizardry or plain ignorance of the GDRP?

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

I'm going to need to see how that top bar works. If they've ruined the ChromeOS UI by not allowing maximized windows to use the top of the screen for tab bars then I will be very disappointed.

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.

So this is a notebook with good enough TPU capabilities to run Gemini partially (like in a MoE), a small model that knows when to delegate to the main model?

Panic-Driven Engineering (The "Me-Too" Strategy): Google used to set the standard for the industry (MapReduce, Android’s foundations, Kubernetes, Transformers). Now, they are reactionary. Because Microsoft and OpenAI threatened their core search monopoly, Google is rushing half-baked, unoptimized software layers to the market just to appease Wall Street shareholders.

When I saw the name, Googlebook I had my fingers crossed that Google had finally built something that could compete with the Apple MacBook. If that ad is anything to go by, this will flop and there will be no shortage of consumers who will go along for the ride.

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.

I like the idea of a phone that fully inserts into a laptop bay to get its functionality in a different form factor. Not sure the laptop needs a powerful CPU, if any. Or it could have a really powerful one while adding storage and memory.

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.

I don't think the strategy of trying to figure out what an "AI laptop" should be will work. The best bet is to see what use cases organically emerge from the current tech, figure out the biggest gaps, and design a product around that. This is more like they just took "AI" plus "Laptop" and came up with a grab-bag list of cool sounding features, like "custom widgets".

Features like the magic cursor look cool: an infinitely flexible context menu. However, context menus make it clear what you can and cannot do. If the magic cursor can't "do everything reasonable", it'll be just as usable as Siri.

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".

Waiting for this to be discontinued in around 3-9 months

I am not anti-AI, but if I am going to use AI I far prefer to have control over how I engage with it. Having a piece of hardware to focused on Google's own AI flavor being built in is a big negative to me. Not that I would totally write off this new Googlebook (despite disliking the name), but I can't really see a situation where I'd ever prefer this over an Apple Neo for example.

I just want a good working Desktop Mode (Dex etc) for my Android phone, my phone is already powerful enough, I don't need another computer.

So eventually this will have ads everywhere right? Because selling all your info won’t be enough for google.

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

Google could make a killing if they directly competed with the MacBook Mini. People paying out $2k to run OpenClaw will care about how well Gemini or whatever runs on their hardware. Scale up the Coral accelerator they already sell.

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.

Most important question: can I run Lineage on it, or will this be the start of a departure of Google allowing OEM unlock on Android?

If everything is Google then there won´t be any more competition. They already have their hands in way to many things. Laptop margins are thin. They could squeeze smaller players out of the market with a decade of dump prices, seizing control of the computer market. Say hello to attestation and not owning anything anymore. Hope this laptop flops.

First thing they show is shopping with Gemini AI. Everything is around advertising and shopping with Google. Not the platform for me.

Why would I want purpose-built hardware built by a company looking to lock me in, rather than hardware that does whatever I want?

Can this project run for 30 years at loss? Google investors don't like that.

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

They can't show me how this new shiny thing can make me more productive at work. Looks like a giant phone from the video.

Can't wait to see the rooting hacks resulting from mousing over a strawberry and text saying "count the r's".

Who thought wiggling the cursor to invoke AI is a good idea?

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.)

I personally think Google should just stay away from consumer-facing devices.

I have a Pixel phone, and just the finish on it sucks! Lots of little annoyances. Each app has its own quirks, as you know the teams working on these apps do not talk to each other, and there is no central figure vetting the apps that they do put out.

This is an attempt to flood the desktop interface market of laptops, and likely eventually desktops, with their hardware running their OS so they can enforce attestation at the hardware level across all classes of devices and lock you out of their attested Web if you’re not using one of the big three companies hardware and operating systems.

What in the Microsoft Surface is this? Are they trying to frame a life-long dependency on Google's LLMs as a feature?

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.

Can I install any app on it, or do I need Google's permission as to which apps they would allow me to install?

This is first comment and I have to ask what do they mean by this? why it requires a phone with android 17 or above?

2 Setup required. Phone with Android 17 or above required.

To be true, I don't like and I don't like the AI features. I guess google has done their R&D, and they want to reach a specific user target.

Top 3 comments are so negative.

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.

Both Google and Samsung have adopted the sleek, rounded edge, sharp trackpad cutout and metal frame like Apple.

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.

I'm prepared to buy a laptop that utilises AI to improve things and generally makes things better. I see no evidence so far to suggest that this is it.

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.

GBook or GoBook. They may have biffed this launch no matter how good. Googlebook is too long. Looks cool though.

It's just a slightly different chromebook optimized for AI? Am I missing something? What a nightmare.

