Asus Googlebook 14 Review

Design and Keyboard

• Lightweight, stylish chassis
• Solid port selection
• Tactile keyboard and smooth trackpad

The actual hardware for these new Googlebooks is quite a step up if you’re used to Google’s laptops standing for more affordable Chromebooks; that’s for sure. This Asus example is light and quite dapper with its grey colourway that’s augmented by Google’s neat Glow Bar that it’s also outfitted with on its new Pixel handsets.

What the Glow Bar does is light up at varying points, such as when Gemini is listening (or responding), and it can even act as a neat battery indicator, flashing green, yellow, orange, or red to display remaining battery life when unplugged.

This Asus Googlebook is also pleasantly sturdy, with a magnesium-aluminium alloy construction that also has the benefit of being immensely light. This is technically a sub-1kg laptop, weighing just 990g, and it makes this easily portable and simple to slip into a bag when you’re on the move.

Ports-wise, we’ve got a pair of Thunderbolt 4-capable USB-C ports, with one on each side. The left also has a full-size HDMI, a USB-A and a 3.5mm headphone jack, while the right houses a second USB-A. That’s not too bad.

Open up the lid, and you’ll find a smaller form factor layout keyboard with solid travel and tactility under finger. It’s pleasant to use for extended periods, and has a decently bright white backlight to boot.

For a smaller form factor laptop, I’m also impressed by the size of the trackpad, It’s a good size and has accurate, smooth tracking. There is a small issue with it recognising all clicks as left clicks in places, though.

Display and Sound

• Crisp OLED screen
• Punchy colours and brightness
• Surprisingly capable speakers

Much like the Acer Googlebook, this Asus model is kitted out with a good OLED screen, utilising a 14-inch 3K, or 2880×1800, resolution option. It’s a marker of a more premium laptop, and beats out the IPS options you’ll see on other Googlebooks for definition, contrast, and overall depth.

Asus quotes peak SDR brightness to be 500 nits or so, and to my eye, that seems about right. That means you can easily use this laptop in bright indoor environments or outside if you’d prefer, as long as you’re not in direct sunlight. The screen’s reflective coating is its downfall in that regard.

Colours look rather punchy, with deep blacks and solid dynamic range. If you do want to undertake any more creative work with this Googlebook, Asus’ quoting of 100% coverage of the more specialist DCI-P3 gamut should be a good indicator that this laptop is up to the task to some degree.

This is also a touchscreen, which works in Googlebook OS’ favour, as the apps designed for this platform are mostly enlarged versions of the mobile apps you’re used to on Android – it works better for this workflow than it would for Windows or macOS.

Asus has kitted out this Googlebook 14 with a surprisingly capable six-speaker array that provides some rich audio and good volume. Its low-end isn’t as beefy as other laptops, but for general use, it’s more than adequate.

Performance

• Solid performance from Core Ultra 5 SoC
• Consistent in places with Windows rivals
• Weaker GPU performance than Android tablets

You can get a Googlebook laptop in two flavours – either with an Intel Panther Lake chip, or with a first-gen Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip. The Acer Googlebook 14 (2026) Lewis tested featured the beefier Core Ultra 7 355 Intel configuration, while this Asus model I have is the lower-end Core Ultra 5 325 SoC, complete with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

For reference, the Core Ultra 5 325 is the Panther Lake successor to Intel’s Lunar Lake Core Ultra 200V chips that we saw in a range of laptops in 2025. This is an eight-core (split between four Performance cores and four Low Power Efficiency cores) and eight-thread chip with a boost clock of up to 4.5GHz.

I’m surprised Google is offering partners the chance to use Intel chips with these laptops, given that Arm-based processors are likely to play nicer with the underlying Android credentials of Googlebook OS, but here we are. On that point, Google has confirmed there are some compatibility issues with certain apps if you’re using an Intel-based Googlebook, which is hardly comforting news.

Usually performance testing on laptops like this is par for the course, as we’ve got desktop-class benchmarks we can compare and contrast with. In the case of this Asus Googlebook, I’ve had to use a mobile suite more at home for testing phones.

