Category: Chrome OS

ASUS has announced an update version of their Chromebox will be coming later this year.  The new ASUS Chromebox 3 will be powered by 8th generation Intel Core processors, have DDR4-2400 energy efficient and fast memory, and have HDMI connectivity for 4K UHD playback.

ASUS has indicated that the Chromebox 3 will be available in the second half of 2018, meaning that we have to wait until at least July before this gets to market.  For that reason, the exact processors that will be available as well as the amount of RAM that is standard in the new Chromebox were not disclosed.

The Chromebook parade continues in the hours leading up to CES 2018.  Acer, a long time manufacture of Chromebooks, has announced an updated version of the popular Acer Chromebook 11.  The 11.6″ display device will be available in April and will sport two models:  A touchscreen version (CB311-8H) and a non-touchscreen version (CB311-8HT).  Starting price will be around $250.

The updated Chromebook 11 will have the latest Intel Celeron processors although which ones exactly was not disclosed.  It will come with 4GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB or storage built into it.  It will also have dual stereo speakers and a HDR camera.

For the first time in many years, Google will be at CES in Las Vegas this coming week.  It is the first time the company has had any real presence at the massive electronics show since 2015 but it has been a lot longer than that since they have had a booth.  Not only will they have a booth, a massive one in the Central Plaza, but it looks like they are going to be heavily focusing on Google Assistant during the show.

The company made a blog post yesterday, highlighting the growth of Google Assistant and Google home over the course of 2017.  Assistant is now available on 400 million devices and in a doze different countries.  But the takeaway from the post was the last paragraph.

No matter where you are, the Google Assistant is here to help you make the most of 2018. And next week, we have even more things in store for the Assistant at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. If you’re at CES, stop by the Google Assistant Playground (Central Plaza-21) to check out some of our new integrations, devices, and the newest ways you can use your Assistant

It would appear that next week, we are going to see some announcements about Assistant and, potentially, some new hardware.

Today’s Deal is for those of you who have been looking for a Chrome OS dedicated keyboard to setup in your office or work space.  The Dell Wired Keyboard KB69211 is specifically laid out with Chrome OS users in mind.  It is also at a great price.  Right now it is $12.99 on Amazon and includes free shipping.

The Dell Wired Keyboard is a traditional QWERTY keyboard with a built-in number pad to the right.  But where you would normally find the function keys on other keyboards, on this one you will find Chrome OS specific functions suck as the refresh key, the multi-window key, volume and brightness controls.  There is even a lock key that allows you to lock your Chromebook with one long press of the key.

With CES 2018 next week, we are already starting to see some pre-show announcements.  HP jumped on that bandwagon today by announcing updated version of their HP Chromebook 11 and Chromebook 14.

The HP Chromebook 11 G6 is black with orange trim, sports a 180° hinge and is powered by the 7th generation Celeron N processors.  It will come standard with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.   The updated HP Chromebook 14 G5 will have a slightly better processor option, can be configured up to 8GB of RAM and has 64GB of storage.

An incremental update to Chrome OS has been released by the Chromium team and is starting to roll out to devices.  The updated version is build 63.0.3239.116 (Platform version: 10032.75.0) and Google indicates that the majority of Chrome OS devices will get the update over the course of the next few days.

As is often the case with these midstream updates, there are not a lot of details available on what was addressed or fixed.  Rather, we simply get the generic “This build contains a number of bug fixes and security updates”.