TL;DR
- Google says existing Chromebooks will continue receiving software support for up to 10 years, but the company stopped short of confirming whether new ChromeOS laptops will still launch in the future.
- Unlike Chromebooks, which became popular as affordable laptops for schools and casual users, the new Googlebooks are being positioned as premium Gemini-powered devices built on Android.
- Googlebooks could eventually replace Chromebooks as Google’s main laptop strategy unless the company decides it still wants to compete in the budget laptop market.
Google just announced Googlebooks, a new category of premium laptops built on the Android technology stack and baked with Gemini Intelligence. The first set of Googlebooks are expected to arrive this fall, but with Google’s focus on this new category, will Chromebooks take a back seat? There’s no short answer to this question. Let me explain what I mean.
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If you’re a Chromebook user, you’d be happy to know that Google is fully committed to supporting these devices until the end of their lifespan. Chromebooks released in 2021 and beyond promise 10 years of automatic software updates. Some older Chromebooks are also eligible for extended updates. You can visit this page to check if your Chromebook model makes the cut for Google’s automatic and extended updates.
That said, while speaking to journalists ahead of The Android Show I/O Edition, Google didn’t specify if it plans to launch new Chromebooks in the future. Of course, Google won’t launch them directly, but it’s unclear whether brand partners will continue using ChromeOS to launch new laptops going forward.
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Google’s President of the Android Ecosystem, Sameer Samat, previously told Android Authority in an interview that ChromeOS is a hugely successful platform for the company, especially in the education sector.
“Chrome OS is its own use case, and that will remain,” Samat said at the time.
Another key difference between Chromebooks and the upcoming Googlebooks is their target market. Chromebooks built their reputation as affordable, budget-friendly laptops, which is why they became so popular in schools and among casual users. Googlebooks, on the other hand, are being positioned as premium devices, meaning they likely won’t come cheap and could end up competing directly with flagship laptops like MacBooks and other high-end Windows machines.
That also raises an important question about Google’s broader laptop strategy. If the company still wants a presence in the affordable laptop market, it’ll likely need to continue launching new Chromebooks. Otherwise, Googlebooks could become the sole focus of Google’s future laptop ambitions.
Google does, at least, confirm one path forward for our existing Chromebooks: Some hardware will be “eligible to transition to the new experience.” Whether that means becoming a full-blown Googlebook or not isn’t clear, but that definitely sounds like what Google’s hinting at here. The company hasn’t offered any additional information just yet regarding hardware requirements or other eligibility factors, and only says that more details will be revealed in time.
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