Five hardware partners will ship Android-like laptops with Gemini tools, 13- to 15-inch touchscreens and up to 14 hours of battery life.
Google announced pricing and hardware specifications for its first Googlebook laptops, entering the premium notebook market with built-in artificial intelligence features.
The laptops start at $899 and are aimed at Android users and coders. Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo will produce the devices, which run an Android-like operating system and share a similar keyboard layout and a “Glowbar” that displays battery levels and custom animations.
Google Android ecosystem chief Sameer Samat said the company wants laptops that work seamlessly with Android phones and offer AI features that are useful rather than intrusive. He said Google is initially targeting Android enthusiasts because the company sees a gap in the market.
The Googlebooks have 13- to 15-inch touchscreens, up to 14 hours of battery life and either Intel Core Ultra Series 3 or Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors.
Some models weigh as little as 2.2 pounds. Preorders opened Monday, with US shipments beginning Oct. 4 and sales starting the next day in Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia.
The laptops can run Android phone apps, access phone files and photos, and let users continue tasks across devices. An on-device Gemini Nano v3 model summarizes files and photos for keyword-based search without sending those queries over the internet.
A feature called Magic Pointer uses the on-device model to understand text and elements on the screen and suggest Gemini prompts. The resulting chat response is processed over the internet.
Each laptop includes one year of Google AI Pro, normally priced at $19.99 per month, with expanded Gemini access and 5 terabytes of cloud storage.
Google also includes three months of YouTube Premium, Adobe Photoshop and CapCut. The Googlebook software will receive feature updates for up to 10 years.
Google previously tried the premium laptop market with the $999 Pixelbook, which it discontinued in 2022. Its new devices will compete with products such as Apple’s $699 MacBook Neo, which remains cheaper even after a recent price increase.
