Chromium code suggests 4K Chromebook code-named Atlas in the works

Weren’t we just talking about how Chromebooks don’t have to be inexpensive? Keep that in mind because XDA-Developers is reporting that there’s a new Chromebook board called “Atlas” and it will have a 4K display. That’s not going to come cheap if and when the final product arrives.

According to the Chromium code commits initially found by Reddit user -nbsp- , Atlas will power a 3840 x 2160 display. For comparison, the very detailed screen on the Google Pixelbook is 2400 x 1600, so we’re talking about quite a few more pixels: More than double.

Since the display size is unknown, it’s not possible to calculate the pixel density, or pixels per inch (PPI). But you can determine the aspect ratio, which is 16:9, or what you might consider a widescreen display. The Pixelbook screen uses a 3:2 aspect ratio, so it’s “taller” but not as wide as a 16:9 display.

Would this Chromebook actually run at full resolution though? Not likely, because for higher resolution devices, Chrome OS scales everything it displays. If it didn’t, standard text would be small and very difficult to read on a laptop screen capable of displaying nearly 8.3 million pixels.

 

About the author

Kevin C. Tofel has covered technology since 2004. He's used ChromeOS since Google debuted the CR-48 in 2010, reviewing dozens of Chromebooks since then. He worked for Google's Chrome Enterprise team from 2016 to 2017, supporting the launch of Android app support. In his free time, he uses Chromebooks to learn software engineering at Launch School. In 2019, Kevin joined the CS Curriculum Committee at his local community college.

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