Can the Googlebook succeed where other Google-books failed?

Laptops are interesting again in 2026

Believe it or not, laptops are suddenly interesting again.

Apple kicked things off in March with the MacBook Neo, a $599 laptop that felt like an aggressive attempt to do to the low end of the market what the MacBook Air did to the middle. Even with a subsequent $100 price hike due to the rising cost of components, it remains a cheap and cheerful MacBook that puts its Windows competition to shame on the merits.

But at Computex Taipei last month, it felt like the rest of the industry awakened. Dell revived its XPS line as a MacBook Neo rival. Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon C chip, aimed at Windows laptops priced as low as $300. And Nvidia finally made its long-rumoured move into PCs with RTX Spark, an ARM-based and inevitably AI-focused chip.

Unsurprisingly for the hardware-heavy Computex show, US players like Microsoft and Dell, along with Taiwanese OEMs such as Asus and Acer, are banking on a future where they can compete on local performance, battery life and tighter integration between software and silicon.

But just before Computex, Google announced its new “Googlebook” initiative, which is set to launch later in the year.