Acer is to launch the first Chromebook to be powered by a Mediatek chip.
Yes, finally.
The news, which doesn’t exactly catch us by surprise thanks to a slew of Mediatek-related activity in the Chromium codebase, comes by way of WinFuture.de’s Roland Quandt.
Quandt’s sources suggest the device will be known as the Acer Chromebook R13 and will have the following hardware specs:
- 13-inch FHD Touch display
- Mediatek MT8173 SoC
- 4GB RAM
- 16/32GB SSD
The Mediatek MT8173 is a capable system-on-a-chip, but not the fastest or most up-to-date SoC on the market. It should handle Chrome OS (and Android apps) without too much sweat thanks to its big.LITTLE quad-core architecture. It combines two performant Cortex A72 cores running at 2GHz with two energy-efficient Cortex A53 cores running at 1.6GHz.
The “R” in the model title also implies that this device will be convertible, like the (hugely popular) Acer Chromebook R11.
Based on other sources (including a prototype Chromebook made and promoted by Mediatek themselves) the Acer R13 is likely to offer USB Type-C for charging and connecting compatible peripherals, as well as a USB 3.0 port and an SD Card reader.
Quandt adds that the device will be available in one colour only (silver) and will cost from €399. This price point would pit it against some (arguably) better Chromebooks in terms of specs.
The Intel-based Acer Chromebook 14 retails at €100 less, with most store offering it at €299.
Acer has yet to announce the device, but Mediatek has been trying hard to get into the Chromebook market – no surprise given it’s still growing at a clip.
Acer is yet to respond to our request for comment.