How Google wants to show its Chromebooks can be powerful

With its Chromebook X or Chromebook Plus project, Google would like to differentiate the cheapest Chromebooks from the high-end models, by creating the “Plus” category, dedicated to the latter. Several existing computers could switch to this nomenclature, but not under any conditions.

The image of Chromebooks is not the best there is: with its positioning geared towards students, this type of computer is renowned and not very powerful, not really designed for multitasking. An image that Google would like to end, dividing its brand in two. On the one hand, Chromebooks classics“, on the other, the ” Chromebook X more powerful and more expensive. A range which would in fact be called “ Chromebook More“, if we are to believe the information collected by the specialized siteChromium Unboxed.

Differentiating Chromebooks: Google’s difficult image job

To support this brand change, which is only communicational, Google would go further. As had already been mentioned in the rumors, the Chromebook Plus would be entitled to exclusive features.9to5Googletalks about wallpapers that adapt to the time of day, but also generative artificial intelligence functions. Thus, these models would be entitled to the tool “Help me write» («help me writein French), sort of equivalent to ChatGPT, but with Google’s language model (the engine in a way).

Other leaks talked about a feature “Live Caption“, allowing to add captions generated during video calls, a portrait blur effect as well as a “voice isolation“. The models concerned would also be powerful enough to manage up to 16 virtual desktops.

Which models would be renamed to Chromebook Plus?

For several months now, rumors have been talking about very specific criteria to differentiate the two ranges. The name of “More” had already appeared in the past in the directory of products under ChromeOS, which offered “fast performance, smooth video calls, plenty of storage space.More specifically, we learned several months ago that it would take either an Intel chip or an AMD chip: an AMD Zen 2+ Skyrim, an ADM Zen 3 Guybrush, or the 12th generation Intel Core Brya and Nissa.

On the operating system side, this would require ChromeOS 115 minimum, which is why older computers, quite powerful on paper, but more updated, would not be called Chromebook Plus.

It is in a code change, since removed, that we find a list of Chromebooks that would become Chromebook Plus:

In this code found, it is also mentioned four models that have not yet been released and have not even been presented yet. These could be the first Chromebook Plus launched as is: