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It’s been a bit since we last found a juicy nugget to share about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus. To clarify, that is the name we’ve decided to give ‘Xol’, a Chromebook in development that is clearly made by Samsung, will be Chromebook Plus, and would only make sense to be branded as such. While it could show up under whatever other name Samsung chooses to go with, we know it’s on the way and it would be silly for them to go with any other naming scheme.
Now that we have that out of the way, we can talk about a few other superlatives ‘Xol’ will be getting. First up, it will come with an Assistant key (most likely a Gemini key if I had to guess at this point) and will be the first Chromebook not made by Google to have this sort of key included on the keyboard. ‘Xol’ also looks to be getting a few additional function keys in the form of a dictation button of some sort and a dedicated Accessibility key as well. Additionally, it will also be a larger clamshell device with a numeric keypad included.
All of that is enough to tell me we could be looking at something similar to the latest laptops from Samsung in the Galaxy Book 4 lineup, though I don’t think it will be 100% identical to those devices. However, with this latest find we’re talking about today, I’m definitely leaning towards this new Chromebook being on the higher end of the spectrum for sure.
A return to OLED for Samsung
Being the first company to ship an OLED Chromebook and a QLED Chromebook, I’m happy to see Samsung returning to form with ‘Xol’. Sure, Lenovo has put out the Duet 5 with it’s OLED screen in a tablet form factor since that original Galaxy Chromebook emerged, but there’s not been any action on this front since then.
OLED panels are objectively better than standard LCD panels, but they come at a cost. Not only are they more expensive to produce, they can also wreck battery life if not handled correctly. We saw a bit of this on the original Galaxy Chromebook, so I’m hopeful that Samsung has taken the past few years to consider power management for ‘Xol’ this time around.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m beyond excited to get a large-screen OLED Chrombook from Samsung hopefully this fall. They just need to make sure to handle the battery portion a bit more responsibly this time around; and from the looks of this commit, I’m hopeful that it is top of mind with ‘Xol’.
There’s no denying that this next Chromebook from Samsung will be a special device. With new keys on the keyboard, Chromebook Plus internals, and now an OLED screen, ‘Xol’ – or the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus – is set to make a big splash later this year.
We don’t have a crystal ball, but with the way things are beginning to line up with Chromebook releases around Google’s now-expected Chromebook Plus events, I’d imagine this device will be the center of attention this fall. And with Google’s other hardware event moved way out of the way this year, it feels like September or October are easily in play for the next get together from the ChromeOS team. And I cannot wait!
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