Oddly, it seems the new Lenovo Duet won’t be Chromebook Plus

In all my excitement yesterday posting about the new, now-official Lenovo Chromebook Duet with MediaTek’s Kompanio 838 inside, I didn’t even register the fact that “Plus” wasn’t included in the naming scheme. While definitely not a necessity, the fact that this new tablet won’t be a Plus-branded model is a bit odd when you understand what’s under the hood.

A processor with AI built in

Obviously, one of the big markers for Chromebook Plus is the use of AI. While we have Chromebook Plus models that don’t really have SoCs purpose-built for the task, the latest wave of Plus models have processors inside that a made for AI-first workflows. For now that doesn’t mean a whole lot, but it could in the coming months as Chromebook Plus features continue to take shape.

The Kompanio 838 in the upcoming Lenovo Chromebook Duet is one of those processors that is built with AI in mind. We talked about it months ago and when MediaTek made the Kompanio 838 official, they talked quite a bit about the AI prowess on offer in this latest Chromebook-specific SoC.

From that earlier post about this processor, I wrote, “MediaTek’s is also touting the inclusion of a dedicated AI processor, the NPU 650. This powerful engine enables a new level of AI-powered experiences on Chromebooks, from enhanced multimedia quality to more interactive and intelligent applications.”

Better imaging prowess

Additionally, MediaTek also pointed out the image processing power available on the Kompanio 838, and this all lined up perfectly with Chromebook Plus. With the new on-device camera tricks you get in a Chromebook Plus device, better imaging fits right into the equation. With a good deal of power, AI-specific cores, and a big upgrade in image processing, it only made sense to me that this new Lenovo tablet would make the Plus cut.

Yet the listings we’ve seen don’t indicate this. Instead, the brand name of ‘Ciri’ is simply the Lenovo Chromebook Duet. And I’ve double checked other new devices in both cros.tech and Chromium Dash, and for all devices that are Chromebook Plus, both of those repositories list them as such.

While this could perhaps be a slip-up or some sort of quirky cover-up by Lenovo, I think the fact of the matter is the Lenovo Chromebook Duet won’t be a Plus device. And that feels like a miss all around if you ask me. I don’t know what the reasoning behind this would be or why the new Duet wouldn’t meet the requirements for Chromebook Plus, but I’m a bit bummed by it all at the moment. Hopefully we’ll know for certain soon.