When I returned my Lenovo Googlebook 15 to Best Buy, I was asked why, and I said the truth: "it's too big."

However, if I had bought the XPS 13 Googlebook on the Google Store and I had returned it, if asked why I was doing that, I would've said: "Because I can't run Google's Android tablet apps."

Both are true.

So I'm wondering if Best Buy is passing along to Google the reasons why people are returning their Googlebooks.

I'm guessing that the reasons are defective device (person didn't want a replacement), the OS should've stayed in the oven a bit longer, and because of the apps compatibility situation.

Even after the newest Chrome update, when opening a Google Sheet and/or a Google Slides document, it opens in Chrome. Also, if you try to install Sheets and Slides as PWA apps is not possible. The system says that the app is already installed. The thing is though that Google Docs can be installed as a PWA app, which causes the OS to open all Google Docs document in the PWA app and not the default wrapper apps that Googlebook OS provides. Sheets and Slides cannot be installed as PWA because their names are the same as the system apps.

Google, please change that. Make it work as on all OSes that have a desktop browser. At least now I have a workaround for Google Docs. We need to be able to open Sheets and Slides in their own apps, not Chrome.

This isn't running in a VM, it's running on real hardware. It's also not just a simple GSI, but a complete native port.

The fixes are still ongoing. There are just way too many things broken on AluminiumOS right now, so I won't be releasing the image until I get all the issues resolved.

Below is the list of what has been fixed so far. If it's not mentioned here, you can basically assume it's broken.

• Boot speed optimization
• NVMe fix
• Windows dual-boot support
• Wi-Fi fix
• Bluetooth fix
• GPU boost fix
• GPU performance optimization
• Audio fix
• Bluetooth audio fix
• Audio latency optimization
• General audio optimization
• Microphone fix
• Bluetooth microphone fix
• 120Hz fix
• VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) support
• Auto-brightness fix
• Hardware video encoding/decoding fix
• Touchscreen fix
• Touch optimization
• Touch latency optimization
• Type Cover fix
• Surface Pen fix
• USB 2.0 fix
• USB 3.1/3.2 fix
• USB OTG fix
• Dual Type-C ports fix
• USB hot-plugging / hot-swapping fix
• Front camera fix
• Rear camera fix
• Camera privacy indicator light fix
• Camera image quality optimization
• Accelerometer fix
• Gyroscope fix
• Ambient light sensor fix
• Battery percentage display fix
• Charging fix
• Charge limit fix
• Support for screen-off without sleeping while charging
• Sleep/standby power consumption

https://www.reddit.com/r/AluminiumOS/comments/1wz0aub/aluminiumos_on_surface_pro_11/

For those of you that have a Dell XPS Googlebook, does it support auto brightness for the display?

My HP Googlebook which I like a lot, doesn't have the option. Apparently there is no sensor in the device.

The first few seconds after the webpage loads the scrolling is choppy, like it's 30hz or smthn. and then it becomes normal 120hz.

edit: a restart fixed it.

Tldr;.had Chromebooks since 2012 and computers since 1980. I like it but there are some updates (software mainly) needed.

So....

I bought this as a pre-order and Best Buy delivered it the next day from launch day. I was a little disappointed to realize the mounts didn't come because I got it from Best Buy, but I guess that's what you get when you spend $50 less. The delivery, the packaging, and the presentation was pretty good though, even in the plain Jane box.

Setting up device gave me a hiccup right out of the box. The red Lenovo logo screen was flashing and it was boot looping. Held the power button down, rebooted, got the recovery window, turned it off, turned it back on, everything was flawless. Don't know what that hiccup was, but I had plugged it in to charge for quite some time. I think it powered itself on and it may have been in the middle of an update or a firmware update when I had initially booted it. Lesson learned, right?

I did an update right then and there and then I got everything loaded, all my apps loaded, and I used my Pixel 11 Pro to set up the device. Pretty easy, pretty flawless. Took a little while to get it running and get everything copied and get logged in and there were absolutely shutters and missteps. I took it out and used it in the real a few times and brought it back to continue loading and testing.

