It’s been almost two years since evidence first showed up that computer makers and software developers were testing Chrome OS on hardware featuring AMD processors. Since then… nobody’s actually released an AMD-powered Chromebook.
There are plenty of Chromebooks with Intel processors, and a handful with ARM-based chips from Rockchip or MediaTek. We may even see models with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips soon. But AMD has been a no show.
According to a new report from Chrome Unboxed, it looks like there’s still a chance we could see models with AMD chips one day… because three new AMD-powered boards showed up in the Chromium OS repository recently.
Code-named Liara, Aleena, and Careena, all three boards feature AMD Ryzen Mobile “Raven Ridge” processors with Radeon Vega graphics.
That’s… about all we know for now. But if you look at Windows computers with Ryzen Mobile chips, they tend to be lower-priced than their Intel counterparts while offering higher performance graphics (and reasonably competitive CPU performance).
That said, AMD’s Ryzen 5 2500U and Ryzen 7 2700U chips are meant to compete with Intel’s Core i5 and Core i7 processors, not the entry-level Celeron and Pentium chips used in most Chromebooks. So if and when we start to see Chrome OS devices with AMD Ryzen Mobile processors, I expect them to be mid-range or high-end devices (by Chromebook standards, at least), rather than dirt cheap computers.
But what is more important Ryzen 3 2200G can provide a under 400 € Chromebox and a under 500€ chromebook capable of playing almost all Steam games at 720p and most of them at 1080p with Crostini.
– Actual Dell with MS WOS 10 is USD 680 –
And Chrome OS is in a better position to compete with MS WOS than Steam OS in games unless a great Nexus like Ryzen 3 2200G based cheap and good enough Steam Machine with Steam OS would appear soon enough.
I wouldn’t exclude the possibility of a Google – Valve partnership for distributing Steam games via the Steam client running on ChromeOS via the new Crostini / Linux-App feature.
Aside from lower-powered CPUs, storage is the other frustrating thing about Chromebooks.
Spent a lot of time looking at these computers recently because of the upcoming Linux support and I gave up. I still couldn’t believe the number of 1366×768 screens I stumbled across too.
There’s only the pixelbook. Maybe AMD books will change this a bit while delivering reasonable pricing.
Something like this…
Acer Aspire 1 14″. It’s odd that there is not a chromebook version of this ($200, 1080p IPS, 4GB RAM 32GB emmc). A small usb drive could be used for more storage.
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Celeron-Storage-Windows-A114-31-C4HH/dp/B0746NCNSG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Over the last year, there have been a number of mid-to-upper range Chromebooks such as the ASUS flip 302C, and the Samsung Chromebook Pro with 1080p or better displays and 64GB or greater storage. The Pixelbook is still the top of the heap though, with the price to match.
We haven’t seen any new low-power budget Ryzen CPUs have we? Does AMD plan on competing in this space? Before Ryzen, I remember something about AMD pulling out of the budget space because it wasn’t profitable.