Googlebook is being pitched as the laptop for Android users, but there’s a pretty important catch at launch: Samsung phone owners won’t be able to use its headline Android integration features straight away.

The Googlebook is designed to work closely with your Android phone, with features including instant hotspot, notification syncing, access to phone files and the ability to continue tasks between your phone and laptop. You can even stream apps from your phone’s display directly to Googlebook.

That sounds like a big part of the appeal, but Google’s support documentation confirms that the experience is more limited at launch than you might expect.

For starters, Googlebook’s Android integrations won’t work with phones running Android 16 or earlier. Android 17 is the minimum requirement, so anyone with an older version of Android is already left out.

Samsung owners face another hurdle, even if their phone is running Android 17. Google says Samsung devices aren’t supported at launch, with support expected to roll out “over the coming weeks”. Google hasn’t explained whether Samsung or Google needs to push an update to make this happen.

The company does confirm that its Better Together features will eventually roll out across all Android 17-supported Samsung devices, so this doesn’t look like a permanent compatibility problem. It just means Samsung owners buying a Googlebook now won’t get the full experience immediately.

That’s a slightly awkward start for a laptop whose biggest selling point is its connection to Android phones. And Samsung isn’t exactly a niche phone maker, so leaving its devices out at launch means a sizeable chunk of Android users won’t be able to use some of Googlebook’s most interesting features.

There are a few other launch-day issues, too. Googlebook doesn’t support Slack’s web app, which could be a problem for anyone using it for work, and there are also reports of optimisation issues with some apps running on Intel hardware.

So, if you’ve got a Samsung phone, it may be worth waiting before jumping on Googlebook. The promised integration could still make it a compelling Android laptop, but for now, Samsung users are waiting for one of its most important pieces to fall into place.