Googlebooks from Dell, Lenovo and HP reviewed: good hardware, OS not ready
Tom's Hardware tested the first Googlebooks — Lenovo Googlebook 15, HP Googlebook 14 and Dell's XPS Googlebook — from a launch lineup whose five hardware partners are Dell, Lenovo, HP, Acer and Asus. The reviewer found the hardware sound, but says Googlebook OS still feels like Android with desktop features bolted on: the taskbar can't be moved, the Files app lacks forward and back buttons, desktop Chrome doesn't support multiple profiles, and apps can only come from the Play Store, which labels them with five "desktop ratings." In benchmarks the Snapdragon X Elite X1-80-100 systems (HP and Dell) beat the Intel Core Ultra 5 325 "Panther Lake" Lenovo in Geekbench 7 and 3DMark Steel Nomad Light, while the Lenovo won WebXPRT4 and battery life at 11:52 versus 10:25 (HP) and 10:04 (Dell). Googlebook OS ships AI features including Gemini, Magic Cursor and Rambler, and task managers show 7–8GB of RAM in use, which the review suggests may be holding local AI models; the best cross-device features require an Android 17 phone.
Googlebook OS is Google's attempt to turn Android into a desktop platform with AI features front and center, and its app compatibility and maturity will decide whether it is treated as a real PC.