Is the Lenovo Googlebook 15 worth it? Great laptop, unfinished OS

The Googlebook 15 starts at $1,099.99 in the US, and one listed configuration reaches $1,149.99. That’s $200 less than Google first announced, after what looks like a pricing mix-up on Google’s side. Lenovo also puts a wireless AI Mouse in the box. No UK or Canadian prices have been confirmed yet.

The core hardware:

• Screen: 15.3-inch OLED touchscreen, 2880×1800 resolution, 120Hz, up to 500 nits
• Chip: Intel Core Ultra 5 325, a Panther Lake processor with eight cores
• Memory: 16GB, which Google requires as a minimum on every Googlebook
• Storage: 256GB or 512GB, depending on the listing
• Ports: two USB-C with Thunderbolt 4, one USB-A, HDMI and a headphone jack
• Extras: quad speakers with Dolby Atmos, a fingerprint reader, a face-recognition camera with a privacy shutter, and a Glowbar light on the lid
• Battery: rated for up to 12.5 hours

Other Googlebooks span a wide range. Acer sells an entry model for $899, Dell’s XPS Googlebook starts at $999, and Asus and HP models go up to $1,299.

The hardware is the easy part to love. Reviewers single out the OLED display as bright and colorful, and the silky soft-touch finish over a plastic, carbon fiber and magnesium-aluminum body that hides fingerprints. Despite the bigger screen, it weighs under three pounds.

The speakers fire upward and sound full, and the haptic touchpad is large. Performance is more than enough for everyday work, helped by that 16GB memory floor, so you won’t hit the slowdowns that plague cheap laptops with less.

Then there’s the Glowbar, a strip of lights on the lid. It glows white in normal use, changes color to show battery level while charging, and animates when you talk to Gemini. It’s charming, though as one reviewer noted, it’s more visible to the person sitting across from you than to you.

Every review hits the same software walls. These are the ones that matter most:

1. Phone features need Android 17. The Better Together tools, Cast My Apps and Continue On, let you open phone apps and pick up tasks on the laptop. They require a phone on Android 17, and Samsung owners need One UI 9 as well. Older Android phones and iPhones miss out.
2. Setup is fiddly. Both devices need Bluetooth on, the same Wi-Fi network and the same Google account, and reviewers had to switch on background services by hand.
3. It struggles away from home. Google says the Wi-Fi network must allow local device discovery, and pairing failed for one reviewer on airport and hotel Wi-Fi and a phone hotspot.
4. Apps are mobile apps. You install Android apps from the Play Store, so you get the phone version of tools such as Photoshop, not the desktop one. Many Android apps are built for phone chips, not Intel ones, which can mean bugs and stutter.
5. Linux is gone. Developers who ran Linux apps on Chromebooks lose that option.
6. Battery and build gripes. Two reviewers called the battery life disappointing, and one disliked the keyboard and noticed the keyboard tray flexing under pressure.

This is the real question for most buyers. One reviewer’s blunt verdict was that it’s twice the price of a Chromebook while doing only slightly more than a Chromebook Plus or a Windows PC. Another said the hardware is good enough to wish Lenovo sold a Windows version.

Think of it this way. If your laptop is mostly a web browser, a cheaper Chromebook already does that well, and older Chromebooks keep working. If you need full desktop software, a Windows laptop or a Mac at this price runs it today. The Googlebook only pulls ahead if you live on a recent Android phone and value moving files, apps and tasks between the two. Even then, one reviewer found finding phone files with a keyboard and mouse the most useful trick, while email and calendar handoff was hit or miss.

Who should buy it now

• You own a Pixel or another phone already on Android 17.
• You want a big, light OLED laptop for streaming and everyday work.
• You’re happy to be an early adopter and accept updates will change things.

Who should wait

• You use an iPhone or an older Android phone.
• You depend on desktop apps or Linux tools.
• You want the cheapest way to browse and write, which a Chromebook already covers.

Google is still filling gaps. Samsung support arrived only after launch, and Google may add direct Wi-Fi pairing for places without a compatible network. A cautious buyer loses little by waiting for those fixes and to see whether prices drop.