As release of the final version of Chrome OS approaches details of the first notebooks powered by Google's cloud-centric operating system are starting to emerge. Just yesterday a Chrome OS bug report dug up by Macles shed some light on an upcoming Acer machine (codenamed ZGB) that will apparently carry a 1366 x 768 panel, presumably in the 10 to 12-inch range, support HDMI out and will be powered by an Intel Atom processor. That's as detailed as the story gets, unfortunately.
Another device, dubbed Seaboard, was also caught in the wild sporting a Tegra 2 and a touchscreen, which Google is possibly using to test the tablet-friendly tweaks we've been hearing about.
In addition, a similar Chromium bug report was spotted today by Dutch website Chrome Nieuws, this time depicting a notebook from Samsung dubbed "Alex" in Google's code repository. The machine is said to feature a 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550 processor, 2GB of RAM, a SanDisk solid-state drive (storage capacity is not mentioned), 1280 x 800 resolution, Wi-Fi, Ethernet port, a webcam, Bluetooth, and a Qualcomm Gobi 2000 3G card.
There's been speculation that Google may sell Chrome OS devices to customers using a subscription-based model, but may also partner with retailers and carriers to make the devices available for a one-time payment. Hopefully we'll hear more details at the Google I/O conference next month in San Francisco.