Potentially released as soon as next month by Lenovo, Digitimes reports that Lenovo and Asus are preparing to release $149 Chromebooks based on the Rockchip RK3288 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A17 with Mali-T764. The rumored screen size is 11.6" according to Digitimes.

To be seen if those include 2GB or 4GB RAM. I think 4GB RAM would be nice, even if that adds a few $ to BOM cost. Perhaps they can just let consumers choose to double RAM to 4GB if they just pay $10 or $20 more. I think it would also be nice if they also provide a larger $169 13.3" skew. Both with 1366x768 matte displays would be good I think. At least one, or multiple SD card slots for storage, HDMI output, at least 2 USB3 would be nice.

It was here on ARMdevices.net on June 5th that I was the first post a video about the RK3288 Chromebook and back on April 13th about Chrome OS for RK3288 on the development board.

I think if the performance is smooth, if the keyboard/mousepad/display qualities are great, if the designs by Lenovo and Asus are classy "like a Macbook Air" and not purposefully cheap looking, the RK3288 Chromebooks may become more popular than RK3288 in Android Tablets, and Chrome OS on RK3288 Set-top-boxes may also be more popular than RK3288 Android Set-top-boxes. If priced right, and if mass produced at absolute maximum capacity by brands like Lenovo and Asus, I think this could potentially become one of the most popular laptops in the world, potentially overtaking Wintel laptops faster than anyone can imagine.

Related articles

• Asustek and Lenovo prep $149 Chromebooks - report (kitguru.net)
• Expect Lenovo & ASUS to launch $149 Chromebooks early in 2015 (HEXUS.net)
• Brace yourselves: $149 Chromebooks are coming (techreport.com)
• Asus and Lenovo Set to Release $149 Chromebooks: Report (techpp.com)