Asus Googlebook 14 review: Google's big idea, done right?

I've called the release of Google's new laptops, Googlebooks, a bit of a revolution – and I stand by that, since this clearly signals a big change in how Google approaches the laptop market.

Still, after having worked with Acer's launch Googlebook for a week to review the first past the post, it's fair to say that moving into a different machine, this time from Asus, sort of takes some of the shine off.

After all, once you're over the shock and awe of the new, the fact that Google has set minimum standards for the internals for all these machines means that they're pretty similar in terms of components and power.

So, the difference between the various models comes down to design and the extra features that each maker might squeeze in. How, therefore, does the Asus Googlebook 14 stack up? It took me another week of use to answer just that.

Price and Availability

The Asus Googlebook 14 is available now, with Google having launched the whole ecosystem in recent weeks, and you can order it from local retailers or directly from Asus if it's going to come to your region at all.

Here in the UK, it starts from £1,199.99 with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 chip; in the US, you can grab it from $1299 for the same spec. Since I've done so with previous Googlebook reviews, I'll just politely point out that the US price actually translates to £973 by conversion at the time of writing – so the UK is getting its usual raw deal.

Design and Specs

If you put Asus' Googlebook 14 next to one of its Zenbook 14 models from earlier this year, I think you might struggle to notice the difference at first glance – unless your eye is drawn straight to the Glow Bar on this new Google-flavoured machine.

The Googlebook laptop very much hews to the same design principles that Asus has been working with for a few years now, and the biggest tip on that front is its main material – ceraluminium, the ceramic-aluminium compound that Asus so loves. It remains a really impressive material, too, since it's nice and durable, with a soft-touch finish, but crucially is extremely lightweight compared to simpler metal options.

It seems like each manufacturer got some freedom when it came to the placement of the Glow Bar, but Asus played it pretty straight – it's right at the top of the lid, near where you open the laptop. Like in every other model, it does very little beyond some waking and sleeping animations, but showing your charging progress is its neatest trick.

Opening the laptop up, you're greeted by a 14-inch 3K OLED panel that's really quite gorgeous to look at, and possibly the single best display in any of the launch Googlebook models, thanks partly to its excellent anti-reflective coating. This is a properly matte screen, but it's still a proper touchscreen, too, just with less fingerprinting than some rivals.

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Above it, there's a webcam with a privacy shutter, while the other half of the laptop houses a generously sized keyboard, complete with the fingerprint reader that Google insists on (to make Googlebook grade). Below that is the large touchpad, and in this case it is indeed haptic, whereas Acer's feels mechanical.

That keyboard is flanked by speakers, while each edge of the laptop houses some ports. On the left, you get a USB-C port with power delivery, a full HDMI port, a USB-A port, and a 3.5mm jack. The right edge holds another USB-A port and a USB-C port, making this one of the more fulsome I/O offerings in the lineup – although the lack of an SD card reader limits its creative utility.

Under the hood, the Asus Googlebook 14 runs on an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 chip, but you can upgrade to a Core Ultra 7 355 if you want a boost in power. With 16GB of RAM as standard, though, I don't think most people need that, or would find it cost-effective. The base spec is rounded out by a 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD (I'd hoped for 1TB at this price, but accept that those days might be gone).

Of course, the whole laptop is interesting from the point of view of its features, because Googlebooks are still a very new thing. It's going to be your first Googlebook, should you buy one, and the experience is meaningfully different from that offered up by a Chromebook, for instance, as I'll get into in the next section of this review.

Performance

From the off, that Intel chip and 16GB of RAM mean that the Asus Googlebook 14 runs very snappily, but the real utility of its OS will be something that Android phone users will have to probe and test over time. Some of its features, like having access to your phone's storage without any screen mirroring, are really slick, and it's great being able to pick up tasks from one device to the other seamlessly.

Apps open really promptly and run fluently, and in my normal workflow – which involves a whole heap of Chrome tabs open at once, something that can cripple a weak Windows laptop – I never really encountered any hitching or issues multitasking. One tiny hitch there is that Asus' laptop did get a little warm when running some tasks, but not to the point of any discomfort.

That said, how useful you find Googlebook OS will be a pretty personal question, one that's hard to assess until you've tried your own productivity on one properly. In my case, it's a good showcase of the good and the bad. Much of my work is browser-based, and all of this is extremely responsive, with built-in AI features that can be genuinely useful if you want them. I don't, really, but trying some Gemini queries never really let me down in terms of responses.

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However, I process my own images for reviews like this one, and doing so was a bit of a pain on the Asus Googlebook 14, just like it was on Acer's. The Android version of Photoshop is a lightweight one, and even though Google seems to be trumpeting a partnership with Adobe, it just can't really compete with the proper laptop experience on Windows or Mac – right now, anyway.

That's a limitation that can be fairly hard to get past, but I do think that Googlebook OS can be really slick when you're in the zone and not demanding such levels from it. The touchscreen interface is quite dreamy (especially on Asus' matte display), and while the screen can wobble when tapping on it, it still works quickly and as desired pretty much the whole time.

The keyboard is very solid, the trackpad's actually pretty great, and the whole laptop has a lightweight design that makes it feel really quite futuristic when paired with this all-new OS (the first of its kind in a long while).

It leaves me with basically no complaints about how Asus has approached the Googlebook challenge, but the same reservations about how ready Google's laptop rewrite is for the big time.

If you're sticking to simple productivity, then it might just be a slick and quick option for you, but those with more involved workflows are unlikely to find it all that adaptable right now.

Verdict

Asus' Googlebook is a tidy little laptop – and while it can't match the 2-in-1 situation offered by the Acer Googlebook 14, it feels a little more premium in some other ways. Better ports, a gorgeous matte display, and a really lightweight build make it potentially the more straightforward laptop to integrate into your workflow.

That said, it's also really pricey, and with thinner software support than Windows and Mac right now, there's no doubt that it currently feels like early adopters will be making some compromises. This could be a superb laptop once more apps are properly adapted to the OS, but for now it's probably quite hard to justify over a more established alternative.

Also Consider

Speaking of alternatives, if you're really into the Googlebook concept, then the other one we've reviewed so far is the Acer Googlebook 14, which is just as impressive in different ways. It's more affordable to start with, and has a more adaptable hinge (a true 2-in-1). Still, it has all the same software drawbacks.

For those who decide a more established OS is probably the safer move (as I would echo), I still think the latest MacBook Air is the way to go for most. It's not as affordable as it was before the memory crisis, but it'll last for absolutely years and is a gorgeous slice of machine for a very similar price to what Asus wants for its Googlebook.