Chromium OS Github page reveals information on possible Chromebook Pixel

Some new information on a supposed Google Chromebook, the Chromebook Pixel, has been revealed. According to The Verge, developer François Beaufort has unearthed some documents from the Chromium OS Github page, which lists some interesting new entries.

The github page talks about a two-colour lightbar scheme, along with new animations between startups and sleep. According to the document, “At Startup or wake from sleep, Google colors cycle in”. There are also some new animations, which depend on how much juice is left in the battery. These are new additions and aren’t present in existing Chromebooks. This strongly hints towards Google making its own Chromebook.

New sleep and startup animations!

We got our first look at the Chromebook Pixel last week through a video. The laptop looks like its screen will be considerably better than most other Chromebook offerings. It also looks like it will sport a touchscreen. The video doesn’t offer much in the way of specifics, but it does mention that the display has four million pixels. This could mean that the screen will have a resolution of 2560 x 1700 pixels.

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This video corroborates an earlier rumour about Google working on its own touchscreen Chromebook. Google was said to have assigned the manufacturing of its Chromebooks to China-based ODM, Compal.

Google may be taking a page out of Apple’s book by designing its own hardware. This was also done by Microsoft when it manufactured its Surface tablets. By manufacturing their own products, companies retain profit margins and have complete control over how a product will look and function. This move by Google may help it compete directly with the likes of Apple, which already manufactures its own notebooks and desktops.

Chromebooks run on Google’s Chrome OS and are usually on the lower end of the specifications aspect. The Chromebook market has been more-or-less dominated by Samsung’s offerings, with other OEMs seeing only moderate success. HP seems to be testing the waters of the Chromebook market and some details of the HP Pavilion 14 were revealed through a leak on its own website. This would be the first time that the company has made a computer running on Chrome OS, but it has priced it in the same range as some of its Windows laptops.

The Chromebook is on sale on the company’s US site for $330. That’s only $19 less than the HP 200oZ 2C00 model, which comes with Windows 8. Compared to its rivals, the Samsung Chromebook (priced at $249) and the Acer C7 (costing $199 and $299 depending on the variants), the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook seems pretty high-end.