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Android is the best and worst thing about Googlebooks
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Published 10/12/2026 9:00:00 AM
Android is the best and worst thing about Googlebooks
Android is the best and worst thing about Googlebooks
As an Android devotee, I want to love Googlebooks — but they don’t make it easy.
Android is the best and worst thing about Googlebooks
As an Android devotee, I want to love Googlebooks — but they don’t make it easy.
is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor.
My first week with the new Android-powered laptops has been about as rocky as anyone’s, but I’ve slowly learned to like them, even if love still feels a ways off. Every moment that’s impressed me has been thanks to Android, whether I’ve been accessing a native version of a useful app or quickly checking my phone notifications from the laptop user interface.
But man, sometimes it just sucks.
Phone connectivity is flaky, app casting is awkward, and file-sharing seems to be flat-out broken. And that’s just the interaction between a Googlebook and a phone — I have a whole other set of gripes about the limitations of native Android apps on a $1,000 laptop.
If Googlebooks ever become a success, Android is going to get the credit. But if it all goes wrong, that’s exactly where the blame will lie too. So far, success feels a lot further away than failure.
Getting started
The Googlebook setup process is Android through-and-through. It’s similarly quick, just a few minutes from beginning to end, including time to register biometric logins, log into a Google account, and connect it to a phone to find your apps and backups. There’s a little variation in the exact setup between the Asus and HP models I’ve been testing, but mostly just whether it defaults to installing every app from your phone or only the desktop-optimized ones.
Things get janky once you’re into the OS, though. Even if you use an Android 17 phone to set up the laptop, it’s unlikely to remain connected afterwards for features like file sharing and app casting. Fully pairing either of my Googlebooks to a phone has required toggling cross-device settings on both devices, multiple restarts, and the occasional prayer, until the two devices find each other. Moving to a new Wi-Fi network broke things for me all over again, requiring a restart of the Googlebook to get the devices back talking to each other — and yes, they need to be on the same Wi-Fi network to talk, and to have Bluetooth enabled too, so the connection won’t work when you’re offline.
My Asus Googlebook has now formed a pretty reliable connection to an Oppo phone I’ve been reviewing, though it still refuses to recognize any other phones; my HP model flits between that Oppo and the Vivo X Fold 6, occasionally connecting to both at once. Yesterday, for the first time all week, it connected to my Pixel 11 Pro Fold, after both laptops had stubbornly ignored that phone for days — even though it’s Google’s own hardware.
Going native
I’ve loved elements of the Googlebook experience. It’s great being able to access quick, compact, desktop versions of apps I’d normally be stuck using through a web browser on my MacBook. It’s even better that some of those apps have different functionality for being mobile versions: being able to download series from HBO Max or Netflix and watch them offline means a Googlebook could replace my Android tablet, which is mostly just a device for watching movies on planes at this point.
But many, many more apps are a headache to use on an Android laptop. Some don’t have desktop-optimized versions — the mobile version of Slack is truly unworkable in a desktop environment, and Adobe’s Android apps are pale shadows of their desktop selves. Others claim to be “Optimized for desktop” in the Play Store, but in practice that usually means they’ve stretched the UI to fit a desktop scale and included basic mouse and keyboard support — “basic” being the operative word, with most not recognizing right-clicks or occasionally shifting into a portrait view. “Made for desktop” seems to be the only Play Store tag that really counts for much, and I’ve only seen it on a handful of apps.
Even Google’s own apps are often limited. Chrome is the worst offender, since you’re likely to use it so much. Google insists this is a desktop version of the browser, but it lacks feature parity with other platforms: there’s no support for switching profiles, opening tabs in a split view, or creating custom search engine shortcuts. Those are just the omissions I’ve run into from my daily MacBook workflow, and there are no doubt countless more.
And despite Google’s promise that Chromebooks offer the “entire Play Store library,” that isn’t entirely true. I’ve already run into two apps that I simply can’t install from the Play Store — Bluesky and the login authorization tool Okta. It’s not an Intel issue either, as Google alluded to on Monday: the Arm-based HP Googlebook also won’t run either app.
My laptop needs aren’t complex: I spend 90 percent of my time on my work MacBook Air inside Chrome and Slack, and most of the rest in Photoshop or Lightroom. But all four are subpar on a Googlebook right now, and it’s all because they’re fundamentally Android apps that can’t compete with true desktop alternatives.
Casting confusion
If Android apps on your laptop aren’t enough, Googlebooks also let you cast the Android apps on your phone to your laptop.
Some version of Android app casting or mirroring has been around before on both Windows and Chromebooks. The difference in Google’s implementation is that instead of mirroring the whole phone UI, you cast specific apps, either through a dedicated app drawer in the taskbar or by tapping into a synced notification from your phone. Those apps still run on the phone itself — which gets a notification that an app is casting — but are controlled via the PC.
