After a protracted wait, the first wave of Googlebooks is now official. Having spent a brief period testing, here’s what it’s like to use one.

I didn’t quite spend as much time with the software as my colleague Abner, so for a full set of impressions on these laptops running Googlebook OS, please read his extensive thoughts. This is a little more focused on the hardware side, with a sprinkle of software.

The good news right up top: My initial worries have almost completely been washed away, save a few minor complaints about two specific devices; there’s more here to like than I ever expected. Notice I said “almost” as there are still concerns in the back of my mind, but despite lots of, I guess, negativity surrounding and preceding this launch, the entire lineup of Googlebooks has exceeded my fairly low expectations.

I do believe that this is largely due to my mixed experience with various Chromebooks across the entire price spectrum, combined with the ultimately lackluster or barebones “Desktop mode” that was added to Pixel devices over the past year.

This time, we have fewer SKUs to deal with, and of the five Googlebook devices, there appear to be fewer pinch points – save the pricing. These are not going to be cheap, with prices “starting at” $899 and, in most cases, are going to be more expensive. That is likely where a portion of you are going to stop reading and just dismiss these entirely.

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