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Skylake Chromebook ‘Caroline’ Gets Digital Pen Support

By 8 Comments

by Gabriel Brangers
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pdp_feature_03_01_1280A couple weeks back we reported on a new Skylake Chromebook codenamed ‘Caroline‘. What we know about ‘Caroline’ is very little limited. What we do know is it is built off of the ‘Glados’ board and is taken much of its code from ‘Cave’. Aside from routine testing we haven’t seen much progress on the upcoming Chromebook.

Yesterday, that changed.




We have come across a commit adding digital pen support to ‘Caroline’. This is very interesting for a number of reasons.

First, we were unsure if ‘Caroline’ was a convertible device at all. The addition of a digital pen leads us to believe this will be yet another convertible Chromebook to add to the list.

Second, this device is powered by a Skylake processor. If it is being fitted with a digital pen, it would be the first Intel-based device with this feature. As reported earlier this week, we have seen the pending release of the Samsung Chromebook Pro featuring a Chrome OS first in the form of a stowable stylus.

The Samsung is rocking the newest ARM SoC from RockChip and, while the preliminary benchmarks are promising, a Core M SoC will surely deliver significantly greater performance.

Speaking of Samsung, that is the third thing that caught my eye about this recent commit. The owner of the commit review has a Samsung email address! Very intriguing indeed. Samsung has created the first Chromebook with a pen. Now we see a Skylake device with the addition of a digital pen and Samsung’s name attached to it.




I’m not convinced that ‘Caroline’ is another Samsung Chromebook. I’m only saying that this is definitely something we will be keeping a close eye on. Samsung’s digital pens are their “own thing.” To the best of my knowledge they do not market it to third party OEMs.

Another notable update to this device is the evidence of a backlit keyboard. This is most certainly not a new technology, but as we have seen since the emergence of the Samsung Chrombook Pro (which lacks a backlit keyboard), having an illuminated keyboard is definitely a hot-button for consumers.

As noted before, there is still much to learn about ‘Caroline’, but you can count on Chrome Unboxed to stay on top of any development.

  • libssd

    Caroline is starting to push my buttons. An Intel processor, and backlit keyboard make it a lot more attractive to me than a Rockchip, although I will be very interested to see Octane benchmarks for both. I’m currently using an ASUS Flip, and its performance is barely acceptable, especially for responding to UI elements, such as pulldown menus, and copy/paste — I often end up with a previous copy, rather than a new one, because it’s so slow to respond.

    But I love the form factor, and something a tad bigger, with stylus support would be just about perfect, as I seem to have squarish, calloused fingertips that do not interact well with touchscreens, so I have long used a stylus for most things on my Nexus 7.

    • Robby Payne

      Agreed. The Flip is a great form with poor performance. The new Rockchip looks to be much, much improved over the one in the Flip, but until we have one to test, the jury is still out.

      Caroline is looking very interesting, to say the least.

    • ChrisG

      Caroline is looking a lot like the Chromebook I have been waiting for. It is with a degree of sadness that I say that. I would have preferred something ARM based but the right ARM product for me, that offers both solid performance and energy efficiency, hasn’t appeared yet. Something like the forthcoming A10X would do nicely but Apple only produces chips for its own needs and currently the ARM based products in general circulation for tablets and Chromebooks are underwhelming in performance terms.

      Unfortunately, the promising Tegra SoCs never quite hit their straps so we probably won’t be seeing updated variants of the Tegra powering Chromebooks any time soon. In time, we will, no doubt, see suitable Qualcomm and Samsung designed SoCs appear that will be the right fit for Chromebooks offering Core M calibre performance but we just aren’t there yet.

      But I have become impatient and assuming Intel has overcome its desire to extract a pound of flesh via its Core M pricing strategy I could very easily acquire one of these.

  • Alem

    Sorry to bother you, but, when do you think this will be aviable to us based on the stage it is in now?. Thanks in advance.

    • Robby Payne

      I would assume this device is still months out as it was just added to the repository a month ago. The fact that it is based on other devices could move it along quickly, though.

      • Alem

        Thanks!. Really hope it’s soon, I would really like a Chromebook like the r13 or the new Samsung pro, but an intel based CPU and hopefully a little more ram would be amazing for crouton usability. Maybe there are more options coming too?

  • Any chance you think this would be a Pixel? “Caroline” is definitely one up against “Kevin” (which I pre-ordered)…

    Everything seem too good to be true for Caroline…backlit, Skylake, pen support….

    • Gabriel Brangers

      At this point I would tend to lean more towards another Samsung device. They have historically made Intel along side of ARM. I would love to see a new Pixel but I don’t feel ‘Caroline’ is it. Definitely keeping a close eye on this one and will keep you updated.