In short: A total of three new Chrome OS devices that appear to feature Intel’s eight-generation 14nm Kaby Lake processors have been spotted in the Chromium Gerrit, listed under the names ‘Syndra’, ‘Bard’, and ‘Ekko’. There’s not necessarily any guarantee that any of the three devices are related and not much information to go on at this point since the commit in question effectively adds the names as “skeletons for firmware” to be based on prior device boards. However, each is based on the ‘Nami’ board associated with those processors. Initially, the first of those additions, Syndra, is set to be based on a previous device referred to as ‘Sona’ while Bard and Ekko are both based on ‘Akali’.
Background: There hasn’t been much to indicate that Sona or Syndra are intended to be anything other than reference devices at this point but the remaining new additions appear to be much more interesting. That’s because Akila is a codename that’s currently thought to be associated with Acer’s still-unreleased Chromebook 13 “for business” devices. There isn’t necessarily anything special about the design used in those since they fall pretty well in line with the current incoming wave of premium Chrome OS hardware. It’s also not likely that either Bard or Ekko would follow the same aesthetics so that can be set aside entirely. Having said that, those devices do feature up to 16GB of RAM and either 32GB or 64GB storage backing up an 8th-Gen Intel Core i3 8130U. A convertible version of that is also set to be purchasable with a more powerful 8th-Gen Core i5 8250U processor. It isn’t necessarily unlikely that Bard or Ekko will follow the same path.
Impact: There’s no indication for the time being as to which manufacturer will be responsible for either of the new devices. However, Acer, Lenovo, and Dell have each already revealed this year’s iteration of its top-end Chromebooks. Meanwhile, Google’s hardware is thought to have already been finalized under the codenames Nocturne and Atlas and will likely be announced at the company’s upcoming October 9 hardware event. Although all three newly added devices are still in the very early stages, that effectively leaves ASUS, HP, Samsung, and maybe a few others like Toshiba as possibilities for now.
