Google finally takes the wraps off its Googlebook revolution – and you’re going to want to see the prices

Google just confirmed what Googlebooks actually are, after months of teasing and years of leaks. Its laptop revolution is in full swing, and it’s powered by a completely new OS that blends Chrome, Android and Linux in pretty interesting ways.

Crucially, the new Googlebooks are launching soon, on 5 October, so they’re no longer distant concepts. At launch, there are models from Asus, Dell, Acer, HP and Lenovo, and each of them seems to aim at a slightly different user.

Their pricing is also incredibly interesting, with the most affordable of the new Googlebooks starting at £999 here in the UK and $899 in the US. That’s not exactly entry-level, and it stands in pretty stark contrast to the entire vibe of the Chromebook product slate. Chromebooks, incidentally, aren’t going away – ChromeOS will remain, and there are more Chromebooks coming this year.

Googlebooks run on Googlebook OS, and if that name sounds a little clumsy, it might be a clue that Google really isn’t all that keen for people to focus on it from that angle. It’s clearly proud of what the new OS can do, but also calls it an “intelligence system” rather than an operating system, a clue that it thinks people don’t actually care that much about what OS they use.

That’s a bold enough play, but someone with a decent Android phone might well just be impressed by the degree of integration that a Googlebook can offer. Its hybrid OS can run literally any Android app, and if it’s optimised for a big-screen experience, then all the better.

The laptops will consequently have access to the entire Play Store, and that also means the many games on offer. Given they run (at launch) on Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors or on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips, they’ll have enough power to manage mobile games nicely. A year’s membership of Nvidia GeForce Now chucked in on purchase should make cloud gaming an obvious option, too.

In fact, Google’s going quite big in terms of freebies when you purchase a Googlebook, since you’ll also get a year of Google AI Pro into the bundle. That’s a tip of the hat to how deeply Gemini is integrated into the Googlebook offering. It’s on tap at any time thanks to new shortcuts accessed by the keyboard or just wiggling the pointer.

Those interested in security questions will doubtless be impressed by a promised 10 years of updates and feature drops, which basically dwarfs most of the competition’s offering. Google said these would be quarterly at least, although it’s an unknown at this stage how the machines will fare a decade down the line.

In terms of specs, though, they’re actually geared up for current AI-powered productivity, which helps to explain that chunky pricing. They all have 16GB of RAM as standard, and decent processors. That said, the battery life figures we were quoted (around 14 hours of video playback, or 16 hours of web browsing) aren’t exactly staggering.

Other things that Google has made standard for the platform include a touchscreen, a backlit keyboard (featuring a G for Google key, instead of a Windows one) and a haptic trackpad rather than a mechanical one.

The final flourish is the unifying design note – a so-called Glowbar on the outside of the laptop. This is lit in solid white when the Googlebook’s in use, and plays flashy rainbow animations when powering up or going to sleep. The only real function I saw was that it can become a charging progress bar when you’re plugged in, but it will be a way to tell what’s a Googlebook at a glance.

All of those features and solid specs mean that these Googlebooks don't come all that cheap. Here's a breakdown of the five models, their chipsets and their US prices:

• HP Googlebook 14: from $1299 (Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite)
• Dell XPS Googlebook: from $1199 (Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite)
• Lenovo Googlebook 15: from $1299 (Intel Core Ultra 3)
• Acer Googlebook 14: from $899 (Intel Core Ultra 3)
• ASUS Googlebook 14: from $1299 (Intel Core Ultra 3)

I was at a behind-closed-doors Google event last week, and got to go hands-on with all five launch models for an extended period of time, so if you want to learn more about what Googlebooks are like to use, be sure to check out my write-up here. Otherwise, sit tight until early October, when we’ll doubtless start to get a more detailed sense of how these machines perform in everyday use.