MediaTek wants to make Chromebooks even better in that regard with a new chipset that should appear in devices starting this year. Chromebooks are known for their impressive battery life, so this is an extra perk for consumers.
MediaTek chipsets power several devices even though a lot of people only know about their smartphone processors. However, the Taiwan-based chip company also has its chipsets inside TVs, streaming devices, smart speakers and displays, routers and Chromebooks. Its Chromebook chipsets are sold under the Kompanio line and include the Kompanio 500, also known as MT8183, which powers the popular Lenovo Chromebook Duet in addition to models from HP, Acer and ASUS.
MediaTek's new chipset for Chromebooks is the Kompanio 820 (MT8192), which is one of two chipsets (the other is the Kompanio 828) under its Kompanio 800 series line aimed at mid-range devices. At its Executive Summit event last week, MediaTek revealed that the Kompanio 820 would bring significant improvements over rival chips, particularly the Intel Celeron N4500. It boasts that Chromebooks powered by the 8-core Arm processor will offer superior battery life compared to those with an Intel Celeron N4500 inside. It doesn't stop there. In its tests, the semiconductor company reveals the Kompanio 820 Chromebooks are able to beat the competition by offering between 31 percent and 55 percent longer battery life even with a 33 percent smaller battery! This means manufacturers can design even slimmer and lighter Chromebooks without worrying about battery life. For context, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go is a 14-inch Chromebook powered by the Intel Celeron N4500 with a 42.3Wh battery that can last up to 12 hours. Going by MediaTek's claims, a Kompanio 820 Chromebook with a 33 percent smaller battery should offer up to 16 hours of usage at the minimum. ChromeUnboxed also adds that Android games should perform better on Kompanio 820 Chromebooks since it is an Arm chip.
Performance Gets A Boost Too
The Kompanio 820 doesn't only bring better battery life to Chromebooks but also a performance improvement. Tests show that Chromebooks with the chipset are 16 percent - 46 percent faster when it comes to multitasking, 16 percent - 28 percent faster for video editing, and have a 58 percent - 110 percent higher performance when it comes to gaming.
The Kompanio 820 is a 7nm chip with four Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.2GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2.0GHz. It supports LPDDR4x RAM and UFS 2.1 storage, has a Mali-G57 MC5 GPU with support for WQHD displays with a 60Hz refresh rate or Full HD+ displays with up to 120Hz refresh rate, and an AI processing unit (APU 2.0) with 5x the performance of the previous generation. In addition, the chip has Bluetooth 5.1 and the older WiFi 5 technology.
MediaTek says Chromebooks powered by the Kompanio 820 and Kompanio 828 should launch this year, but they are yet to hit the market, probably due to the chip shortage. However, there is a chance users may see a handful of them get announced at CES 2022 in January.
Source: MediaTek, ChromeUnboxed