Android Is Both the Best and Worst Thing About Googlebooks
My first week with the new Android laptops has been nearly as hard as anyone's, but I've slowly learned to love them, even if that love is still on its way. Every moment that has impressed me has been thanks to Android, whether I had access to a native version of a useful app or quickly […]
My first week with new Android laptops has been as rough as almost anyone's, but I've slowly learned to love them, even if love is still to come. Every moment that touches me has been thanks to Android, whether I'm accessing a native version of a useful app or quickly checking my phone's notifications from the laptop's interface.
The phone connection is weak, app sending is awkward, and file sharing seems to be completely broken. And that's just the interaction between a Googlebook and a phone - I have another set of native Android app limitations on a $1,000 laptop.
If Googlebooks succeeds, Android will take credit. But if everything goes right, that's exactly where the blame lies. So far, success far outstrips failure.
[Image: During setup, you can copy all apps or just a selection from your phone.
The process of setting up Googlebook is done through Android. It's just as fast, just a few minutes from start to finish, including the time it takes to register biometrics, sign in to your Google account, and connect it to your phone to find apps and backups. There's a bit of a difference in the exact settings between the Asus and HP models I've tested, but mostly whether it installs all apps from your phone by default, or whether it's optimized for desktop only.
However, once you get into the operating system, things get bad. Even if you use an Android 17 phone to boot your laptop, it's unlikely to stay connected afterwards for features like file sharing and app sending. Pairing each of my Googlebooks perfectly with a phone requires changing settings between devices on both devices, multiple reboots, and the occasional prayer until the two devices find each other. Moving to a new Wi-Fi network broke everything for me again, requiring a restart of the Googlebook to get the devices to communicate with each other again - and yes, they need to be on the same Wi-Fi network and have Bluetooth enabled to talk, so connecting doesn't work when you're offline.
My Asus Googlebook now makes a perfectly reliable connection with the Oppo phone I'm reviewing, though it still refuses to recognize other phones. My HP model bounces between the Oppo and the Vivo X Fold 6, occasionally connecting to both at the same time. Yesterday, it connected to my Pixel 11 Pro Fold for the first time in weeks, after both laptops stubbornly ignored that phone for days — even though it's Google's own hardware.
[Image: Downloadable episodes! On the laptop! This low key might be my favorite thing about Googlebooks.
I loved the elements of the Googlebook experience. Accessing fast, compact, desktop versions of the apps I want is great, usually through a web browser on my MacBook. Even better, some of these apps have different functions for mobile versions: being able to download shows from HBO Max or Netflix and watch them offline means that Googlebook can replace my Android tablet, which at this point is mostly just a device for watching movies on the plane.
But many other applications are troublesome to use on an Android laptop. Some don't have desktop-optimized versions – Slack's mobile version is really unplayable in a desktop environment, and Adobe's Android apps are pale shadows of their desktop counterparts. Others claim to be "optimized for desktop" on the Play Store, but in practice this usually means that they've stretched the user interface to fit the desktop scale and include basic mouse and keyboard support - "basic" being the operative word, mostly not recognizing right-clicks or sometimes switching to portrait view. "Made for desktop" seems to be the only Play Store label that really matters, and I've only seen it on a handful of apps.
[Image: Some apps claim to be "made for desktop", anything else is probably at least a little awkward.
Even Google's own apps are often limited. Chrome is the worst offender, since you probably use it a lot. Google insists it's a desktop version of the browser, but it lacks the feature parity of those on other platforms: there's no support for switching profiles, opening tabs in split view, or creating custom search engine shortcuts. These are just some of the omissions I've come across in the daily work of my MacBook, and there are undoubtedly countless more.
And despite Google's promise that Chromebooks offer "the entire Play Store library," that's not entirely true. I've already come across two apps that I simply can't install from the Play Store - Bluesky and the Okta Login Authorization Tool. As Google pointed out on Monday, it's not Intel's problem either: the Arm-based HP Googlebook won't run either program either.
