Google has beefed up its Chromebook devices to include Intel Core i3 Haswell processors and Lenovo has also announced its entry into the market.
Chromebooks with the 4th Gen Intel Core i3 processor will be priced at $349, with Acer and Dell being the first OEMs to bring devices with these chips to market.
Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager of Intel's mobile client platforms group claimed the performance provided by the Haswell chipset will allow devices to browse multiple tabs with rich web content and speed up video-based and offline applications.
Acer, Asus and Toshiba announced new devices, and Lenovo will also enter the market for the first time in 2014 with the N20 and N20p Chromebooks, the latter of which will include a touch screen. By the end of year there will be 20 Chromebooks on the market.
Google also announced that all Chromebooks using low-powered Celeron processors will be upgraded to include a wireless 802.11ac chip, providing 3x the throughput of existing devices.
Caesar Sengupta, vice president of product management for Chrome OS, highlighted the popularity of Chrome OS devices, particularly in the US.
"With two of the three best-selling laptops on Amazon.com during the most recent holiday season, and now in nearly 10,000 schools, Chrome devices are [proving] to be a great computer for the way people work and live today," he said during the event in San Francisco.
Earlier this year, Samsung's education business manager Ben Brown told IT Pro that he predicted Chromebook sales to increase four-fold in the UK during 2014.
It is estimated there are 25,000 Chromebooks being used in UK schools, with Brown claiming Samsung has cornered 90 per cent of the market.
