First Impressions: Dell XPS Googlebook and the Googlebook OS

As someone who has, over the years, found himself deep in the Google ecosystem of hardware and services, I had been curious about the Googlebook concept for a while — whether it would be basically a fancy Chromebook, or if it would offer something more, and more useful, than that line of affordable but mostly limited laptops. When the Googlebook models for were announced in September, I decided to go ahead and pre-order one: The Acer Googlebook 14. It turns out, however, that apparently lots of people had the same idea as me. Best Buy sent me an email telling me that despite taking my pre-order money, the Acer was out of stock and they didn’t know when they would get more. I cancelled that order and went with the Dell XPS Googlebook instead, which, I think by virtue of being $100 more expensive than the Acer, was in stock. It arrived the day after I ordered it — and when, alas, I was away at New York Comic Con for a few days. I finally got a chance to set it up and play with it…