I can’t really tell who this is for, no specs even listed that I can find, at first I thought it was going to be for running local models based on the copy but after a moment of sobriety and knowing Google clearly this is just a consumer device that they will fail to support in a couple years.

I want to cheer them on just because i think the improvements they made to Android (such as the Linux terminal) as part of the Android-based laptop project are pretty cool. They increase the usability of Android tablets by a bunch.

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

I'm curious to know how this will work in practice. I have tried multiple times for Gemini to take a look at what's on my screen on my Android device and create a Google Calendar event from it. A few times it works, but fails in the vast majority of cases.

Is this the Android desktop based which was leaked quite a few times? I feel the discussion here is overly negative. Android finally having an official desktop mode is good for competition. Windows is dropping the ball with each release, Macs need some good competition.

Even if the hardware is great, the thought of giving Google more data is icky to me, even if logically it makes no difference. I already use Gmail, and Apple collects just as much. Something about Google's image just makes me grossed out in a way Apple does not.

Impressive feat of confused branding that Google has marketed Chromebooks, Pixelbooks, and Googlebooks.

DOA right? Since they don't have any good will that they won't just drop support next year?

I’m waiting on these to be 70% off. Assuming an open boot loader or anyway to run Linux on it, looks like a clean computer.

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++

Price will make or break this. Nothing else.

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.

> powered by premium hardware

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

reminds me of the pixel c! that thing was pretty neat. this thing has the same "glowbar"... i bet it's old stock for them now since the pixel c didn't see many sales; that was from an era where google at least pretended to be a 'good guy.'

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?

Is this a laptop designed to be powerful enough to run local models? I suspect not.

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."

Put a TPU in this and I’ll buy it!

I don’t think any portable laptop can beat the MacBook Neo on price and value this year.

I don't think it's about AI. It's about the success of the MacBook Neo. Google kinda missed the point that at this day and age you can take a huge cut of the Windows market share just based on the fact that your laptop pairs up with your phone.

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.

> Designed for Gemini Intelligence

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

They accidentally started selling these early! You can pick one up right now, here: https://www.google.com/chromebook/

Google don't dogfood so I'm not interested. I remember when the Pixel Fold came out asking people at Google and nobody had one. Have fun, but if nobody at Google will use this why should I?

Google Engineers don't even the other *books much for work, if they don't exclusively dogfood their own products, you know they don't have much faith to keep it going. Likewise their own phones.

No thanks. Google is heading for a similar closed ecosystem setup as Apple.

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.

The interesting thing to me is that this is Android based if I understand correctly. The Google TV Android based experience is very good, I've been wanting a good Android based desktop OS since forever.

In practice I find the Gemini models to be the worst for coding and design.

Does it use ChromeOS or Android? I read an unreliable comment in Reddit that Google may be forced to sell ChromeOS to satisfy antitrust lawsuit. The comment provided zero evidence for the conjecture.

What I would buy: a local AI focused laptop with a built-in, powerful TPU. And it would have to open its hardware interface so that I could actually do what I wanted to do with it.

"Designed for Gemini Intelligence", so, not for human? Got it.

I clicked on the link hoping to find out the price first thing so I could compare it to Apple Neo's price. Didn't find price anywhere. Also, is an AI subscription required for this?

Well, so interesting, the future keeps on evolving day and night

They are so bad at product

so Aluminum OS is finally here. it should be big enough of an announcement by itself but what we get is googlebook; hardware with an AI-tied value proposition. how do they think people would justify choosing a googlebook over everything else only to use gemini?

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).

Why announce it now without spec and so far away from shipping date?

So this is replacing the "Chromebook Plus" line of AI-certified laptops, and also adding new Google hardware replacing the abandoned Google Pixel Slate/Chromebook Pixel?

This is Google reacting to:

- 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

There must be such a disconnection between the general people and more technical oriented people. I would never ever buy such a laptop. The reasons are very simple:

- 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.

Their history of committment in supporting their hardware is too far from pleasing. I wouldn't touch Google hardware again (other than Pixels) with the tip of my toe.

Is this what happens when you let Gemini name your products?

A fun name... (I wonder how many non-native English speakers realize that the two occurrences of 'oo' in 'googlebook' are not pronounced the same.)

Looks like they rushed the release or didn't let the LLM proofread: "Öffne Apps von deinem Android-Smartphone auf deinem Latop – ohne Installation"

Such a nice Latop!

WTF, I got this announcement from HN. Uhhh channel anyone?

How do they justify developing and selling this? Like how do they justify the internal cost of moving people from core businesses to do this.

Big Rabbit AI energy.

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

I love the mix of MacBook Pro and Asus-style renders. Nothing says care and attention to detail like mixing renders in the same advert.

