New Chromebook code-named “Hatch” will have Intel’s Comet Lake, fingerprint scanner, stylus, and backlit keyboard

While Android tablets seem to be a dying breed, Chromebooks are thriving more than ever. What was once an exclusively affordable device has now branched out to the premium market and with that, we are seeing a number of new products hitting the market. Late last year there were reports of a new Chromebook that carried the codename “Hatch.” Not much was known about the device at the time, other than an Intel Comet Lake chipset, but now we are learning some additional details about this device.

Close to 6 months went by without hearing any additional information about this device but that changed this month. We have learned of some interesting details about this “Hatch” Chromebook in two recent reports. Fingerprint scanners on Chrome OS devices are really rare right now. So far, we’ve only had the Pixel Slate and the newly announced Acer 715 and 714 Chromebooks that include this type of biometric support, but a recent report from Chrome Unboxed points to a commit which indicates the upcoming Hatch Chromebook will also have the feature.

hatch: enable biod
Enable the biod USE flag to install biod and flash_fp_mcu to the rootfs

The feature is currently in its testing phase but it’s almost certain that it will show up in the final product. A couple of days after that report came out we learned about some additional details about the new Chrome OS device. Again, this information was discovered thanks to a commit and it indicates that it will also come with a stylus. These are becoming increasingly popular among 2-in-1 devices which could be a hint at what form factor we should expect from this Chromebook. Also, a line of code was discovered that suggests the Chrome OS device will ship with a backlit keyboard as well.

has-keyboard-backlight: “1”

There is still a lot to uncover about this mysterious “Hatch” Chromebook, but if all of this information is to be believed, it’s shaping up to be an interesting device.

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Source 1: Chrome Unboxed Source 2: Chrome Unboxed Source 3: Chrome Unboxed

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