It looks like the first MediaTek MT8196 Chromebook will come from Lenovo

There’s been some nice buzz around the upcoming MediaTek MT8196 of late, and until we get a Chromebook in our hands with the new, powerful, flagship ARM SoC inside it, we’ll continue to dig around for clues and interesting tidbits about the future devices that will house this beast of a processor.

The thing I’m most wishing/hoping for in this space is at least a new convertible, but I’m really holding out for a tablet with the MT8196 inside. So far, that’s not in the cards, but there are at least two unique Chromebooks (both clamshells) that are on the way with MediaTek’s latest, greatest silicon inside, and those devices are ‘Navi’ and ‘Hylia’.

So far, the most development we’ve seen is for ‘Navi’, so I’m leaning towards it being the first Chromebook we’ll see with the MT8196 inside. And based on the wild Geekbench results that just recently surfaced for it, I couldn’t be more excited about it. Yes, I think a powerful ARM processor opens the doors to super-svelte Chromebook convertible 2-in-1 devices, but I’m also a huge fan of the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus and its super-thin, super-light chassis; and it’s a simple (beautiful) clamshell.

It looks like ‘Navi’ is from Lenovo

Based on quite a few code commits for ‘Navi’ in the Chromium Repositories, it looks quite clear that ‘Navi’ will be a Lenovo product. The emails give it away, and any device that is littered with addresses that contain @lcfc-corp-partner.google.com lets us know that the project most certainly belongs to Lenovo.

The commit above is one of many that contain @lcfc-corp-partner.google.com in the email address, and LCFC doesn’t make Chromebooks for anyone other than Lenovo. As a Lenovo subsidiary, LCFC is behind the development and production of most of Lenovo’s fleet of laptops, and that includes ChromeOS devices as well. Simply put, seeing “lcfc” in an email for a device in development basically confirms it is a Lenovo Chromebook.

What sort of device we’ll see is yet to be determined. As I said, I found pretty damning evidence that ‘Navi’ and ‘Hylia’ won’t be convertibles, so that would rule out a new Yoga-branded Chromebook. So that leaves something in the ThinkBook, ThinkPad, or IdeaPad line. Or, they could do something new and fresh in the clamshell Chromebook space. For now it is unclear.

What is clear is the fact that ‘Navi’ is well along on its development path, and I’m more hopeful than ever that we’ll see this Lenovo Chromebook housing the MT8196 at an event in New York sometime this spring. Don’t get me wrong, I hope there is a pile of new devices from all manufacturers, but I’m most excited for this one and those like it that are set to follow. Stay tuned.