May 13, 2026 - A week before I/O kicks off, Google held this "The Android Show | I/O Edition" event today and officially announced Googlebooks, a brand new high-end laptop category.
It's not Google making the laptops themselves. Just like Chromebooks, they're teaming up with other companies. Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo are gonna drop the first Googlebooks models this fall.
These are aimed at the premium crowd - nicer builds, different sizes and styles, and they've got this glowing light bar that looks cool and actually does something useful. They didn't spill any details on the processor, RAM, or storage yet.
The real focus was on the software. Googlebooks runs on Android under the hood. They didn't give the OS an official name, but it pretty much screams that Google is blending Android and ChromeOS together more seriously now.
Gemini is all over this thing. The coolest feature they showed is MagicPointer - you just shake the cursor and Gemini does smart stuff based on what's on screen, like comparing pics, previewing how new furniture would look in your room, or turning a date in an email into a calendar event instantly.
There's also Create My Widget - you literally just tell it in plain English what kind of widget you want, and Gemini whips one up for you. It can grab stuff from Gmail, Calendar, and the web to make actually useful personalized panels.
Phone linking is better too:
- CastMyApps: One click to run your phone apps on the laptop.
- QuickAccess: Browse and manage files from your phone straight from the laptop's file explorer.
Google was honest though - a bunch of these features are still early and not fully baked into real machines yet.
They also said current Chromebooks will still get 10 years of updates, but didn't say if they're still gonna make new Chromebooks going forward.
Kinda feels like Google is slowly moving away from pure ChromeOS and going all-in on Android + Gemini for laptops.