All the shots at the name apart I think this is a very good strategic move. The other frontier labs would die to have this level of surface available for their models as a testing ground, with the current state of things on Apple side the ChatGPT on MacOS integration is probably the best everyone will get for a good time on how a full integration of LLM model with OS could really looks like.

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.

This is then the device where Google monitors everything you do, just like on the phones. And decides what you can use and what it reports.

So... they built a right-click-slop-generator and that's the default experience you get as the context menu?

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

Might be a good laptop, but we're trying to use less and less Google. I feel like the name isn't working in it's advantage.

before clicking I thought this was gonna be some sort of a hardware innovation, TPU in a laptop for local AI type of product but oh well.

HN always disappoints me with these kind of threads, with all the generic disappointment and Google scepticism dominating the conversation.

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.

Make it as perform as well or close to Apple Silicon and give me free access to Linux dev environment and I will give this a shot.

Im more interested if we'll be able to load this OS on old Windows laptops or if it's hardware locked via software checks.

"Chromebook" had a better ring to it.

So...it's a Chromebook. With "ai".

Judging by the poor hardware quality of some Google Pixel generations, I'm not putting my money anywhere near this thing.

Edit: spelling

What pricepoint is this targeting? Is this an Android MacBook Neo? It looks like it's a tablet (phone OS) with a keyboard.

Can we replace the splash page with this blog post? https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/platforms/android...

Who is this for? This is why I like Apple, when they release hardware you see exactly who it is made for in the marketing copy

To me, everything about this seems AI-generated. What else but a LLM could have come up with these features and the name?

Is this the end of Linux powered Chromebooks?

Why even bother announcing an hardware product if you are not even going to mention the specs?

We are supposed to buy this because.. AI?

Finally, the laptop I've been waiting for, I can use Gemini to ask it the difference between hotdog or not hotdog.

Maybe you can install Linux on one of these things, and turn it into something useful and not choke-full of spyware.

We started taking the phones out of schools, so I guess now we are building them back into education laptops instead?

Just a little too late for school. The product probably doesn't even exist. They're screaming bc of the Nep.

I guess it's just mobile chip and everything AI related connects directly to google services through internet.

So its the same you can do with using any AI app, but they make you buy an inferior notebook (compared to macbooks)

This will be killed off in 18 months. Just like every other Google project that doesnt involve ads or tracking.

Copilot never gave Windows 11 a chance. Now Gemini will do the same to whatever this device is supposed to do.

It's like genetic recombination: take the worst of Apple and the worst of Microsoft and you get... this!

Is this a ChromeOS ad or a Google manufactured laptop?

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

Nobody at Google can read a room? This is like marketing a new, more effective plow during the Dust Bowl.

A data-harvesting software product delivered as hardware. Why would anyone actually want to purchase this?

It's just a bunch of gobbledygook.

Since Apple's MacBook Neo seems to be a great success, Google had to come up with a responce.

Is this ... an Android laptop? I can't recall if Files icon on ChromeOS matches the Android version.

I can’t wait to get one! Growing up with the star trek series, it all seems to be coming together now.

Custom autovibed widgets seem like they could be neat, but aren’t chromebooks already a thing?

Why does this kind of thing need new hardware? The stuff I saw here could be apps running on any OS.

Wait, is stuff running on the laptop itself, or is it using your phone for the heavy-lifting?

I seriously have no idea why would someone pick this one up instead of MacBook Neo for 600 USD.

Weird they don't give a single frick about name colition with their much older product.

I wish Google can bring back the OG Pixelbook, where "AI" merely means Google Assistant.

I genuinely though this was an April fools joke, then remembered we're in May. This is bad.

The website auto-reloads a couple of times and then crashes, on mobile Safari (iOS 18.7)

No spec, no price. Who are the marketing people coming up with these shitty announcements?

Has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with Google's unchecked monopolism

"Intelligence is the new spec" then proceeds to show shopping ads and duolingo

I don’t know if these will be good or not, but I do know they’re inevitable.

I've read hundreds of comments about this and not a single one was positive.

I just want to state for the record that this will fail harder than Google Plus.

High-end Chromebook done right could be a very good thing for computer security.

Screenshots say Sporify. Probably a human made typo in the mockups - refreshing!

A new laptop powered by AI and they're still showing an apps toolbar....?

The AI device thing reeks of 2024.

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

If they sell one with a track point I might consider switching.

How long will this be supported until it is in the google graveyard though?

We should start betting how long it's going to take Google to kill it.

Googlebook. I wonder how much some marketroid was paid for that name. Wow.

