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We haven’t done this little dance for a bit, but here we are again unveiling yet another Chromebook on the scene.
While we await all the devices before it, ‘Snappy’ may jump right into the mix running and we’ll tell you why.
Apollo Lake
First things first: ‘Snappy’ is based off the ‘Reef’ board we’ve talked about previously. What is most special about ‘Reef’-based Chromebooks is the inclusion of the Apollo Lake chipset from Intel.
These chips are set to take the place of Braswell-powered Chromebooks, and there are quite a few of those in very successful positions in both the consumer and education market.
Braswell chips are enough power for casual use, don’t need fans, and are very good on battery life. They are also quite low in cost.
Take the Acer Chromebook 14, for instance. This device is all-aluminum, has an IPS display and 4GB of RAM. The build is great and MILES ahead of previous, affordable Chromebooks. It can be found in Acer’s refurb store for $199.
That price for that build is silly. But Braswell helps that be possible.
Apollo Lake will follow in those footsteps, so keeping an eye on all the upcoming devices with Apollo Lake chips will likely keep us quite busy this year.
Great Features
Another thing this class of chip allows is useful features without crazy cost.
With ‘Snappy’, we’re looking at a few great tricks. No one is excited by convertibles at this point. But, with all the Android App support on the horizon, not having a convertible form-factor can cause a new device to feel as if it is missing something.
As long as the hinge is good, it’s a no harm, no foul sort of addition at this point.
Along with that comes the addition of a touch panel, which is also almost a standard feature now.
But this touch screen is a bit more special. It also contains a Wacom digitizer. And, as we are all aware by now, this means we will see Stylus support for this device.
We’ve talked quite a bit about stylus support becoming a much more widespread thing in Chromebooks. While this isn’t a shock, it is great to see more devices added to the list of upcoming stylus Chromebooks.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this and all other upcoming devices and reporting any new things we find as the days move forward to stable Android support and this new wave of Chromebooks.
