Turn any display into a PC with Google’s new Chromebit

Google announced a brand new addition to the Chrome family yesterday in the form of the Chromebit. Made by Asus, the Chromebit will be able to turn any TV or display with an HDMI port into a full-blown Chrome OS PC. It’s portable, too, with Google claiming it’s ‘smaller than a candy bar’. However, unlike the Google Chromecast, the Chromebit’s HDMI connecter can swivel round so it doesn’t stick out the back, giving it an almost periscope-like shape.

According to Engadget, the Chromebit is powered by a Rockship 3288 SoC, a quad-core ARM Mali 760 GPU and 2GB of RAM, and it has 16GB of eMMC memory, a USB2.0 port, Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 support as well as a Smart Ready controller.

Little else is known about the device right now, including its battery life, but Google says the latter is still being tested in the lab. It will be launching this summer and will be available for less than $100 in either blue, silver or orange. A UK release date and price has yet to be announced. 

Google also announced a new range of Chromebooks yesterday, including the Asus Chromebook Flip. Much like Lenovo’s Yoga laptops, and indeed Lenovo’s N20p Chromebook, the Chromebook Flip can effectively fold in half, allowing you to use it as a Chrome OS tablet as well as a traditional Chromebook. It has a 10.1in touchscreen with a 1,280×800 resolution, making it slightly smaller than the Lenovo N20p, but it stands to be much more attractive thanks to its all-metal aluminium chassis, which measures just 15mm thick and weighs less than two pounds. 

Inside, the Chromebook Flip has the same quad-core 2.0GHz Rockchip 3288 CPU as the Chromebit, 4GB of RAM, and a 16GB SSD. It will be available later this spring for $249. Google has yet to announce UK pricing for the Chromebook Flip, but we’ve reached out to Asus and will update this article when we hear back.