Samsung‘s been working on an LTE-enabled Chromebook for some time now and it appears to break cover soon. A recent FCC filing has revealed another refresh of the Samsung Chromebook Plus, this time with an LTE module.
Samsung Chromebook Plus LTE
Earlier in June, Samsung launched the second version of the Chromebook Plus. Days after, a new SKU of Nautilus (codename for the Chromebook Plus v2) was spotted on Coreboot code commit, clearly showing configuration changes that mention LTE support. So an LTE-enabled Chromebook Plus was imminent, and it’s on the way out now. Notably, this device had acquired its Wi-Fi Alliance certification last month itself.
The upcoming Chromebook Plus variant appears to be an exact clone of the v2 with the only addition being an LTE module. It sports the exact same looks on the outside, including the camera module on the keyboard. The new Chromebook Plus is also expected to pack the same internals as the v2. The Chromebook Plus v2 saw a switch from an ARM processor to the Intel Celeron, stickers of which can be seen on the photo of the upcoming variant as well.
The FCC document refers to the upcoming device as “Hopper”, which has a mention on the “Nautilus_LTE” board on Chromium.
Chrome OS has seen an exponential growth recently, both in terms of hardware support by OEMs and features. Thanks to the lightweight OS, Chromebooks generally offer a great battery life. This, combined with strongly growing Android and Linux app support, and a possible option to dual-boot Windows 10, has resulted in a higher adoption to the OS. Chrome OS, however, is long-overdue LTE support and it’s good to see big players like Samsung leading the line.
There’s no info yet on how much the LTE-enabled Samsung Chromebook Plus would cost. But as the trend goes, it should cost about $100 more than the LTE-less version, which currently sells for $499. And we should know pretty soon as the launch seems imminent.
