Despite the ostensibly small niche Chromebooks occupy, a recent rumor suggests another wave of Chrome-inspired laptops are on the way anyhow. The bulk of those upcoming models are expected to arrive during the second half of 2013 with a growing number of manufacturers on board.
Amongst the companies producing the new Chromebooks are Acer, Samsung, Lenovo, HP and most interestingly Asus – a company who seemingly once frowned upon Google's netbook-meets-ultrabook-meets-the-cloud hybrid.
Few details are known, but Google is expected to "aggressively" promote its Chromebooks. Could they finally catch on?
Google's last big Chromebook announced was its Chromebook Pixel – a decked-out $1,300 Chromebook armed with a high-PPI 12.85-inch 3:2 aspect ratio display. The Pixel packs an Intel Core i5 CPU and 1TB of Google Drive storage for three years – a bold offering, to be sure. Sales figures for the Pixel aren't available, but a March estimate pegged total Chromebook sales around 500,000 units.
Curiously, the term "Androidbooks" also makes a re-appearance in this latest batch of Chromebook rumors. Androidbooks are laptops powered by (unsurprisingly) Android and have been recently rumored to be in production. It's not entirely clear how Androidbooks and Chromebooks would co-exist though, since they would seem to occupy the same, limited territory.
Interestingly, former Android lead Andy Rubin stepped down only to be replaced by his Chrome browser counterpart Sundar Pichai. The implication of this maneuver may seem obvious at first, but Google chairman Eric Schmidt summarily dismissed the notion of a Chromebook-Android convergeance.