Lenovo Shows What A Chromebook Packing A MediaTek Kompanio Ultra Can Do

Lenovo has released the first Chromebook Plus packing MediaTek’s Kompanio Ultra, the system-on-chip that includes a 50 TOPS neural processing unit, and at first glance it looks speedy and includes some AI features but is otherwise mundane.

The machine is called the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 and includes a 14.0-inch OLED display at 1920×1200, up to 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and 256GB of solid state storage, a pair of USB-C ports, a single USB-A slot, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4. Lenovo reckons the 60Wh battery can keep the machine running for up to 17 hours.

The PC-maker hasn’t detailed specs of the SoC, so we’ll assume it’s the same eight-core affair we covered when MediaTek announced the chip. Lenovo did confirm the presence of the Arm Immortalis-G925 MC11 GPU, which has enough grunt that the machine can drive two external monitors.

The presence of Google’s Gemini AI is said to be the killer app for professional users by making it possible to search for anything displayed on the machine’s screen. There’s also a new “smart grouping” feature that, thanks to AI, “intelligently understands and organizes your open tabs and documents into logical groups based on your current tasks, so you can manage multiple projects in a snap.”

Google hailed the debut of the Lenovo machine by announcing new AI features for this and all future Chromebook Plus machines, namely the “Lens” click-to-search feature already found in many smartphones, an image-to-text-capture feature, a “Quick insert” key that places images in documents, and “Help me read”: A text summarization widget.

None of those features are unique to the Chromebook Plus, the term applied to Chromebooks that include an NPU.

Lenovo's Chromebook Plus (14", 10) - Click to enlarge

Lenovo’s announcement suggests the machine is useful for any conceivable class of user. Executives and artists will apparently enjoy its AI capabilities. Educators will apparently appreciate the device management tools that come with the Chrome Education Upgrade, and IT departments will do likewise once they use Chrome Enterprise to control the machines. Consumers will appreciate the quality of its Dolby Atmos-enhanced speakers, and the many games that run on the machines.

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In other words, this is a decent general-purpose PC that can pull off some common AI tricks – albeit a machine tied to Google’s browser-and-cloud-centric OS.

Prices start at $649, a keen price for laptops packing a 50 TOPS NPU. ®