I wonder why they think this will go better than the Pixelbook did

trillion-dollar engineering pioneer like Google devolve into what feels like an ad agency throwing hollow buzzwords and celebrity sponsorships at the public.

I love my Chromebook, huge fan. GoogleBook seems objectively bad.

Had a pixelbook and it was hands down one of the best laptops I ever had. Sure, ChromeOS is fairly boxed in but the Linux VM was reasonably good and the built quality was just something else.

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

Save us Richard Stallman

Did... did the AI in the video just do the Duolingo learning?

This is going to be called the Slopbook, I’m calling it now.

Something I appreciate about ChromeOS is that updates are basically invisible. I'm worried they're gonna fuck up and overcomplicate something simple by having it run full-blown Android.

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.

This is just depressing to me. I don't really know why.

A laptop with footnotes. Thanks, I would like a computer

I can't view the page because... Firefox, apparently.

I will never buy Google hardware again. You can keep it

I'd buy it, but for me, Google lost it's credibility when they made Chromebook on an a Linux kernel but kept the specs too low, and even made sure to hijack the market by providing for free to schools

This isn’t constructive at all but I can’t stop laughing

Can't imagine this'll help the RAM shortage.

Looks nice. Where is this going to be discontinued?

Why would anyone trust Google to support these devices long-term, even ignoring all the privacy concerns that come with using Google products and services? The KilledByGoogle website should be enough of a warning sign against this company, and with rising hardware costs... this just seems dead on-arrival to me.

Basically copilot+pc by google. What a tragedy.

They weren't feeling "book.google"?

What a terrible name.

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

Feeling like no longer personal but AI laptop.

Good lord please do not use a Tensor processor.

alphabet's search business threw off ~$200B last year. every AI moonshot is funded by people clicking on ads

man, even google product videos show a "watch this video on youtube". can't link anything anymore

It looks great. If the price is good, I think it will sell well. The only thing holding it back is Google’s own reputation of canceling things so rapidly.

a little O/T, but i suspect these screenshots might be some of the first look at the upcoming aluminiumOS.

Am I the only person who PANICs whenever I accidentally somehow activate the AI on my android? I'm so conditioned to panic whenever I see that floating rainbow that the whole marketing page is covered in I get very negative feelings.

> 8GB RAM.

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.

Hey Google: please control my computer.

This link crashes my phone browser :-)

The site crashes on my 2020 iPhone SE.

Oh boy will this be dated in 2 years

Will it have a bootloader unlocked???

Is this going to be running Android?

Interesting product, horrible name.

Dystopiabook

Man, what the hell is that song

If it runs vim. I can take it.

WTF is a Googlebook? "Hey buddy, you got a little googlebook hanging out of your nose, a little nasty looking googlebook. Don't eat it, that's so gross!"

Shoulda called it the Bookgle

I will never understand how these huge companies are so bad at branding. Why not call it Geminibook? If you want the emphasis to be their AI solution... sigh.

Third time’s a charm I guess

Is this an April 1st thing?

Renamed chromebook ++ AI!!

Does it come with Linux?

Is this the new Centrino?

reddit? nope

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

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

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

That's a lotta Os!

I don’t understand all the doomerism. It’s not like we have got much choice. Apple with the best laptop hardware has completely dropped the ball on AI. Microsoft has enshittified windows while leaving the consumer market. The only other player is trying something new. I’m excited about the future possibilities here!

Apple’s operating systems have fantastic interoperability and familiar UX. There’s no ads bugging you at every step, and things seem to just work. (for most users)

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.

I believe this will definetely be a thing in the near future but this OS seems shit? maybe I’m just too old for this shit

personal computer without personal information.

Too many syllables.

It could just be me, but the usecases they're trying to solve for always seem... out of touch from reality.

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.

what a stupid name

SpyBook was taken?

Horrible computer

Google is so lost

missed opportunity to do book.google :(

"Googlebook, because lets face it, your parents are only watching YouTube anyway"

Google never sold through their first production run of Chromebook Pixels. Will prediction markets take bets on when will end up at https://killedbygoogle.com?

> Unbox it this fall.

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.

This honestly seems so stupid. Why?

I like the footnote:

> 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?

So Google will kill it in a year or two when the AI hype will be over, and the average consumer won’t care about AI showed into their face. But hey, at least they created more e-waste.

"Cast My Apps" - did they, uh, use AI to make that actually work? Because it's very flaky on my Chromebook, which I am otherwise very, very pleased with (especially given the price)

So, these will just be dumped into schools and the already deteriorating education system will just collapse because kids won't know anything and Gemini will just be doing everything for them.

I hate AI.

I don’t even know who this is marketed towards.

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.

GBook would have been so much nicer.

DOA

RIP Apple.