Googlebook Pre-Orders Are Live in Canada: 5 Gemini AI Laptops From $1,299

Google has officially launched an entirely new laptop category called Googlebook, built from the ground up around Gemini AI. We now have all the official details with pre-orders kicking off today in Canada.

Google is positioning them as flagship laptops that bring together the best of ChromeOS and Android, with Gemini intelligence at the centre of everything, under the tagline “Featherweight design. Heavyweight power.”

At the centre of the launch, Magic Pointer is a cursor gesture that lets you visually inspect and query anything on screen through Gemini multimodal vision; Create My Widget [Beta] is a natural-language prompt-to-widget engine that builds custom desktop command centres; Cast My Apps opens your phone’s apps right on the laptop with no installs needed; and Quick Access browses your phone’s files as if they were stored locally.

The phone-linked features need an Android 17 or newer phone. It is the latest sign of Google’s AI push, following Google turning CC into a family AI agent, though Canadians have to wait.

The AI PC wave is here, and Google is answering it through hardware partners instead of going it alone. Chromebooks are not going anywhere. They stay focused on simplicity and speed, while Googlebook becomes the premium tier sitting above them. The launch lands amid a heating AI assistant race (see Meta’s Muse AI agent is now available in Canada) and rising AI hardware demands, with Apple Intelligence now needing up to 14GB of iPhone storage.

Google explained to iPhone in Canada in a media briefing that setup is built for Android owners. Sign in and your settings, passwords, messages, contacts, photos and payments come over to the laptop, transferred encrypted from phone to laptop so you are up and running fast. The interface is Material 3 Expressive on desktop for the first time, with desktop widgets that adapt to your screen size and your day.

The live demo showed the continuity in action. A BandLab music project started on a phone appeared as a taskbar icon on the laptop, continuing with one click.

It works in reverse too, with phone apps such as a food delivery app opening directly from the laptop taskbar, exactly as on the phone with no extra login.

The new Files app uses Quick Access to show your phone’s files as if they were on the laptop. Photo search works by description, so typing “dog” surfaced Doberman photos rather than just matching filenames.

Google describes the laptop as a companion to an Android phone, with the continuity trio of Continue on, the Files app and Handoff letting files, apps and ongoing tasks flow across devices.

On Magic Pointer, Google said it stays dormant until summoned with a wiggle of the cursor, then switches off again, and it is fully multimodal. Examples included selecting a marathon training plan and asking Gemini to schedule the runs in Google Calendar, or waving over a suspicious email to check whether it is legit or spam. Google stressed Gemini never acts without permission.

There is also Magic Cues, which surfaces helpful context from your schedule, email and tasks before you even ask.

The Quick Insert key is an upgraded take on paste with clipboard history, emoji, on-the-fly translation and a built-in assistant. It opens Rambler, a conversational thought-capture tool that auto-structures your spoken ideas into clean notes in whatever language you are speaking, even if you change languages halfway through a sentence.

Gemini Spark, meanwhile, continues to work through complex requests in the background, even with the lid shut.

Developers also get Native Antigravity Access, Google’s agentic workflow and development environment.

The first wave lands this fall from five brands. The Acer Googlebook 14 is the only one that flips into a tablet, the ASUS Googlebook 14 is a 2.2-pound machine made for travel, and the lineup is rounded out by the XPS Googlebook from Dell, the HP Googlebook 14 and the Lenovo Googlebook 15, a 15.3-inch machine built for heavy workloads.

Acer, ASUS and HP use 14-inch 2.8K OLED touch displays, Dell uses a 13.4-inch 2.5K touch display and Lenovo steps up to a 15.3-inch 2.8K OLED panel. Dell and HP run on Snapdragon X Elite, while Acer, ASUS and Lenovo use Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake).

Every model starts with 16GB of RAM, with up to 32GB on some models, and 256GB to 512GB or more of SSD storage, plus battery life of 14 hours or more. Dedicated NPUs deliver 40-plus TOPS of on-device AI acceleration. All five have backlit keyboards and touch screens.

For software, Google points to broad day-one availability across the Google Play Store, optimised web apps (PWAs) and Linux containers, with high-priority productivity gaps continuously closing.

There is also a Glowbar, a light strip that greets you with an animation at startup, sweeps across to reflect the battery level, and comes alive with playful motion while you talk to Gemini. Google is giving developers access so they can design custom animations of their own.

Canadian pricing starts at $1,299 CAD for the Acer Googlebook 14, $1,699 CAD for the XPS Googlebook by Dell, and $1,799 CAD for the ASUS Googlebook 14, HP Googlebook 14 and Lenovo Googlebook 15. Google notes pricing may vary depending on region and retailer.

Pre-orders start today, September 21, through Canadian retailers including Best Buy Canada, Amazon.ca, Staples Canada, Costco Canada and more, with OEM availability varying.

Every Googlebook also comes with a bundle of perks. Buyers get a 12-month Gemini Spark offer included, plus three months of YouTube Premium and Adobe Photoshop. A free year of GeForce NOW is included too, alongside up to a decade of feature drops and updates.

Pre-orders are open now, with devices hitting shelves in Canada on October 5. Expect hands-on reviews once units start shipping.