{"id":876538,"date":"2026-10-09T17:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T17:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/876538\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T17:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T17:22:16","slug":"testing-apps-android-browsers-and-everything-in-googlebook-os","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/876538\/","title":{"rendered":"Testing apps, Android, browsers, and everything in Googlebook OS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google\u2019s new operating system is off to a rocky start<\/a>. The five newly launched Googlebook laptops have hardware that ranges from great to excellent, but the software in its current state is the weak point. There are four of us on staff at The Verge actively testing Googlebooks and, frankly, our internal Slack discussions have been mostly filled with collective venting of frustrations, disappointments, and bewilderment.<\/p>\n

The promise of Googlebooks as a fresh and smartly designed alternative to Windows or Mac for Android phone owners sounds great, but there\u2019s more than just a few kinks and quirks to work out. Some of its issues and challenges in the road ahead are systemic to Android.<\/p>\n

While we\u2019re actively testing each and every Googlebook from all of Google\u2019s partner OEMs, we thought we\u2019d come together and share a glimpse of where our heads are at with these new laptops.<\/p>\n

This should be better than ChromeOS, but right now it feels worse<\/p>\n

\"Why<\/a><\/p>\n

Why does this Clear all button exist? Why can\u2019t you swipe between active desktops or move windows between them? And why wasn\u2019t that ready on day one?<\/p>\n

While a lot of my thoughts are well documented in our initial hands-on article<\/a>, I keep coming back to what a Google rep told me at the Googlebook launch preview: Replacing ChromeOS with Android will allow for much faster development. That\u2019s great, but why does Googlebook OS feel like a bit of a set back from ChromeOS at launch? It shares some of ChromeOS\u2019 flaws, like not allowing you to run Chrome with separate Google accounts. And many Android apps feel as clunky to run on a Googlebook as they did on ChromeOS. (Google even put Android\u2019s navigation buttons on the Googlebook keyboard<\/a> \u2014 seemingly in part as a fallback option for misbehaving apps.)<\/p>\n

Every day I come across new oddities in any of the three Googlebooks I\u2019m testing. The Signal Android app linked to my phone with ease, but I have to hit Ctrl+Enter to send messages and can\u2019t highlight text \u2014 clicking and dragging scrolls up and down instead. Photoshop and Lightroom are passable for the simplest image editing, but I\u2019d take a cheap Windows laptop<\/a> with the proper desktop apps over these mobile-first versions. You can\u2019t drag and drop windows to other virtual desktops, and scrolling to the left of your desktops reveals a Clear All button that just kills all your apps at once. That\u2019s straight out of the app switcher from Android on phones, but if I\u2019m closing all apps at once on a laptop I\u2019m either rebooting or shutting down.<\/p>\n

Even something as simple as installing the progressive web app version of Slack isn\u2019t working properly<\/a>. So who should I be mad at? Slack or Google?<\/p>\n

If I bought one of these Googlebooks I\u2019d be mad at myself for being a paying beta tester for Google. I know that\u2019s often the case for early adopters on a new OS, but these days I have less time and patience than when I bought my T-Mobile G1 \/ HTC Dream, Nexus 7, etc. There\u2019s something cool here for sure with Googlebooks, but we need that \u201cfaster\u201d development to go into warp speed.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Antonio G. Di Benedetto, currently testing the HP Googlebook 14, Lenovo Googlebook 15, and Acer Googlebook 14<\/p>\n

Google has a big, big developer problem<\/p>\n

\"Streaming<\/a><\/p>\n

Streaming apps like Crunchyroll are basically tablet apps. The keyboard can\u2019t pause or rewind, and you have to click or touch the screen for those playback controls.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons Googlebooks exist is that Android has become a mature, useful platform across a lot of screen sizes. It\u2019s true: Android now works relatively well on your phone, tablet, TV, even your car. The apps are another story. Over and over in my testing so far, I\u2019ve been amazed at the number of apps that seem to have no idea what to do with a Googlebook.<\/p>\n

Take Netflix, for instance, which was one of the first apps I downloaded because I have some travel coming up and I\u2019m psyched to finally be able to download movies for plane rides. The app works well enough, I suppose (and it does download movies!) but it launches as a full-screen, tablet-style version of the app. Basically every streaming app does so. If you hover over the top bar, the windowing option appears, but none of that is obvious. And launching and windowing app after app gets tiresome.<\/p>\n

