MediaTek quietly confirmed they’ll soon power a Chromebook Plus model

Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with MediaTek’s Senior Director Victor Tyan to discuss all things ARM and Chromebooks. As you likely already know by this point, the latest Lenovo Chromebook Duet 11″ is powered by MediaTek’s newest Chromebook-specific ARM processor (the Kompanio 838) and it delivers a ton of the necessary AI-infused elements to make it a great candidate for Chromebook Plus.

However, the new Duet isn’t technically a Chromebook Plus model, and the only thing we can see that is possibly holding it back from that delineation would be the Kompanio 838’s baseline processing power. With Chromebook Plus, you need things like 8GB or more, 128GB of storage or more, a 12th-gen Intel Core i3 or better, a 1080p screen or better, and a 1080p webcam or better.

Looking at that list, the new Duet in it’s highest form meets (and exceeds) all of those markers, so we can only assume the ChromeOS team didn’t see quite enough raw power in the Kompanio 838 to designate it as “better” than a 12th-gen Core i3. Truth be told, I think they were right, but just so.

The Kompanio 838 in the Lenovo Duet 11″ is very capable and infused with tons of AI capability. Still, the day-to-day performance is only what I’d consider as moderately-good. While it is much better than the tablets that have preceded it, the Duet 11″ is still a device that you could argue doesn’t have quite the horsepower to get the Chromebook Plus title.

Confirmation that MediaTek-powered Chromebook Plus devices are coming

However, in the midst of this interview, Victor did make mention of MediaTek’s roadmap containing Chromebook Plus devices. You can see it in the interview I’ve embedded below (it should start playback right as Victor is addressing this point) if you want to take a look, but here’s specifically what he said about MediaTek’s future in Chromebook Plus:

And I think you’ll continue to see – at least from a MediaTek perspective – in our roadmap, you’ll see a lot more Chromebook Plus devices coming in the future. So, that’s definitely part of our vision going forward.

Victor Tyan, MediaTek, Senior Director, Client Computing Go-To-Market

Of course, Victor gives us no further look into that future, but I think we can piece together what we’re looking at, here. We’ve posted extensively on a new development board that houses the upcoming MediaTek MT8196 (the likely sequel to the powerful Kompanio 1380) and is called ‘Rauru’. It already has two baseboards that have sprung from it – ‘Hylia’ and ‘Navi’ – and a few more could be on the way.

This chip will 100% prove powerful enough to meet the Chromebook Plus performance spec, so they will likely mark the first ARM-powered Chromebooks to get the Chromebook Plus seal of approval in the future.

Based on the development cycle, I’d wager we won’t see anything on that front until late spring. Perhaps at Google’s next Chromebook event, there will be one or two new devices that are powered by a new MediaTek chip and maybe – just maybe – one of those will end up being a high performance detachable.

With all that is currently going on concerning the rumors of Android taking over ChromeOS down the road, there’s certainly a good bit of uncertainty surrounding everything in the Chromebook development world at the moment. Until things are clearer, however, we have to assume Chromebook makers are going to keep moving forward, and it definitely seems that MediaTek is undeterred and ready to make the first ARM dive into the Chromebook Plus market very soon.