Googlebook laptops go on sale from $899 in the US; Google's launch list leaves out India

Tanishka Upadhyay — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 20:25:47 GMT

Googlebook, the laptop category Google unveiled on 21 September 2026, reached shop shelves in the United States on 4 October. Google says the launch models start at $899. Six more markets follow today, 5 October: Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia. India is not on Google's list. Price as of 5 October 2026, 1:30 am IST: from $899 in the US, according to Google's launch posts. Nothing on those pages gives an Indian price or an Indian date. What Google is selling There are five launch models, made by Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP and Lenovo. Google describes the Acer as the only convertible, which turns from laptop to tablet, the ASUS as a travel machine at 2.2 pounds, and the Lenovo as the large 15-inch workhorse. Cases use aluminium, magnesium alloy and carbon fibre, and screens go up to 2.8K OLED. Two chip families are on offer at launch, Intel Core Ultra Series 3 and Snapdragon X Elite, each paired with a neural processing unit rated above 45 TOPS. Memory starts at 16GB and reaches 32GB on some models. Google quotes up to 14 hours of video playback and 16 hours of web browsing. Its Australian post adds that these figures come from controlled tests on pre-production units and that real battery life may be lower. A light strip called the Glowbar sits on the outside of each machine. It plays an animation at start-up, sweeps to show battery level and reacts when you talk to Gemini. Google says developers will get access to it too. The phone link and the Gemini tools The pitch is that the laptop treats an Android phone as a partner. When you sign in, your phone's settings, saved passwords, Wi-Fi networks and messages move across, and Google says that transfer is end-to-end encrypted. Continue On picks up a task from your phone on the laptop's taskbar, a Files app opens phone files, and Cast My Apps puts a phone app in a window on the desktop. Gemini shows up in three places. Magic Pointer brings Gemini to whatever is under the cursor when you wiggle it. Rambler, next to the Quick Insert key, turns spoken notes into tidy text, including in more than one language. Create My Widget builds desktop widgets from a plain description. Google says Gemini acts only when asked and can be switched off. On the software side the machines run desktop Chrome with extensions and Android apps from the Play Store, including Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and CapCut, and Google says streaming apps support offline viewing. Google promises up to ten years of updates, a full terminal for developers and a year of GeForce NOW with each purchase. Security gets its own paragraph in Google's post. The machines use the same architecture as ChromeOS with a Titan hardware root of trust and on-device malware detection. Google also describes a hypervisor that runs an isolated Linux environment, so developers can use command-line tools and pull code without touching the main system. What comes in the box, and where India stands Every Googlebook includes 12 months of Google AI Pro, which Google ties to 5TB of cloud storage and higher Gemini limits, plus three months of YouTube Premium and Adobe Photoshop. Those offers carry terms. The Australian post says the AI Pro trial is for eligible new users who buy and activate a machine on or after 1 October 2026, and that a payment method is needed at sign-up. Read the terms for your own country before you count on them. Australia gets four of the five models, from ASUS, Dell, HP and Lenovo, and Google's Australian post carries its own local pricing. We found no UK price on the two launch posts we read. Please do not turn $899 into rupees and call it an Indian price. Taxes, duties and retail margins differ from country to country, and Google has said nothing about India. Windows laptops are moving toward the same Qualcomm silicon, and we covered Microsoft's smaller Surface machines switching to Snapdragon X2 Plus in late September. Google's AI plans for Indian shoppers are a separate thread, and we reported on a Flipkart buy button being tested inside Gemini. We will update this report if Google names an Indian date or price.

Australia's new Student visa rules from 2 October: who can still apply from inside the country

Tanishka Upadhyay — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 19:55:44 GMT

If you are an Indian student in Australia and had planned to switch visas or courses from inside the country, the ground shifted on 2 October 2026. The Department of Home Affairs says new rules now apply to the Student visa (subclass 500) and the Student Guardian visa (subclass 590). They change who can apply while in Australia, and they limit when a partner or children can be part of a Student visa application. The department's wording is direct. Most temporary visa holders in Australia can no longer lodge a Student or Student Guardian application while they are in the country. The list of affected visas is kept on its Subclass 500 Student visa page, so check that list against the visa you hold before you plan anything. Who is affected A current Student visa holder who wants another Student visa is covered as well, unless an exemption applies. That includes someone who holds a Student visa as a dependant and now wants to apply as the main applicant. The department is clear that none of this touches the Student visa you already hold. If the rules stop you from applying in Australia, you have to be outside the country on the day you lodge and still outside it when the visa is granted. For a student who has already paid a deposit or booked a start date, that single point may matter more than the application form itself. Guardians are treated differently. The fact sheet says a current Student Guardian visa holder can still lodge a further Student Guardian application from inside Australia. The exemptions for people already studying The department lists eight situations in which a Student visa holder may still apply for another Student visa from inside Australia. You may need up to 12 more months after your original course end date to finish, as long as you stay with the same education provider. If you are on a package of courses, the course needing the extra time must be the main one. You may be sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or by Defence, or be applying for a PhD, or for primary or secondary school. Moving up a level counts too. If you finished a main course that carries an Australian Qualifications Framework level and the next course is at a higher level, you can apply in Australia. A higher education course has to be followed by another higher education course from a higher education provider. A student going from a bachelor's degree to a master's degree is the kind of step this exemption describes, though the department decides each case. Finishing school and moving to a course with no AQF level is covered, and so is the reverse. The last exemption is for students who cannot continue because their education provider has defaulted. Partners and children The family rules changed as well. Student visa applicants can no longer include a partner or dependent children in the application, and that holds when they apply for a further Student visa. The exceptions are people studying a PhD, students sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or Defence, students on a foreign government scholarship, and eligible students from a Pacific country or an ASEAN member country. Current Student visa holders can no longer add family members after the visa has been granted either. The department says there are no exemptions to that rule. If your present visa already includes family and you apply in Australia, you may be able to include them in the next application, but you and everyone on it must be in the same place when it is lodged. Applications already lodged Anything lodged before 2 October 2026, including applications that listed family members, will be assessed under the rules that applied on the day it was lodged. The department also advises students to understand the new requirements before enrolling in a course, making travel plans or relocating. This is general information, not migration advice, and for your own case the department's pages are the place to start. Some readers are still weighing a degree overseas against one closer to home, and we have reported on two foreign universities showing interest in offshore campuses in Hyderabad. Students already planning trips between India and Australia may also want to see what Vi now includes for international roaming.

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Googlebook laptops go on sale from $899 in the US; Google's launch list leaves out India

Australia's new Student visa rules from 2 October: who can still apply from inside the country