Google’s new Intel-based Googlebooks may not run every Android app smoothly from day one, the company has confirmed. Prospective buyers weighing up one of the three Intel-powered models might wish to hold off, as certain applications could require further optimisation before they perform as expected.
According to Google, the vast majority of Android apps run smoothly across both Intel and Qualcomm Googlebooks straight out of the box. However, because many Android apps were originally designed for Arm chips, a handful of complex apps or games need developer tuning to perform at their best on Intel-based platforms. It remains unclear which specific applications are affected, whether any of the Play Store’s most-downloaded titles are among them, or how many apps in total are impacted.
Which Googlebook models are affected
Not all five of the new laptops face this limitation. The three affected models, built by Lenovo, Acer and Asus, are based around Intel’s Panther Lake architecture. The two Googlebooks produced by Dell and HP use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips, which are natively compatible with Android-based apps and are therefore expected to run the full breadth of titles available in the Play Store without trouble.
The performance issues are not entirely unexpected. Intel silicon is not immediately compatible with Android software, much as Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon X chips are not optimised for Windows. Google has previously noted that running Android apps on x86 silicon results in reduced performance and battery life, since the Arm code must be translated in real time. These issues could persist across several generations of Intel-based devices before they are fully resolved.
Pricing and what’s included
The incompatibility poses a challenge for Google and its partners, given that the Googlebook lineup was marketed as a range of premium laptops designed to unify ChromeOS, Gemini AI and the full library of Android apps. A performance hit on popular apps undermines the promise of moving seamlessly between phone and computer.
The first wave of Googlebooks is now available. The cheapest model, made by Acer, starts at around £710, while configurations from other Google-partnered manufacturers start at roughly £1,025. Every Googlebook is packaged with one year of Google AI Pro and Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service, along with three months of YouTube Premium and Adobe Photoshop.
Buyers who rely on a specific must-have Android app are advised to check compatibility with the developer before purchasing one of the Intel-based models.