Nonetheless, the performance on offer here in Geekbench 6 & 7 (one of the few apps that’s consistent across laptops, mobiles and tablets) is similar to other recent Panther Lake SoCs I’ve tested. For instance, the Dell XPS 14 (2026) has the same chip inside, and performance is broadly the same. It also beats the recent Samsung Galaxy Book6, but considering that laptop has a six-core Wildcat Lake chip, that’s not all that surprising.

Where performance is contrived against other devices is with its GPU, though, as this isn’t one of the Panther Lake chips that comes with the full grunt of the new B390 iGPU. 3D performance in running the 3DMark Solar Bay benchmark offered a score just over 10,000, but it isn’t as beefy as some dedicated Android gaming tablets.

For the most part, the performance afforded by this Asus Googlebook is fine for most people for web browsing and productivity loads, as long as you’re happy with the way Googlebook OS operates.

Software

• Convenient setup with an Android device
• Most apps are enlarged mobile versions
• Googlebook OS feels half-baked

The big thing with these Googlebook laptops isn’t necessarily the hardware, but rather what runs underneath.

The core idea here is that Googlebook OS is meant to combine the best of both worlds when it comes to ChromeOS and Android – there’s the familiarity of ChromeOS with core features such as a taskbar along the bottom and a Spotlight search-style pop-up when you press the Google key, but with the added versatility and apparent seamlessness of using Android.

Being Android underneath means the setup process is much like using a phone, and you can even set this Googlebook up as you would an Android handset. That is, scan a QR code with your phone, enter a passcode, and you can be onboarded with all your phone’s apps in around five minutes.

The presence of Android on a desktop operating system, one could argue, is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it gives you access to the full suite of Android apps you’re used to on a phone, with instant access via the Play Store; on the other, it means you are running mobile apps on a desktop, which has certain ramifications if you’re used to full-fat desktop apps.

For instance, there are differences in running popular work apps, such as Slack. The mobile app lacks the desktop app’s split-pane layout, meaning it takes that little bit longer to go from switching between channels and DMs. If you’re doing that a lot, that extra time can add up. Likewise, Google Docs just opens a tab in Chrome, rather than working in its own window, which seems a little pointless.

Speaking of Chrome, one small niggle I found was that even though I had signed into Googlebook OS using my normal Google account, it didn’t keep pace when I came to using Chrome and G Suite. It automatically signed into Chrome with no issues, but required me to sign in and reauthenticate when it came to Gmail and Google Docs. I appreciate it’s only a one-time issue, but this doesn’t happen on Chromebooks I’ve tested.

Gemini is baked into Googlebook OS, and it’s to the point where a simple wiggle of the cursor on screen summons Google’s AI. However, there are times when I want to wiggle the cursor and not summon the AI, and trying to click away after inadvertently summoning it would cause a freeze and require a full-blown restart.

I appreciate what Google has tried to do here, bringing more of a desktop feel to Android, and it works well in places, such as the ability to have more apps running in the background and a stronger file management app. However, with the bugginess and the fact that this is a mobile OS underneath, it lacks the polish and refinement you’ll get from a similarly priced Windows or macOS device.

Of course, this is technically the first version of a new operating system, and there are always going to be issues with the first version of anything. However, considering Google’s positioning of Googlebooks as premium devices designed to go toe-to-toe with what the other big players can offer, it feels quite half-baked if I’m honest.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 9 hours 42 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting for one working day

By virtue of the fact that these Googlebooks run a form of Android, it’s possible to run an actual battery benchmark on them, with the same app I use for phones – PCMark Work 3.1. With the Panther Lake internals inside and Asus’ original quoting of up to 15 hours of runtime from this Googlebook, I had decently high hopes for this laptop’s endurance.

In running the PCMark Work 3.1 Battery Life test at 50% brightness, this Googlebook managed to last for nine hours and 42 minutes. That’s surprisingly low for a modern laptop, and just misses out on our usual ten-hour target. Against other Panther Lake-powered laptops I’ve tested that run Windows, this is a disappointing result and means you’ll just about get through one working day with this Googlebook.

Asus doesn’t provide a power adapter with this Googlebook, leaving me to use a 65W GaN charger I had spare, meeting the brand’s recommended minimum wattage for charging. It was surprisingly brisk to get go-juice back into the laptop, taking 28 minutes to get it back to 50%, while a full charge took 75 minutes.

Should you buy it?