Acer and Asus have big plans for Google’s Chromebook

Acer and Asus are apparently quite optimistic about the long-term prospects of Google’s web-centric Chrome OS and accompanying hardware.

Indeed, both industry heavyweights are reportedly prepping a number of mobile Chrome-powered devices for launch later this year, as Mountain View gets ready for an aggressive campaign to promote the stripped-down platform.

In addition to the two above-mentioned companies, Samsung, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard (HP) are also expected to release Chromebooks in the near future.

In related Chromebook news, Google is reportedly testing a new Chromebook powered by Intel’s x86 Haswell SoC. The new device has been nicknamed “Slippy,” at least according to a few lines of Chromium code spotted by one Dinsan Francis.

Additional specs are few and far between, although we do know the device, if it ever comes to market, also features an SD card slot along with two USB 3.0 ports.

As previously discussed on TG Daily, Haswell is the long-awaited successor to Intel’s Sandy and Ivy Bridge processors. The SoC is fabbed using an 22nm process, with Santa Clara expected to begin officially shipping Haswell CPUs this June – which just happens to coincide with Google’s annual I/O conference.