Now I'm typing this pre-update that dropped yesterday or the day before, so take that for what it's worth. I didn't get to download and install that yet......

Speakers are pretty fire. Sound is great. Not quite mac great but pretty good for my ears. Screen is bright, large and easy on the eyes. Colors work.

Surfaces to me are hit or miss. The book is light thanks to some magnesium alloy, like Samsung used years back, and the trackpad is centered ,large and in charge. The keyboard is only meh and while the side feel and layout are fine it's the materials the keys are made from I dislike. Backlighting is great.

Machine is fast but there were stutters day one and two as things burned in. Android devices do this too after OTA. Seems like a scheduler or optimization that needs to happen in a future update.

Enough ram for sure and no noticable shortages there nor on storage.

My only beef and this is #WPP is I can't connect cloud storage (iCloud) to a Googlebook using the apple iCloud sync app.....web version is fine..... But MS and Google can via native AP. MS..... 😮‍💨🤷

I use this for not work. .I'm not nonprofit boards and spend time outside a lot when I'm not working. This is big, yes, but also light and still portable at 15".

I'll do the update in the coming days, update my apps, and work on this more this weekd. Let's see what else I see......

I bit the billet and ordered the magic AI mouse for $45 in store credit at the store.google.com site. Should be here soon......

Been using my HP Googlebook for a few days, overall liking it despite some bugs, but I just had my first "damn that's cool" moment with the OS, the CTRL+G+N shortcut for notes.

Being able to call up Keep, take a voice note using the Rambler shortcut key, and then having the note automatically sync to my Obsidian vault (via KeepSydian) with a mere 4 keystrokes is a legitimately killer feature for my personal workflow.

Hi all,

I am trying to find out if there is a way to disable notifications sync between our Pixel and our Googlebooks for selected apps. I haven't found anything yet.

Is it possible?

Hi Everyone,

When I first started reading about Googlebooks, I was a bit skeptical. Having been an early adopter of Android tablets with the first Motorola Xoom, I wasn't really all too keen on the idea of Android running on anything but a smartphone. I eventually migrated to an iPad, primarily because app support for Android tablets is not very good.

I'm an Android phone user, a Windows computer user, and an iPad user. I build my own PCs that run Windows 11, primarily for gaming. And I'm really disgusted with how slow Windows 11 feels.

Regarding Googlebook OS, I've seen the negative reviews. Whatever. I decided to be an early adopter and invested in the HP Googlebook. I went with an ARM powered laptop because of battery life concerns and also not wanting to mess around with some sort of app translation layer. So far I'm impressed with the build quality of the laptop and how fast this OS is.

I think Google is on to something here. They need to bring third party developers on board pronto. But so far, I'm liking what I see.

Not even kidding when I say this was one of the main reasons I bought a googlebook. Extremely disappointed we can't even do this

Purchased an "open box - excellent" HP for $220 off MSRP, hoping for a wonderful PC <-> Android experience. Hardware is superb, as expected. App casting from my Pixel 10 Pro XL has been rock solid since the Googlebook received an update yesterday that required a reboot. Ditto with the File Transfer. My Pixel's integration via Continue On has been a pleasant surprise. These are probably enough of a reason to keep it, along with the promise of ongoing improvements. It'll get better, it already has.

For context, I've been on Android since day 1, and Pixel phones for the last 5 years. I'm coming from a Macbook Air M3 that my kid took to college. So it was a Googlebook or a Macbook Air M5. Hardware feels equivalent to the M3, plus a touchscreen that I keep forgetting to use. The Macbook is of course way more capable aside from the complete lack of Android integration, but I knew that.