It’s not well-suited to streaming music or video, or running multiple apps at once, but that doesn’t seem to be the intent anyway. Where casting shines is in quickly dipping into an app without reaching for your phone and unlocking it, like updating a payment in the settlement app Splitwise or sending a quick message in WhatsApp. I’ve really enjoyed being able to dive in and out of a phone task from my laptop, while minimizing the risk of getting distracted by Instagram.
Casting is clever and mostly works well, but I think I’ve found it useful because I’m new to the Googlebook and haven’t set every app up yet. Google argues it’s designed for apps you might want to use from your laptop but wouldn’t want to install there, but that’s a pretty short list, especially given that installing an Android app is generally quick, painless, and a minimal drain on storage. Long-term, I’m not sure how often I’d want to cast a mobile app when I could just install a native version, especially since you can’t copy and paste between native apps and cast versions, or access the Googlebook file system when casting.
Even when the cross-device connection runs smoothly, some apps — especially secure ones like my authorization app or banking app — won’t run. Others try to open but don’t work: my credit card app breaks on bootup, while Bluesky renders text illegibly. Casting some apps even create rendering issues when I next open them back on the actual phone.
The rest is a mess too
Then there are the other problems.
Continue On lets you start a task on your phone and pick it up on the Googlebook. It’s great when it works, but that’s rare. Only a handful of apps are supported, and even those trigger inconsistently. It works when I open a Google Drive document, but only sporadically in Gmail, and so far never for Calendar.
Notifications are powerful, but messy, with phone and laptop notifications mixed together. Phone notifications open via app casting, but the system gets confused easily. For various reasons, right now my Slack notifications open a casted phone app rather than the native Googlebook app; WhatsApp notifications don’t come through even from my phone; and I can either get notifications for my work Gmail account or my personal one, but not both at once.
File transfer is entirely broken. While I can see my phone’s storage as a drive inside the file manager, accessing those files is near-impossible. It can take minutes to load up the file system, and minutes more to open or transfer a single 5MB photo. It’s completely unusable. This should be fixable, at least. Quick Share — Android’s equivalent to AirDrop — is also supported, and the same files that take minutes over file transfer share in seconds with Quick Share.
It’s the Googlebook in a nutshell: the idea is wonderful, the execution entirely lacking. A week in, I’m learning to work around the kinks and headaches of this odd little OS, finding ways to make the most of it and to maximize those moments when my laptop and my phone just work together. When it clicks, it feels like the payoff to a decade and a half of using Android every day.
Right now, that feeling doesn’t hit nearly as often as it needs to, and certainly not enough to make up for the countless times Android just feels broken in this form factor. The question is whether Google — a company with a deserved reputation for giving up when the going gets tough — has the commitment to see this through and turn things around. It’ll need its own teams to fix what’s broken, third-party developers to pledge support en masse, and a rethink of how to integrate native apps with casting from a phone.
When I first saw the Googlebooks a few weeks ago, I really thought one might be my next laptop. After spending a week with them, I’m not so sure. I certainly wouldn’t buy a Googlebook as they are right now, but I wouldn’t rule out an Android laptop in the future — the execution just needs to catch up to the idea.
Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge
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Googlebooks feel like the first laptops built for Android owners
App casting, handoff, and seamless file sharing make Googlebooks feel (almost) obvious with an Android phone.
Googlebooks feel like the first laptops built for Android owners
App casting, handoff, and seamless file sharing make Googlebooks feel (almost) obvious with an Android phone.
is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor.
There’s a good chance that my next laptop will be a Googlebook. If you’re an Android user like me, then yours might be too, because Google is making a compelling pitch: The Googlebook does for the Android phone what the MacBook does for the iPhone (and then some).
John Maletis, Google’s head of laptops and tablets, said at my press briefing that the Googlebooks were designed to “work seamlessly with your Android phone.” You can start using an app on your phone then pick it up on the laptop, navigate your phone’s files from the laptop, run any phone app from the computer, and manage all your notifications in one place.
It’s a good pitch. And after spending a couple of hours playing with the first five Googlebooks — from Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer, and Asus — I really hope Google delivers on it.
The enhanced integration begins at setup, which lets you link your Google account and Android device so that the laptop syncs your contacts, passwords, preferred settings, payment details, and more, just like it would when you switch from one Android phone to another.
Googlebook OS is built on Android’s codebase, but its interface is a blend of Android and ChromeOS. The layout mostly feels like a Chromebook, but the details of the UI are drawn from Android, specifically the Material 3 Expressive design language found primarily across Google’s own Pixel phones. Everything from widget design to the notification tray looks and feels like Android, only blown up a little to fill the space.
Connect a Googlebook to your phone and each is supposed to feel like an extension of the other. Notifications are shared, and dismissing or reading them on one device will carry through to the other. You can also use the laptop to send in-line replies to messages sent to your phone.
File sharing is intended to be just as simple. The Googlebook file browser lists a paired phone among the hard drives, letting you go straight in to browse, open, edit, and copy files. No more uploading and downloading files with Google Drive or sending them as email attachments just to move them to the laptop.
