ogan To Launch Chromebook Laptop In May?

A source close to Aussie company Kogan has told us that it will be launching a Chromebook laptop, possibly by the end of the month and definitely before either Samsung and Acer, the two official partners presented by Google at launch.
We've been told that although Kogan is not a major defacto partner of the search engine giant, it is still looking to be playing a prominent role in the Chromebook market ahead of bigger competitors like Asus.
The nearest thing to a Chromebook that Kogan has in its range is the Agora Pro; it is a 12-inch ultra portable laptop running a Celeron M processor, 2GB RAM, Ubuntu, a 500GB hard disk drive, an 11.6-inch WXGA display, webcam, Bluetooth, HDMI, card reader, three USB ports and an Ethernet port.

At £268, it is not a bad buy, although we think Kogan will opt for an ARM-based system which will be cheaper and leverage the existing hardware - including 3G - that is used on tablets and smartphones. At £200, half the price of the others a Kogan Chromebook would probably be a steal.
Chromebook only runs on Intel hardware at the moment but it would be arguably cheaper to opt for an ARM solution because of economies of scale. The processor that Samsung and Acer Chromebooks use, the N570, costs $86 per 1000 units, or around a fifth of the Chromebook itself.

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