Evidence emerges of new Chromebook tablets with the MediaTek MT8189 inside

Just a few weeks back, I was left scratching my head a bit over the discovery of ‘Jedi’, a second, parallel baseboard for the upcoming MediaTek MT8189 chip. With the already-massive ‘Skywalker’ family in development (8 devices already in the works), I was left wondering why Google and MediaTek would need a whole new reference platform for the same processor.

Thanks to a couple of new commits in the Chromium Gerrit, I came across today, however, I think we have our answer; and it’s an exciting one. It looks like ‘Jedi’ is the reference board for a new generation of Chromebook tablets. Well, at least one for now.

Two key code changes

The evidence comes from two key places. First, a commit for ‘Padme’—the first development board based on ‘Jedi’—explicitly references the need for “base (keyboard) detection.” This is obviously the technical way to talk about how a tablet recognizes when its keyboard dock has been connected or removed. This is a dead giveaway that ‘Padme’ is, at its core, a tablet.

Not that this commit isn’t enough, but we also have evidence of a new development board in the works that is linked to a new detachable keyboard, codenamed ‘Eirtae’.

And here’s where it all clicks together. For all you Star Wars fans out there, the name Eirtae might ring a bell (though I had to look this one up). In the prequel films, Eirtae was one of Padmé Amidala’s most loyal handmaidens. It doesn’t take too much of a leap to realize this keyboard is being built for ‘Padme’; and this means the entire ‘Jedi’ family is the reference platform for what we hope is a new wave of MediaTek MT8189-powered Chromebook tablets/detachables.

I’d go ahead and wager that the ‘Skywalker’ family is being developed for clamshell and convertible Chromebooks, while the ‘Jedi’ family is specifically tailored for the unique needs of a tablet form factor; and that is some really exciting news!

A new generation of powerful, efficient ARM-based tablets would be a fantastic addition to the ChromeOS market and hopefully a few devices that can deliver the goods on the same level as the excellent Lenovo Chromebook Duet 11″. The MT8189 story is likely just getting started, and we’ll be tracking the development of ‘Padme’, ‘Eirtae’, and the rest of the ‘Jedi’ family very closely.