There’s a version of Continue On, an Android 17 feature first introduced for tablets this year. It allows you to start using an app on your phone and pick it up on your laptop, though only certain apps are compatible. You can also open any phone app directly from the laptop via a dedicated app drawer. Apps are run on the phone itself, and simply cast to the laptop, where they’re displayed in a floating portrait window — though you can’t mirror the full phone itself, only individual apps. It’s less flexible, but also less fiddly.
The most exciting features here — Continue On, app casting, file browsing — all require a phone running Android 17. For the moment that’s most Pixels and a handful of flagships from Samsung and other manufacturers, so Android’s fragmented updates will throttle immediate demand for Googlebooks. Future features may require more advanced Android versions of course, but Google says this core set should keep working even if your phone software gets a little behind. That’s reassuring, since the laptops will likely outlast your phone, with Google promising 10 years of software support.
Much of this isn’t new to Googlebooks. ChromeOS has been steadily adding integrations with Android over the years, and these new laptops build on that work. Chromebooks have been able to sync notifications, share passwords and payment cards, and even stream or emulate Android apps. Even Windows delivers its own version of these features via Phone Link, with notification syncing, screen mirroring, and a basic version of handoff. Googlebooks make these features quicker and simpler to access, and make sure that they work across every Android 17 phone, rather than Pixels and a handful more. Making an Android phone work with a Chromebook or Windows laptop has always taken a little effort; making it work with a Googlebook should require almost none.
Shifting Googlebook OS to Android’s tech stack means it can run Android apps without any emulation, and gets full access to the Play Store. If you can run an app on your phone, you can run it on your Googlebook. Google has worked with major players to ensure support already, including streamers Netflix, Disney Plus, and HBO Max — and because these are technically still mobile apps, you can download series and films to watch offline, unlike on most other laptops.
One worry is that all of this might get a little confusing. Some apps will run in small, phone-shaped windows with a vertical UI, some will scale dynamically for the big screen, and others will have dedicated desktop versions optimized for a laptop layout. Some of those desktop-optimized apps can be shrunk down to a phone UI if you prefer, some can’t. Sometimes apps will run natively on the laptop hardware, other times you’ll cast them from your phone. Some apps will support Continue On’s handoff between devices, most (at least at launch) won’t — though a Google rep told me it’s “a couple lines” of code to add support, and so they’re optimistic about uptake.
Google is trying to manage the possible confusion with new Play Store tags that let you know if an app is designed or optimized for desktop, or whether you’re better off using the web version instead. The app store homepage will also default to promoting apps that should run well on a laptop, so phone-first apps will only show up when you search for them.
My bigger concern is that as many Android apps as there are, they’re still only Android apps. Google has secured new desktop versions of CapCut and Fantastical, but much of the software available on Windows or Macs still doesn’t exist for Googlebooks. The Adobe apps are an obvious example — missing the full, desktop versions of Photoshop and Lightroom is a dealbreaker for me. For you, it might be something different: a crucial productivity app, an enterprise app or creative tool, or simply a favorite game. Googlebooks launch with access to over 20,000 games through the Play Store, but the vast majority are still basic mobile games; as my colleague Antonio Di Benedetto points out, it’s jarring to see a $1,000 laptop running Asphalt Legends with post-race ads.
A lack of “proper” apps has been the chief downside to Chromebooks for years. It’s been forgivable given the price point: Many Chromebooks cost well below $500. So far, Googlebooks are different, with the cheapest at $899, and even that price is “available for a limited time.” More expensive models start at $1,299. At that price you’re competing with the MacBook Air. Google’s launch partners have delivered competitive hardware, but it’s up to app developers to complete the equation.
I’ll be waiting. I went into Google’s briefing curious and left almost convinced. I’ve spent over a decade waiting for a laptop that can make the most of my Android phone, and a Googlebook might just be it. But right now these look like laptops built on Android just as much as laptops built for it. It’ll take a serious rollout of desktop-class software to change that, and I really hope Google delivers it.
Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge
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‘Continue On’ lets you start tasks on your phone and pick them up elsewhere.
‘Continue On’ lets you start tasks on your phone and pick them up elsewhere.
Google is adding a new Android feature that resembles Apple’s Handoff, allowing you to start a task on your Android phone and continue it right where you left off from a compatible tablet.
“Continue On” is designed to eventually be bidirectional, but Google says that at launch it will only support tasks moving from a smartphone to a tablet. Android tablet users will see the Continue On icon in the dock suggesting the most recently used app from their phone, assuming it’s also installed on the tablet.
It should allow Android users to directly open documents they were working on, or jump straight into the email they just had open. In some circumstances, it can open up the tablet’s browser to the best page to continue a task on the web instead.
Google says that Continue On will be available to test in Android 17’s RC1 build, its first release candidate version, though hasn’t yet detailed when that will arrive. It also didn’t say when tablet-to-mobile handoffs will be supported. Together with last week’s announcement of Android-powered Googlebook laptops, it opens the door to wider Android interoperability that could finally match Apple’s impressive inter-device coordination.
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