There are a few apps that are properly optimized for Googlebooks, and they make the device feel more like a proper laptop. But even they have some problems: many do that weird thing where they don\u2019t show the app content when you\u2019re resizing the window, for instance, which feels broken on a laptop. Even some of Google\u2019s own apps do this, while others, like YouTube and Messages, scale more naturally. Some apps respond naturally to the keyboard and mouse; others don\u2019t. Virtually everything is better optimized for a touchscreen. A note to developers: If I can\u2019t pause the movie by whacking the space bar, your app doesn\u2019t work with keyboards.<\/p>\n

For the most part, I actually like the Android-ification of Google\u2019s laptop strategy. Connecting deeply to your phone, running and syncing all your apps, even some of the phone-style interface decisions make sense to me. But just about every time I open an app, my Googlebook starts to seem like an Android tablet pretending to be a laptop. (And don\u2019t forget: nobody has ever really wanted Android tablets.) Google\u2019s going to need developers to get with the program, or it\u2019ll never be more than that.<\/p>\n

\u2014 David Pierce, currently testing the Dell XPS Googlebook<\/p>\n

Linux apps (probably) can\u2019t save Googlebook OS<\/p>\n

\"Apps<\/a><\/p>\n

Apps in the Googlebook\u2019s Linux virtual machine don\u2019t show up in the taskbar or app tray.<\/p>\n

A string of little annoyances has chipped away at my hopes for the new Googlebooks over the last few days. Some are more frustrating than others \u2014 losing a normal Caps Lock key isn\u2019t a deal breaker, but getting stuck with only mobile browsers just might be. Android app compatibility seems to always be a roll of the dice, and so far Linux apps don\u2019t seem like a viable alternative.<\/p>\n

Slack was one of the first apps I tried installing from the Play Store, but it ended up being the mobile app awkwardly resized for a larger screen. So, I tried installing the Linux version of Slack through the Debian virtual machine that lives in the Googlebook\u2019s Terminal app. I got it working, along with GIMP and Steam.<\/p>\n

But the big catch is that anything you install on the virtual machine only lives there. So, none of those apps have app drawer icons like my Android apps, and they don\u2019t pop up in my taskbar when they\u2019re running. I have to manually switch my mouse and keyboard between the VM and the rest of Googlebook OS, which makes jumping between Linux and Android apps slow and awkward. Since the Linux and Android apps are running in different environments, they don\u2019t automatically share files or clipboard content, either.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have a dedicated write-up on the Googlebook gaming experience later, but the virtual machine hasn\u2019t been great for that, either. I got Steam running, but the games I\u2019ve tried (none of which are particularly resource-hungry) have been too laggy to be playable.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve liked some parts of the Googlebook so far, but it\u2019s hard to appreciate them when friction keeps popping up from Android and Linux apps alike.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Stevie Bonifield, currently testing the Asus Googlebook 14<\/p>\n

The best bit of Googlebooks only works half the time<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Files app gives you quick access to what\u2019s on your paired Android phone. But opening or transferring those files is anything but \u201cquick.\u201d Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto \/ The Verge<\/p>\n

The obvious selling point of the Googlebook, for me at least, has always been the \u201cseamless\u201d Android integration. And I\u2019ve had a few moments this week when my phone and laptop have come together in a truly delightful way: replying to a WhatsApp message directly from the notification on the Googlebook; dipping into an app cast from my phone to quickly use it without reaching for my pocket; opening Quick Share to move files between the two devices in seconds.<\/p>\n

But even here, so much of the experience right now sucks. My phone connection drops in and out from the laptop, and I can\u2019t for the life of me figure out how to connect a second phone or tablet. I used Quick Share for file transfer because using the Files app to browse the phone\u2019s drive is painfully slow, taking minutes to open or transfer a single photo. Opening a notification to the phone-cast version of an app when you have it installed natively will never stop feeling awkward. And some apps cast terribly anyway: Bluesky renders text illegibly; my banking app won\u2019t cast for security reasons; and my credit card one won\u2019t because it just breaks.<\/p>\n

Seamless, this is not. It\u2019ll get better, I hope. It has to get better. When the Android integration works, it feels a little bit like magic. But that\u2019s only because it happens so rarely \u2014 Google needs to make this reliable enough that it feels mundane instead.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dominic Preston, currently testing the Asus Googlebook 14 and HP Googlebook 14<\/p>\n

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See All Tech<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s new operating system is off to a rocky start. The five newly launched Googlebook laptops have hardware…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":876539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[4329,18860,10455,8755,10443,166,168,2635,10385,42076,4117,24588,900,172,74],"class_list":["post-876538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-android","tag-asus","tag-chrome","tag-chromebook","tag-dell","tag-gadgets","tag-google","tag-google-pixel","tag-hp","tag-laptop-reviews","tag-laptops","tag-lenovo","tag-reviews","tag-tech","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}