What you need to know
- MediaTek has announced a new Kompanio chipset designed for premium Chromebooks.
- The chipset is built on a 6nm process and uses a five-core ARM-Mali G57 GPU.
- Acer's Chromebook Spin 513 is the first device to feature the new chip.
MediaTek has quietly announced a new Kompanio series chipset for premium Chromebooks. The Kompanio 1380 isn't vastly different from the Kompanio 1300T that the company introduced last year, but lacks 5G connectivity.
The "flagship-grade" chipset is built on TSMC's 6nm process and comes with an octa-core CPU. It uses four high-performance Cortex-A78 cores and four efficiency-focused Cortex-A55 cores to handle background tasks.
Like MediaTek's Kompanio 1200, the new 1380 chipset features a five-core Mali-G57 GPU for "vivid visuals and great experiences." On the connectivity front, the Kompanio 1380 supports Bluetooth 5 and Wi-Fi 6 standards.
The Kompanio 1380 also integrates MediaTek's APU 3.0 multi-core AI processor, which is claimed to offer 8x higher performance than most Chromebook chips. It is capable of working with the built-in cameras and microphones to "enrich a wide range of voice and vision-based applications," — including voice control, voice ID recognition, live translation, noise reduction, gesture control, Google AR Core-based enhancements, and more.
There's even a dedicated audio DSP to enable ultra-low-power voice on wake up for voice assistants. Other key highlights of the chip include support for up to two 4K60 HDR displays, 16MP + 16MP dual cameras, and 7.1 surround sound audio.
The first premium Chromebook featuring the Kompanio 1380 is the Acer Chromebook Spin 513. The 2-in-1 Chromebook has a premium design and a 3:2 VertiView QHD screen featuring 7.7mm narrow bezels and Corning Gorilla Glass protection. Thanks to the 6nm Kompanio 1380 chip and a large battery, Acer's answer to the best Chromebooks promises to deliver 10 hours of battery life on a single charge.
