Googlebook OS is the weak point in early Googlebook laptop testing, The Verge finds

Strong laptops, shaky software

Google's newly launched Googlebook laptops earned praise for their build quality in early testing at The Verge — but the Android-based operating system running on them did not. In a roundtable published after roughly a week of hands-on use, four Verge staffers testing all five partner models described a string of software frustrations that, in their view, overshadow hardware they rate anywhere from great to excellent. The machines in play are the HP Googlebook 14, Lenovo Googlebook 15, Acer Googlebook 14, Dell XPS Googlebook and Asus Googlebook 14.

A step back from ChromeOS

According to The Verge, a Google representative said at the launch preview that swapping ChromeOS for Android would allow much faster development. Antonio G. Di Benedetto, testing three of the laptops, writes that the new OS nevertheless repeats some of ChromeOS's old limitations — Chrome still can't run with separate Google accounts — while many Android apps feel just as clunky as they did on Chromebooks. Google even put Android's navigation buttons on the Googlebook keyboard, seemingly in part as a fallback for misbehaving apps.

Small oddities pile up daily, he reports: the Signal app requires Ctrl+Enter to send a message and can't highlight text, because clicking and dragging scrolls instead. Photoshop and Lightroom are passable only for the simplest edits. Windows can't be dragged between virtual desktops, and scrolling past the desktops exposes a Clear All button — inherited from Android's phone app switcher — that closes every running app at once. Even installing the Slack progressive web app failed, leaving it unclear whether Slack or Google is to blame. His summary is blunt: anyone buying one now is effectively a paying beta tester for Google, and the promised faster development pace needs to arrive quickly.

Apps that don't know they're on a laptop

David Pierce's testing points to a wider developer problem. Netflix, Crunchyroll and most other streaming apps launch as full-screen, tablet-style layouts, with window controls hidden behind a hover on the top bar. Even apps optimized for Googlebooks glitch: many show no content while their window is being resized — including some of Google's own apps — while others, like YouTube and Messages, scale naturally. Keyboard and mouse support varies app by app; in several streaming apps the space bar won't pause playback, and controls demand a click or touch on the screen. Pierce's overall impression is of an Android tablet pretending to be a laptop, and he notes developers must adapt or the devices will never be more than that.

Linux isn't the escape hatch

Stevie Bonifield tried the Debian virtual machine available through the Terminal app, installing Slack, GIMP and Steam there. Everything installed in the VM lives only inside it: Linux apps get no app-drawer icons, never appear in the taskbar, and require manually switching the mouse and keyboard between the VM and the rest of the OS. Because Linux and Android apps run in separate environments, they don't share files or clipboard contents. Even undemanding Steam games were too laggy to play. Further frictions include the loss of a standard Caps Lock key and being limited to mobile browsers.

Phone integration works, sometimes

The headline feature — seamless Android phone integration — produced genuine highlights for the fourth tester: replying to WhatsApp messages from laptop notifications, using an app cast from the phone, and moving files in seconds with Quick Share. But the phone connection dropped in and out, and connecting a second phone or tablet proved baffling.

Why it matters

Google's argument for replacing ChromeOS with Android is that it unlocks faster development. The Verge's first week of testing suggests the real constraint is the Android app ecosystem itself: software built for touch-first phones, not for keyboards, mice and windows. That is a problem no laptop maker can fix alone, and it is systemic to Android. Until developers optimize their apps — or Google closes the gaps itself — the excellent hardware carrying these machines may not be enough, and early buyers are, in effect, footing the bill for the platform's debugging.