Most Chromebooks are basically cheap laptops that run Google’s Chrome OS software rather than Windows or OS X. But not all Chromebooks are cheap.
Dell’s Chromebook 13 family includes models with up to 8GB of RAM, up to an Intel Core i5 processor, and prices ranging from $379 to $799. And Google’s latest Chromebook Pixel is a premium laptop that sells for $999 and up.
But it looks like an even more powerful model may be on the way.
Jacob Gwiazdzinski spotted discussion of a new board called “chell” in the Chromium OS code review group, and it seems likely that this is a next-gen Chromebook Pixel, since it seems to have a multi-colored lightbar.
That’s a feature that’s been present on pretty much every Google Pixel device to date, but only one non-Pixel product (the original HP Chromebook 11, which was designed with input from Google).
Other features of the chell board include 16GB of RAM, an Intel Skylake processor, and a backlit keyboard.
While chell could be a next-gen Chromebook Pixel, there’s a chance it could be something else: the last Pixel device Google launched was actually the Android-powered Pixel C tablet. And there’s talk of Chrome OS and Android merging in some way in the future. It’s possible chell could be a device that can run either operating system, or maybe both.
Maybe we’ll learn more about the new device at the Google I/O developer conference in May?
via Chrome Story