News - Google branded touch enabled Chromebook coming Q1 2013

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Big G tentatively orders 200,000 units from Compal Electronics and Wintek.

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Read more.

Hope this comes with a high DPI display and Samsung's 28nm quad-core Exynos 5450.

Have to say (since I'm currently trialling the open-source Chromium OS on a VM) I don't really see the benefit of a touch-screen. Chrome OS simply isn't built for it. It'd have the same issue as running a Win 7 laptop with a touch screen - you have to reach over the keyboard, and the touch target areas are too small.

Now, if this was actually a touchscreen laptop running a modded version of Android, and Google had decided to push Android as an entry-level laptop OS, that would be less surprising - I'm also running an ICS x86 VM and it works surprisingly well with a keyboard & mouse (although certainly not perfectly). But then I'd expect this to be a convertible device to get the proper benefit from having a bridging OS, and it doesn't sound like that's the case.

One for the :O_o1: face, I think... :confused:

Well now I'm curious. I was gonna buy an ARM Samsung Chromebook in January anyway to replace my 5 year old thinkpad for mobile usage, and I was probably gonna make Android the main OS on that Chromebook with Ubuntu as a secondary. Considering that usage the touchscreen version would make perfect sense, assuming it also uses an ARM processor and maybe has a longer battery life, more like 9-12 hours as the Samsung Chromebook is capable of with modifications to use the spare space.

I'll be interested to see what happens here.

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Originally Posted by sykobee

Hope this comes with a high DPI display and Samsung's 28nm quad-core Exynos 5450.

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High DPI agreed but after reading Anandtech's review of the recent XE303 Exynos based Chromebook I think they really need to occupy a level above tablets in the performance stakes. No point in pitching Chromebooks to compete with tablets like the Nexus 10 as they won't compare favourably, same performance but heavier and without Android apps doesn't sound like a marketing winner to me.

Cheaper Intel/AMD CPUs in the ~10-20W range (i.e. not Atom) seem about right for this class of device to me, the niche seems to be "Mobile Internet Terminal" and so a Chromebook has to be unlimited web, its no good if things are slow or badly supported (which Anandtech did say some things were - see bottom of http://www.anandtech.com/show/6422/s...s-cortex-a15/5). Needs to be like an Ultrabook but made slimmer/thinner/cheaper by using a small SSD, no Windows install etc

Caveat, I've not used a Chromebook for daily driving but I know a tablet often frustrates me with it's limitations whilst a Ultrabook sized laptop gets things done but is a bit too heavy and expensive for what I need on the move - there is a middle ground and a Chromebook could be it.