Google’s new Googlebook laptops are drawing mixed early reviews from The Verge, where four staff members have been testing the machines for a week. The publication reported that the five newly launched Googlebook laptops have hardware ranging from great to excellent, but that Googlebook OS is the weak point in its current state. The Verge said its internal discussions among testers were largely filled with frustration, disappointment and bewilderment. The laptops come from Google’s partner OEMs, and The Verge said it is testing every model.
The Verge reported that Googlebook OS shares some flaws with ChromeOS, including the inability to run Chrome with separate Google accounts, and that many Android apps run as clunkily as they did on ChromeOS. Google put Android navigation buttons on the Googlebook keyboard, which The Verge described as seemingly a fallback for misbehaving apps. Staffers testing the HP Googlebook 14, Lenovo Googlebook 15 and Acer Googlebook 14 reported encountering new oddities daily.
Testers found that the Signal Android app linked to a phone with ease, but sending messages required Ctrl+Enter and highlighting text was not possible because clicking and dragging scrolled instead. Photoshop and Lightroom were described as passable for the simplest image editing, though a cheap Windows laptop with proper desktop apps was preferred. Windows could not be dragged and dropped to other virtual desktops, and scrolling left of the desktops revealed a Clear All button that kills all apps at once.
Other complaints centered on app behavior. The Verge said virtually everything is better optimized for a touchscreen, and that some apps do not show content while a window is being resized, including some of Google’s own apps, while YouTube and Messages scale more naturally. Netflix launched as a full-screen, tablet-style version, as did basically every streaming app. The Verge said installing the progressive web app version of Slack did not work properly.
Linux apps also fell short for testers. Slack, GIMP and Steam ran through the Debian virtual machine in the Terminal app, but apps installed there only live in the virtual machine, lack app drawer icons, do not appear in the taskbar and require manually switching the mouse and keyboard. Linux and Android apps do not automatically share files or clipboard content, and Steam games tried by a tester were too laggy to be playable.
The promised seamless Android integration produced some good moments, including replying to a WhatsApp message from a notification, casting an app from a phone and moving files with Quick Share. But The Verge said the phone connection drops in and out, and a tester could not figure out how to connect a second phone or tablet. Losing a normal Caps Lock key was not a deal breaker, but being stuck with only mobile browsers might be, the publication reported.
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