More evidence ‘Ciri’ will be a Lenovo Chromebook Plus tablet

Ahead of Computex 2024 last week, MediaTek made a pretty significant Chromebook announcement with the unveiling of the new Kompanio 838 SoC. We’ve already discussed it at length, but the short version is this: MediaTek’s latest chip for Chromebooks packs in on-device AI, solid performance, and great battery life for thin, light devices coming soon.

If you’ve been around Chrome Unboxed at all over the past year or so, you’ve seen us talk at length about a device code named ‘Ciri’ and built on a development board code named ‘Geralt’. These boards are powered by none other than the MediaTek MT8188 – now known as the Kompanio 838. And they are clearly detachable tablets.

With the findings I’ve scoured for at this point, all signs already point to Lenovo being behind ‘Ciri’ and this particular variant of ‘Geralt’ likely coming in at 11-inches based on the screens being tested with it. Put 2+2 together and it’s not hard to expect a new Duet 3 sequel with the Kompanio 838 inside.

More confirmation

Those suspicions were only further confirmed with MediaTek’s recent press release for this new Kompanio chip that included a statement from – you guessed it – Lenovo about how closely the two companies are working together on Chromebooks powered with this new chipset.

The need for energy efficient devices capable of multitasking continues to grow and we are committed to empowering students and teachers with tech devices and solutions that enhance learning in the classroom and beyond. Lenovo and MediaTek have a long-standing partnership focused on delivering performance and value, and we look forward to bringing the Kompanio series chips to our upcoming Lenovo Chromebooks.

Benny Zhang – Executive Director/GM of Chromebooks in Lenovo’s Global Innovation Center, Intelligent Devices Group

The simple point is, if you weren’t sold on the fact that ‘Ciri’ will be some sort of sequel to the Duet 3, I think we now have all the proof we need that this device is on the way. When exactly this will happen and what it will actually be called are still a mystery, but I have no doubt about this new tablet device coming from Lenovo at this point.

The first Chromebook Plus tablet

Again, piecing together the announcement and what we know of ‘Ciri’, I think it is a fair expectation that this tablet won’t only be Lenovo-made and rocking the latest Chromebook-specific silicon from MediaTek: it will also be launched as a Chromebook Plus device.

If you look at MediaTek’s press release, a good portion of the information on the new Kompanio 838 revolves around its AI prowess. With Chromebook Plus being the poster child for AI laptops right now, it would make little to no sense if this new chip was touted with massive AI abilities and launched without all the AI tools Google has for Chromebook Plus now and in the future.

So, are we looking at the Lenovo Chromebook Plus Duet? I’m not sure about the naming, to be honest, but I know Lenovo has a solid brand cache with Duet+Chromebook names. The devices in the past have always followed the naming scheme of Lenovo Chromebook Duet (X), so even though Lenovo Chromebook Plus Duet sounds a little clunky, I’d be surprised to see them step away from the Duet naming for this device.

I sincerely hope we don’t have too much longer to wait on this. I’ve been tracking ‘Geralt’ and ‘Ciri’ for over a year and a half at this point, so I’m beyond ready to finally hold this device in my hands. I’ve long dreamed of a tablet that I can truly work from on a daily basis without compromise, and if this new Lenovo tablet meets the Chromebook Plus spec, I know it’ll have the internals I need to get work done and also be great at content consumption and battery life. And if it can pull all of that off, the time of the ChromeOS tablet may fully be upon us.