Possible Google-made Chromebook tablet ‘Sapphire’ will likely have a magnetic charging pen

We’re back with another exciting development for ‘Sapphire’, the first development board based on the ‘Tanjiro’ reference design for a new wave of powerful, MediaTek Kompanio Ultra-powered Chromebook tablets. A new commit we’ve uncovered in the Chromium Gerrit strongly suggests this upcoming tablet will include a killer, premium feature: wireless pen charging. But before we get into the new clue, let’s get everyone caught up on why ‘Sapphire’ is arguably the most exciting Chromebook in development right now.

First, a quick ‘Sapphire’ recap

‘Sapphire’ is the first real-world device being built on the ‘Tanjiro’ baseboard, which is the reference design for a new generation of tablets powered by the incredible MediaTek Kompanio Ultra. This is the same crazy-fast, super-efficient chip found in the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 and the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514.

On top of that, ‘Sapphire’ is also being developed with an LED light strip, a signature hardware feature most famously associated with Google’s own Pixel Chromebook hardware. This has led us to speculate that ‘Sapphire’ could be the first Google-made Pixelbook Tablet in years, and could possibly be designed to be a halo device for the upcoming shift to the Android Kernel on ChromeOS.

NFC and and USI pens on Chromebook tablets

The latest clue I’ve found is a commit that explicitly adds NFC hardware for ‘Sapphire’. And this isn’t just any generic NFC chip. The commit references a specific NXP component, which immediately reminded me of another Chromebook tablet from a few years back: the HP Chromebook x2 11 (codenamed ‘Coachz’).

As we reported back when that device was in development, the HP x2 11 used this same exact type of NFC component for its unique wireless pen charging solution. The included USI pen would magnetically snap to the side of the tablet and wirelessly charge via NFC.

The fact that ‘Sapphire’ is also using the same hardware solution as the HP x2 11 mixed with language found a bit deeper this new commit has me quite certain that this new ‘Sapphire’ Chromebook tablet will launch with a wirelessly-charging USI pen as well.

A powerful Kompanio Ultra tablet with a signature Pixel lightbar and the convenience of wireless pen charging is the exact combination of features we’d expect from a true, no-compromise, flagship ChromeOS tablet Made by Google. But we’re still at the beginning of this story, and there are likely many more twists and turns on the way. And as always, I’ll be digging around in every way I can to find more details. Stay tuned.