There are some annoying bugs and feature gaps, but I expect issues when adopting early. Chrome and Terminal (Linux) will be lacking for a while, and I'd like some better options for managing multiple desktops. The "delete more text than selected" issue is very annoying with Reddit's text editor in particular. My typing workflow on Reddit has become an almost automatic "select text > Backspace > Ctrl+Z" to undo whatever was over-deleted.

Oddness: I don't understand why the G key is where it is, given how important it is for keyboard shortcuts. It's technically within range of my left pinkie, but it's not intuitive to hit it that way. I always have to look at the keyboard to find it. I keep expecting the G key to be where Caps Lock is, that would have been more intuitive. It looks like I can remap keys if I really care.

The previous owner must have redeemed the GeForce 12 months offer, but I don't really care. I redeemed the Google Pro 12 month offer.

I have a little under 2 weeks to change my mind and return it. We'll see.

I have been keenly interested in playing with these devices hands on before pulling the trigger but unfortunately there are no bricks n mortar Google Stores here in Colorado. I have visited several Denver area Best Buy locations over the past couple weeks but have had no luck up until today... I finally found them today at the Denver Flagship store off Colorado Blvd and I25.

They have 4 of the 5 models on display.... Unfortunately the one model I am most interested in (Asus Googlebook 14) is NOT on display.

The BB sales guy I chatted with said they (Best Buy employees) have zero say or control over the Goolge display units. What he described is that a single person has to hit every Best Buy in the Denver area one at a time to set up the display table and brings in the devices as well. Ostensibly he did not have an Asus display model for the flagship store. Odd. This seems like a comically inefficient way of launching these new premium devices but I suppose this all very on-brand behavior for Google device launch.

Figured I would share here in the event anyone else in the Denver area is looking to get your hands on them.

Personally, I am leaning towards the Asus as I would rather have the legacy support from x86 architecture, the OLED display and haptic trackpad are nice features and mostly just want the myriad of ports that the Asus model offers.

I'm eagerly awaiting them being listed for sale on the Google Store (online) so that I can use this ~$330 store credit from my Pixel 11 Pro purchase.... Unfortunately Google support reps are telling me via chat and phone that they cannot confirm when or even if the Asus model will be sold through the Google Store directly 😮‍💨

At this point I'm considering just waiting another month or so and seeing if any Black Friday deals happen on these.

Was watching a show in Prime Video through Chrome on an XPS Googlebook. The audio was not properly synced with the video. This was playing through the speakers, not earbuds.

When I tried to use the Prime Video app, the visuals were totally off -- video was extremely dark (even at full screen brightness).

Often times it is over the thing I want to screenshot, but not the exact area, so I will have to drag the sides. It would be quicker if I can just drag a box myself, that is what I prefer.

Right now what I end up doing is i always drag that box away and then drag a box myself.

I hate laptop keyboards and touchpads. On my Windows laptop I sit a full sized keyboard over the laptop keyboard and use a full sized computer mouse with it. Why don't I just have a desktop? Well, I can still put it all into a computer bag if I need to set it up somewhere else. Couldn't do that with a desktop.

I have a low end Lenovo tablet for travelling, and use that with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Googlebooks sounds like it might be a nice upgrade from my current basic Android tablet, but I don't want a keyboard or a touchpad. So a tablet form that I could use with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse is what I'd want.

Will Google come to the party with that do you reckon?

If I plug in my XPS Googlebook to an external monitor and camera, I can't use the camera in the Android Zoom app. The web app works, but the resolution is very low. It would be amazing to make it possible to use these external cameras. Otherwise, it is extremely hard to use this product at work.

If a few things were worked out (this camera issue, the bluetooth audio codec issue on Snapdragon) it would be very feasible for me to use this as a daily driver.

I just updated to the latest chrome that is supposed to enable pwa. The create shortcut does not exist in chrome under share. Anyone else have this issue or know a fix?

Fixed : I did a factory reset and it worked.

It has an Intel ultra 7 255hx

Anyone else getting errors trying to use the Titan key to do things like log into their Google account (lol), or anything with passkeys? Acer Googlebook here