There’s a show on called BETT at the moment, and though there’s been a few interesting ChromeOS announcements. ChromeOS has pivoted from just being cheap laptops that aren’t very useful, and now represents both a powerful platform in its own right (paired with Android), but a very popular option for the Education sector.
However, this surprising development doesn’t seem to be entirely education focused. Rather, Acer appears to have made a ChromeOS tablet. Tablets have long been kind of a dead concept to me (and many others) as Android on a tablet just feels like it doesn’t quite work. However, having used a Pixelbook since December, ChromeOS on a tablet is an entirely different story. It works really very well, and revives the form factor – I’d argue – making it something more useful.
https://twitter.com/Alister_Payne/status/956625508959227904
What do we know about this mythical beast? Precisely nothing. It’s not an announced product, and appears to be a pre-release unit. The only thing suggested is that this may come with a stylus, and if it’s to be of more serious use as a ChromeOS device, there’ll likely be a keyboard option as well.
ChromeUnboxed have been tracking the development of a ChromeOS tablet through changes in the Chrome code tree and though it’s unclear if this tablet from Acer is the same thing, it certainly looks like it could be.
I for one would LOVE an 8-inch ChromeOS tablet, and I’d use it very, very often. Please please please let more manufacturers develop something like this. A ChromeOS tablet, with Android apps, would be an incredibly powerful thing.
