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A 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.
