Proof that multiple new MediaTek MT8188 Chromebook tablets are coming

I’m not going to lie to you: there was a real part of me that began wondering if ‘Ciri’ would be the only new, upcoming Chromebook tablet with the new MediaTek MT8188 inside. We saw a similar situation with the MediaTek Kompanio 1380 and the Acer Chromebook Spin 513, and that exact SoC only made it into one device and nothing more. The baseboard was ‘Cherry’ and the Spin 513 was/is ‘Tomato’ and no other Chromebooks ever came from that family.

With ‘Geralt’ – the baseboard for the MediaTek MT8188 that is also a detachable tablet – we’re currently in a similar space. There’s ‘Geralt’ and a single production board called ‘Ciri’ and that is all. I’ve waited and waited for another device to join in, but up to this point, there has been nothing. And even with what I’ve found today, that still holds true. We have no other development devices that have spawned from ‘Geralt’ at this point, but we do have some hope that ‘Ciri’ is just the beginning.

As you can see in this most recent commit, there is work going on to make sure the volume keys can be set to different parts of the device based on the variant. But most importantly in this message, we see reference to the fact that they are doing this to accommodate for variants: plural. If ‘Ciri’ was the only planned device to come from ‘Geralt’, this wouldn’t be necessary. Seeing it plainly spelled out is not just promising; it is a relief.

Chromebook tablets have a chance of being great

Chromebook tablets have a lot to offer and have always been a bit stymied by their hardware. Only once did it feel like they were taken completely seriously, but the software was nowhere close to ready when the Pixel Slate had it’s very big, very public debut. While Lenovo has made a few fantastic, affordable tablets, the SoC has always been a reason for those devices not to be full-blown work and play Chromebooks.

With the MediaTek MT8188, there’s a real chance that we could finally have the horsepower under the hood to not just make the tablet experience smooth, but it could also give us a truly worth desktop experience as well. That’s the tablet I’ve been waiting for since I first used the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5. I love nearly everything about that tablet, but the internals are just a bit too slow to be a device that I use at the desk, too.

While whatever comes of ‘Ciri’ could be that device on day one, I’m now far more hopeful that we’ll get at least one higher-end tablet out of this new ‘Geralt’ baseboard as we should end up with a few different attempts at it. If that is the case, and if Google cleans up the ChromeOS tablet UI just a bit, I think there is a very bright future for Chromebook tablets in 2024. It’s high time for it, and I’m really hoping this is the year where consumer tablet options truly begin including well-made Chromebooks.