Google held its Android Show: I/O Edition Livestream yesterday, and they had a lot of new features and hardware to share with the world. One of the more interesting things unveiled was its successor to its beloved Chromebook laptops, which will be called Googlebooks.
There isn’t much known about the hardware, but we do know that Googlebooks will include a fingerprint reader and the rumored return of the glowbar from Google’s premium Chromebook Pixel. Google will focus on premium design and materials, so these won’t be the low-cost Chromebooks of years past. The company has already teamed up with familiar partners, including ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, for hardware.
There are two important things to note about Googlebooks: these laptops utilize a fusion of Android and ChromeOS. Googlebooks are built on Android, use Chrome for web browsing and Android for apps, and are built with Gemini first, with the company’s new Gemini Intelligence integrated system-wide. Due to the latter, Googlebooks will have a new Magic Pointer feature that offers contextual suggestions whenever your cursor is pointed or shaken at something on the screen.
There isn’t much known about the full scope of the software’s capabilities. However, Google did tease a new Quick Access feature that displays your Android phone in the sidebar of the file browser and provides instant access to your phone’s files, photos, browser tabs, etc., similar to iPhone mirroring for Macs.
Google says it will reveal more details on the rollout for its new laptops later this fall—probably alongside the new Pixel phones. For concerned Chromebook owners, the company will continue to support them for the entirety of their life. This means we’ll probably get a slow roll out for the Googlebooks and depending on the pricing, it might be for the better.
