A Peek at Our Android Laptop Future ⭐

Last week, Google delivered Android 16 Quarterly Platform Release (QPR3) alongside other updates to Android and supported Pixel devices. Key among the changes is a long-awaited Desktop mode that Google is promoting as a connected display capability. That connected display feature is useful, for sure, but Desktop mode is much more than that: It's key to a coming line of Android-based laptops that will take on the iPad—and, to some degree, PCs, Macs, and Chromebooks—later this year.

The problem is figuring out a way to test this functionality to get an idea of what this future will be like. We're in Mexico through mid-May, and though I have less technology here than I do back in Pennsylvania, I'm pretty well stocked with all the pieces I need. For example, I have at least three USB hubs here, and a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and I now have three Pixel phones—a Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Pixel 10 Pro XL, and, now, a Pixel 10a—too.

What I found with the phones is that you can connect an external display over USB-C and the Pixel will display a prompt so you can choose between Desktop mode and display mirroring. But once the display is connected, there are no on-screen controls for a mouse pointer or whatever. So you need to have connected a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse somehow to use it effectively.

The way this should work is with a USB hub: Connect the hub to the phone and then whatever peripherals, including that display, to the hub. But this doesn't work with any of my USB hubs, and I have no idea why. What does work is an HP Thunderbolt 4 Dock. When I connected a Pixel to that dock, the connected displays, keyboard, and mouse all worked normally.

That setup is obviously fine for light testing, but I am curious how Android—or the Android/Chrome OS mashup we call Aluminum OS—will fare on those future laptops. That I can't test per se, not yet. But this morning I was making an espresso and I glanced over at the Pixel Tablet that we use here as a smart display on its dock. And it occurred that this device, which is enrolled in the Android betas through the Android Developer program, might provide an even better approximation of those future laptops.

Curious, I pulled the Pixel Tablet off its dock and walked back to the living room space and sat down on the couch with. I signed in and was greeted by a My Pixel (formerly Pixel Tips) pop-up notification: "Your Pixel just got better," it said, referring to a recent software update that provides a new capability: You can now drag down from the handle in the middle of any full-screen app to cause it to display in a window. A window you can then drag around and resize as desired, as on a desktop OS.

Interesting.

This works with touch, of course, the primary—and, for most, only—way that one would interact with Pixel Tablet or some other Android tablet. And when you do display an app in a window, a new taskbar appears on the bottom of the screen to enable task switching and app...