2018 could be shaping up to be a monumental year for the world of Chrome OS. Google’s Pixelbook has laid the foundation for a new generation of Chromebooks and the flagship device is just the tip of the iceberg.
Tablets, a long-awaited Chromebox and even detachable Chromebooks could soon be the latest and greatest devices to hit the market.
In the works for some time, the detachable device ‘Poppy‘ was initially thought to be a two-piece Skylake-powered Chromebook but after some update to its overlay files, we find that it houses the same Kaby Lake chipsets found in the Pixelbook.
Since the Kaby Lake chip from Intel shares a very similar architecture, it’s likely the initial support for ‘Poppy’ simply pulled from existing Skylake platform just to get the ball rolling for future development.
Exciting as a high-powered, detachable Chromebook may be, we now know that ‘Poppy’ is, in fact, a reference device meaning it isn’t intended for production. Instead, new devices will use the board as a starting point if and when an OEM decides to make a detachable Chromebook.
Lucky for us, that day has come sooner than later. A Kaby Lake detachable has been in the works for a couple of months now and we even think we have a clue as to who’s making the Chromebook ‘Nautilus’.
Then there’s the still mysterious ‘Soraka‘ that was the first detachable uncovered in the Chromium commits but like ‘Nautilus’, there’s still much work to be done before we see them in the flesh.
However, ‘Nautilus’ and ‘Soraka’ may now have some competition for the title “first detachable Chromebook.”
Lux
There isn’t much to go on at this point but the new board ‘Lux’ was added to the repository just this week and is paired with a rechargeable keyboard that totes the code name ‘Wand’.
lux: Add lux board
lux is a dual-battery poppy derivative.
So, we have a detachable Kaby Lake Chromebook with a battery-powered keyboard and the work being done thus far is by the one and only Nicolas Boichat a.k.a. DrinkCat. You may not know Nicolas but he is a pillar of the Chromium community and has his hands in just about everything Chrome OS.
We’ll be watching this one closely in the hopes of finding out some more details of what to expect from ‘Lux’.
Fun Fact: ‘Lux’ is yet-another character from the world of League of Legends.
Source: Chromium Repository
