Googlebook review: Android on a laptop is still Android

Android was designed for phones, but that hasn’t stopped Google from trying to adapt the OS and its apps to larger machines over the years. Googlebooks are just the latest attempt after tablets, Chromebooks, and foldables induced little change in how people interact with Android software. These new Android-powered laptops are designed to pick up where the web-focused ChromeOS left off, offering premium hardware and native support for Android apps.

Google sees Googlebooks as an alternative to Windows and macOS, but these platforms are entrenched with decades of software and UI conventions that keep users locked in. Googlebooks have to offer something very special to steal users away from either of the dominant operating systems.

For devoted Android phone users, there are some cool things in Googlebook OS, but the Android roots of these machines are impossible to miss. Sometimes it feels like using a Chromebook, and sometimes it feels like using a giant phone. It almost never feels like using a premium laptop, and that’s the problem.

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