There's good news if you want Googlebooks with great battery life

Google announced Googlebooks yesterday, and this new laptop category is effectively powered by Android. There are still plenty of questions about the hardware and software, but the company has revealed more details in a new interview.

Google executive John Maletis shed more light on Googlebooks in an interview with Chrome Unboxed. For starters, Maletis confirmed that these laptops will support processors from Intel, MediaTek, and Qualcomm.

This would be in line with Chrome OS, which supports both x86 and Arm chip architectures. This is good news and suggests a similarly versatile portfolio of devices as we’ve seen with Chromebooks. Arm chips have also traditionally been more power-efficient than x86 chips from Intel and AMD. So people could theoretically opt for a Googlebook with an Arm-based MediaTek or Qualcomm processor if they value battery life.

Google didn’t confirm whether these new laptops are powered by its rumored Aluminium OS project, but it said the platform was built on the Android technology stack. It’s therefore no surprise to hear that these devices will natively support Android apps.

“We now have an ability to run truly native Android applications, not emulated,” Maletis was quoted as saying, while adding that these apps had “incredible” performance.

Chrome OS features coming to Googlebooks

Will Googlebooks have all of the Chrome OS features, though? Chrome Unboxed specifically asked about features such as virtual desks, the screen recorder, multi-paste/clipboard history, and quick insert.

The Google executive suggested that “core” Chrome OS capabilities will be available in the new platform:

There’s been so many years of evolution of Chrome OS and as you rightfully pointed out, so many different features that certainly power users have become accustomed to, but also just everyday users. And we’ve learned a ton along the way. And even things that I personally didn’t think were going to be such a big deal or so widely used — screen recording, screen capture, multi-paste, etc — I didn’t really think that those would be super widely used, but they are. So we’ve looked at all of those features and said, ‘okay, let’s make sure that where it makes sense, that we’re continuing to deliver it.’

Can I tell you that the buttons and links and knobs are gonna be in the same spot? No, because we’re rethinking so much of it. But I think what you’ll find is those core capabilities are going to be there and, in some ways, we’re going to be redesigning them in ways that we always wished we had in the past.

In other words, it sounds like major Chrome OS options will be available on the new platform. Still, don’t be surprised if some tools and features aren’t available from the get-go.