The long dream of the Googlebook

In late 2010, an up-and-coming Google executive named Sundar Pichai took the stage in front of a bunch of reporters and explained that Google had a big new idea about laptops. In the future, he said, the only thing you’d need on your computer was a web browser — that was where all your apps, data, and connections would live going forward. Your computer didn’t need much storage, Pichai explained, or any fancy hardware, because the cloud would do the work. The software designed for these new laptops, Chrome OS, was an enormous bet that the web would eventually overtake everything. Chrome OS (which eventually became ChromeOS) has been, in many ways, a huge hit. But the computer currently on Rick Osterloh’s desk isn’t a Chromebook. Osterloh is Google’s head of hardware and devices, and the sleek, slim device he’s tapping on as he joins our Google Meet is a 13-inch Dell clamshell with decidedly un-Chromebook specs: 16 gigs of RAM, a cutting-edge Qualcomm processor, a light and thin and MacBook-ish metallic look. It’s called the XPS Googlebook, and it’s one of five new devices running Googlebook OS, Google’s latest big idea about computers. At first blush, Googlebooks feel like…