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Update 11/2/15: Google has since posted that information technology will fully support Chrome Bone and make it available to hardware engineers, though it didn't directly refute the Wall Street Journal's claims. The original story continues below.

Google plans to merge its Chrome operating system, currently used in notebook and desktop computers, with its Android operating system used in smartphones and tablets, according to the Wall Street Journal. Google has non confirmed what was reported. Keeping that in mind, here'southward what the WSJ says what has and what volition happen:

  • Chrome OS will be "folded" into Android;
  • Google has been working on this unification for almost ii years;
  • The unified Bone volition be shown, but not released, in 2016;
  • The unified Os will launch in 2017;
  • Chrome Bone will remain a supported Open Source project that manufacturers can choose to use. However, Google will focus its notebook efforts on the unified platform.

With the understanding that the Droid branding belongs to Disney and Lucasfilm and is licensed to Verizon Wireless, I'thou going to phone call the merged unified platform ChromeDroid equally a shorthand for the rest of this article. There are a couple of important questions that will be answered in the next two years:

  • Will ChromeDroid merely be bachelor on notebook-type devices? Or, will the platform be consistent with Android tablets and phones?
  • Will it have a single user interface, or will information technology take divide desktop and tablet interfaces like Microsoft Windows 8 and 10?
  • Will current Chromebooks be able to upgrade to ChromeDroid?
  • Many Android devices seem to get through one or 2 upgrade cycles earlier beingness orphaned. Will ChromeDroid ensure the kind of multi-year upgrade path that Windows and Mac OS Ten notebooks accept?
  • Volition Google solve the Android fragmentation problem by 2017? Android v.0 Lollipop was released in November 2014. Nonetheless, virtually an unabridged twelvemonth after, 76.5% of Android devices that admission the Google Play Store still use an older version, according to Google's own Android Dashboard.
  • Chromebook security, update, and recovery processes are widely recognized as unproblematic, safe, and straightforward. Tin ChromeDroid provide the aforementioned kind of simplicity and safety? Or, will it have the kind of finish-user direction complexity we run into in Microsoft Windows?

You tin find Android notebooks with a touch screen today. But these devices more often than not have the status of outcast mutants with foreign powers and are not mainstream products. The HP SlateBook 14 (pictured above), for example, was introduced in 2014, but is no longer listed every bit an active product on HP'southward website. Yous tin find it on Amazon, however. It has a 14-inch touch screen, a ane.8GHz Nvidia Tegra iv quad-core mobile processor, 2 GB RAM, and 16 GB eMMC storage. Information technology too has a rich set of ports, including a microSD slot, one USB 3.0 port, two USB ii.0 ports, an HDMI port, and Ethernet and headphone jacks.

Most notably, as you can see in the above photograph, the HP SlateBook 14 has a full-size keyboard and trackpad. But thanks to various software snafus, this product never entered the mainstream. Chromebooks accept, only it remains to be seen what volition happen with this new combo OS. This may non have been as important several years ago when Microsoft was struggling to deal with the failure of Windows 8. Nevertheless, Windows 10, which launched earlier this year, appears to have fixed many of the issues that fabricated Windows 8 then unpopular. And, its Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book hardware appears to be selling well and are mostly well-received past reviewers and cease users.

T-Mobile G1

Personally, I've wanted an Android notebook since the first fourth dimension I tried a T-Mobile G1 (pictured above) back in 2008. The G1, as you lot may call back, was the first Android telephone. Information technology had a concrete keyboard and what I idea was an extremely useful miniature trackball to complement its touch screen. At this betoken, all we can do is wait for an official proclamation from Google well-nigh this management the WSJ says the company is taking.