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We are extremely confident that Samsung is currently working on their next flagship Chromebook and I would wager a cup of coffee that we’ll see it sometime around CES 2020 in January. The excitement that will ensue if we do, in fact, get a proper successor to the Chromebook Pro goes without saying, but Samsung may have some other tricks up their sleeve headed our way.
Not one but two new devices have been floating around the Chromium repository as of late and we have some very good indicators that they will also be from Samsung. ‘Casta’ and ‘Bluebird’ are both built off of the “Octopus” baseboard which means they should be powered by Intel’s Gemini Lake chipsets. Like the Chromebook Plus, Pro and now ‘Kohaku’, ‘Casta’ and ‘Bluebird’ have a score of Samsung emails attached to the commits. As we have pointed out in the past, most unreleased devices keep the OEMs name out of the development process with the exception of Samsung and ASUS. This has made it relatively simple to pinpoint when they are working on something new.
I initially found it a bit puzzling to see another Samsung device in the works but then I thought back on their current entry-level Chromebook. The Samsung Chromebook 3 has seen some minor refreshes but it is still built on the Braswell platform that’s going on four years old. This model was probably more popular than most in its day thanks to Samsung’s name but it has gotten very long in the tooth. It is time for a refresh.
The interesting detail is the fact that there are two new devices in the works and both of them, at least for now, are listed as clamshells. This could change as they continue development but it seems odd that there would be two completely separate boards for similar devices unless they are planning on equipping one with LTE and giving it an entirely new name instead of appending -LTE to the ends like they did with the Chromebook Plus V2. There could be any number of variables that have spurred the two distinct models, but only time will tell why. Until them, it’s definitely worth getting excited to see Samsung bringing more Chromebooks to market to fit a variety of budgets and needs.
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