As 11th-gen Intel Chromebooks hit their stride, more 12th-gen devices hit development

We’ve been quite enamored with the current crop of 11th-gen Intel Tiger Lake Chromebooks lately, doting quite heavily on the new ASUS Flip CX5400 and CX9 even in our pre-review stages. With other devices like the fantastic HP Chromebook x360 14c, Acer Chromebook Spin 713 and the ASUS CX5500 impressing as well, you could say that the era of Tiger Lake Chromebooks has fully arrived. We expect quite a few more of these before the end of the year and as good as the initial crop has been, I could see it continuing to just get better from here.

But the show must go on, right? While these current Chromebooks (along with the others slated to arrive in the near future that will have many of the same qualities) are exciting and some of the best Chrome OS hardware we’ve ever laid hands on, there’s always the next generation to consider. Processors get faster, battery life gets better, and new features become available with each new year of Intel processors, and next year won’t be any different as we welcome 12th-gen Alder Lake Chromebooks to the fold.

A whole pile of new devices in development

These new devices we’re adding to the watch list today are barely formed, but it feels like they represent the starting point for the flood gates to open for Alder Lake Chromebook development. Just like ‘Hatch’ devices (Intel Comet Lake) and ‘Volteer’ (Intel Tiger Lake) devices before them, new Chromebooks based on the ‘Brya’ baseboard are picking up steam just as we’d expect as we move into the second half of 2021.

Since they are new, there’s not a ton we can know about these boards just yet. We’ll list the names and links to the relevant initiations in the Chromium Gerrit, but the big takeaway is that Chromebook development – especially in the mid-to-high end – is rolling on with just as much ferocity as we had last year. With that said, here are the new names getting added to the Alder Lake Chromebook watch list today:

• ‘Anahera’
• ‘Felwinter’
• ‘Kano‘
• ‘Redrix’
• ‘Vell’
• ‘Vyhar’

With those added, our new total on ‘Brya’ boards is already up to 10. We’ll be updating our running list of Chromebooks both released and in development shortly after this article hits the web, but it is easy to say at this point that we should see a healthy number of Alder Lake Chromebooks in 2022 without doubt. We’re planning on attending CES 2022 if COVID-19 permits and I’d wager we’ll see quite a few of these devices at that show if/when it occurs early next year. There are so many current Chromebooks to get excited for right now and so many great ones right on the horizon, too, so our focus will remain with these devices until we get a real taste of what’s to come late this year or early in 2022. Stay tuned.