Thanks to some eagle-eyed digging in the Chromium commits, +Brandon Lall has uncovered a very interesting nugget involving a device likely made by ASUS, touting a touch display, Skylake processor and back-lit display.
Here’s the breakdown. In this first commit, we see the device is code-named “Cave” and we get a pretty good indication of it being built by ASUS, considering 3 of the sign-offs on commits are using a corporate ASUS email accounts. We can also gather that the “Cave” will include the latest from Intel in the form of a Skylake processor. See the first commit below.
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?nomobile=true#!search/Cave$20Spd/chromium-os-checkins/esoTKQiWXyk/rTADz9kICwAJ
In this next commit, we can easily see that we will be dealing with some sort of 2-in-1 device via the “Enable touchview USE flag” line at the top of the page. Whether this alludes to a flip-style device (like the original, aptly-named Chromebook Flip) or a detachable keyboard remains to be seen. Check out the link below.
In the final commit, we see clear indications of a back-lit keyboard. While any device can have this, it gives me the hope that this device will either be a bit more premium or have more premium variants. Granted, we see back-lit keyboards in $300-$450 Chromebooks these days (I’m looking at you Toshiba Chromebook 2 and Dell Chromebook 13), but back-lit keyboards are usually reserved for the nicer devices and ASUS makes some truly great devices! Take a look at the final link below.
I’m pretty geeked about this! I know the months leading up to and following the release of Android apps on Chrome OS will see lots of new, differing, and interesting device configurations, but I’m really excited to see ASUS returning to a space (2-in-1’s) that they achieved some serious success in before the idea of Android on Chrome OS was even a thing. With the Flip, ASUS ventured into the space before anyone else. I’m hoping they continue being a front runner with “Cave.”