My laptop needs aren't complicated: I spend 90% of my time on my MacBook Air working in Chrome and Slack, and the rest in Photoshop or Lightroom. But all four are already inferior on a Googlebook, and it's all because they're essentially Android apps that can't compete with true desktop alternatives.
If the Android apps on your laptop aren't enough, Googlebooks also lets you send your phone's Android apps to your laptop.
[Image: A dedicated app drawer shows everything installed on your connected phone.
Some versions of Android app mirroring or content delivery already exist on Windows and Chromebooks. The difference in Google's implementation is that instead of mirroring the phone's entire user interface, you launch specific apps through a dedicated app drawer on the taskbar or by tapping on a synced notification from your phone. These apps still run on the phone itself – which receives a notification that an app is being sent – but they're controlled via a PC.
It's not great for streaming music or video or running multiple apps at once, but that doesn't seem to be the goal anyway. Where Casting shines is quickly diving into an app without reaching for the phone and unlocking it, such as updating a payment in the Splitwise checkout app or sending a quick message on WhatsApp. I really enjoyed being able to dip in and out of a phone job from my laptop while minimizing the risk of being distracted by Instagram.
Sending content is smart and works well for the most part, but I think I found it useful because I'm new to Googlebook and haven't set up all the apps yet. Google argues that it's designed for apps you might want to use on your laptop but don't want to install there, but that's a pretty short list, especially considering that installing an Android app is generally quick, hassle-free, and takes up less storage space. In the long run, I'm not sure how often I want to ship a mobile app when I can install a native version, especially since you can't copy and paste between native apps and the distributed versions, or access the Googlebook file system when you ship content.
[Image: Sending to Bluesky doesn't work from a phone, made worse because the Bluesky app isn't otherwise available for Googlebooks.
Even when the cross-device connection runs smoothly, some apps—especially secure apps like the My License app or the Banking app—don't run. Others try to open but won't work: My credit card app crashes on startup, while Bluesky renders text unreadable. Sending some apps causes rendering issues even when I re-open them on the real phone.
Continue On lets you start a task on your phone and select it in Googlebook. It's great when it works, but it's rare. Only a handful of apps are supported, and even those activate inconsistently. It works when I open a Google Drive document, but only sporadically in Gmail, and so far never for Calendar.
Notifications are powerful, but messy, with phone and laptop notifications mixed together. The phone's notifications are opened via the app's send, but the system is easily confused. For various reasons, my Slack notifications now open a sent phone app instead of the main Googlebook app. WhatsApp notifications are not even received on my phone. And I can get notifications for my work or personal Gmail account, but not both at the same time.
File transfer is completely broken. While I can see my phone's storage as a drive inside the file manager, those files are almost impossible to access. It takes a few minutes to load the file system, and a few minutes longer to open or transfer a 5MB photo. Totally unusable. This should at least be fixable. Quick Share - Android's equivalent of AirDrop - is also supported, and the same files that would take minutes over file transfer are shared in seconds with Quick Share.
This is Googlebook in a nutshell: the idea is great, the execution is completely flawed. A week later, I'm learning to work through the intricacies and headaches of this weird little OS, and find ways to get the most out of it and maximize the moments my laptop and phone work together. When it clicks, it feels like the result of a decade and a half of daily Android use.
Right now, that feeling doesn't come through nearly as often as it should, and it's certainly not enough to make up for the countless times Android feels broken in this regard. The question is, will Google—a company with a well-deserved reputation for buckling under tougher conditions—commit to looking into the matter and turning things around? It needs its teams to fix crashes, massively support third-party developers, and rethink how native apps integrate with content delivery from the phone.
When I first saw Googlebooks a few weeks ago, I really thought it might be my next laptop. After spending a week with them, I'm not so sure. I certainly wouldn't buy a Googlebook as they are now, but I wouldn't rule out an Android laptop in the future – the implementation just needs to catch up.