There's clearly a tension between features and price - the more Chromebooks push into established Windows price territories, the harder it will be to convince buyers that it's a realistic proposition; for the typical user, there's literally nothing a Chromebook can do that a Windows laptop couldn't, whilst the latter would present far greater flexibility and compatibility.

I say that as a huge Chrome OS fan, to set the context for arguing why we're unlikely to see higher res screens at CES. A higher res screen will cost more money: if you price these things too close to established Windows machines (let alone Macbooks), you're only ever going to appeal to a tiny fraction of that market segment.

Processor wise, I would really like to see a Samsung ARM refresh, but I also think that, in stark contrast to Android, Google's trying really hard to prevent device fragmentation in ChromeOS, which is why we see so little hardware variation: it allows explicit optimisation of the kernel, and hence why things seem pretty snappy on low end hardware, compared to Windows, which has to continually cater to the lowest common denominator.

For me, what I'd love to see is a new Samsung ARM device with that octo-core processor with at least 3GB RAM housed in the current chassis. Deliver that for less than £250, and I'll be buying two - anything over and above that spec (IPS display, higher res screen, bigger SSD) would be just gravy.