Exclusive: Lenovo is launching an 11th Gen Tiger Lake 13.3″ Chromebook

At this point, it isn’t TOO surprising when we hear of a new Tiger Lake-powered Chrome OS device hitting the market. That said, there are a handful of Chromebooks that we think very highly of and when a new iteration arrives, it gets us very excited. One such device happens to be Lenovo’s Chromebook Flex 5. The 13.3″ convertible isn’t flashy and it doesn’t offer the most-premium Chrome OS experience but what it does offer is a solid design and highly capable performance at one of the best prices around. On a good day, you can pick up the 10th Gen Core i3 for under $400. Our only real nits with that model were the scant 4GB of RAM and the display could stand to be a tad brighter. Thankfully, Costco carries the 8GB/128GB version of the Flex 5 and you can frequently pick it up discounted to $449. You’ll be hard-pressed to find many other Chromebooks with these specs and build quality for so little cash.

For all the reasons above, the Lenovo Flex 5 is probably the most underrated device of 2020. So, the thought of a refreshed version of the Flex 5 with a very powerful Tiger Lake CPU is a very exciting prospect especially if Lenovo opts to give the new device a brighter screen. If Lenovo can do that and keep the price down, a new iteration of the Chromebook Flex 5 could easily be one of the best Chromebooks of 2021. While Lenovo has yet to make any official announcements about such a device, we received a tip from a reader that clearly shows a new Tiger Lake powered Chromebook from Lenovo that will be headed to a retailer’s inventory at some point in the near future.

The inventory listing doesn’t give any details about the device’s display, build material, or design but what we can see is that this model will be powered by the same Intel Core i3-1115G4 found in the ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5. Let me tell you, that thing is a beast. This model is equipped with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD storage that I presume is NVMe. Now for the best part. This listing came from Costco and is branded simply the Lenovo Chromebook 5i. Presumably, this will be the next Chromebook Flex 5 and it appears that this 11th Gen Chromebook is going to retail for a very impressive $549.99. That’s $20 less than the ASUS and though the Flip CX5 offers up more screen real estate, the 13.3″ Lenovo will offer a more portable laptop. Hopefully, Lenovo does go with a 300 nit display on this model. That will put it a level above both the ASUS and HP’s new Tiger Lake Chromebook and at that price, it will be an incredible value.

We don’t have an official release date for this model but chances are good that we will see something official from Lenovo in the coming weeks. It is likely that Lenovo will offer multiple configurations of the new Chromebook and like the current Flex 5, you will likely be able to purchase one of them from Lenovo, Amazon, and other retailers. We’ll keep an eye on Lenovo’s site and reach out to see if there is an official announcement or event on the horizon. Personally, I can’t see this Chromebook in the flesh.