Chromebook Plus, huge evolutionary leap

This announcement, that of the new Chromebook Plus, has left me truly surprised and it seems to me, without a doubt, excellent news not only for the Chromebook family, but for the entire mobility ecosystemWell, as we will see below, these new devices take the best of their long list of predecessors, but they mark a leap upwards in terms of performance and, therefore, in everything we can do with them.

Let us remember that Google, through several partners, brought the Chromebook concept-format to the market just over 12 years ago (in June 2011). Since then we have seen how manufacturers have been experimenting with different configurations around the initial specification, a time in which, without becoming a majority option, these devices have been gaining traction and presence, especially in certain markets such as education. .

During these years The evolution of the platform has been organic, since it has been adapting to the existing hardware at all times, while Google constantly updated ChromeOS, both to adapt to these most current components and to provide it with new functions and improve the existing ones, which over time has given lead to milestones such as the arrival of Linux application compatibility on ChromeOS. However, in these twelve years, there had not been a major evolutionary leap, marked by Google itself. Until now.

With the announcement of Chromebook Plus, we find a substantial evolution, both in terms of hardware and what we can do with it. Of course, an important point is that although Samsung presented, back in 2018, a Chromebook that included the Plus suffix in its name, said device has nothing to do with the new specification made public today by Google. That said, let’s look at the minimum technical specifications established by the company for the Chromebook Plus:

• CPU: Intel Core i3 12th Gen or later, or AMD Ryzen 3 7000 series or later
• RAM: 8 GB or more
• Storage: 128 GB or more
• Webcam: 1080p+ with temporal noise reduction
• Screen: IPS Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 dots) or better

As you can see, and even more so taking into account that what we have here are the minimums, we find a more than remarkable jumpto the point that, with the optimization of the operating system for the platform, we are talking about equipment that already has the necessary conditions to stand up to a good part of the entry range of the ecosystem of compatible laptops.

For the presentation of this new specification, Google has had Acer, ASUS and HP, which have already announced their first devices adapted to this evolution of the Chromebook platform. They are the following.

Obviously this is just the beginning, these Chromebook Plus laptops They will be available at major retailers in Spain starting October 9, 2023.but it is expected that, in a short time, more teams and manufacturers will join this new specification.

What can you do with a Chromebook Plus?

So far we have talked about specifications and the first equipment that will hit the market, but that is only part of the equation. The other, and what is really important, is What can we do with these new equipment?. And in this regard, Google has taken the most recent needs and trends into account, to ensure that these systems are capable of adapting to the times we live in.

Among everything announced, what has caught my attention the most is that theThe Chromebook Plus takes a step in the direction of artificial intelligence in the clientthat is, in which the system itself has the necessary computing capacity to execute AI-based tasks locally, something that is also reinforced by Google’s own technologies based on AI, and that we have already seen previously in other devices and services.

Among the functions related to artificial intelligence, we find several that are also directly related to one of the minimum specifications determined by Google, the FullHD camera, and these Chromebook Plus respond to the enormous proliferation of video conferencing both in professional fields. as personal. Thus, these teams have built-in AI to help improve clarity and lighting of video calls, cancel background noise and blur backgrounds. In addition, it will soon also be possible to add AI-generated backgrounds to video calls, which will add a touch of originality to these communications.

Google Photos is undoubtedly one of the company’s most important software and service combinations, and also one of the fields in which we can see most clearly the advances made by Google in relation to artificial intelligence applied to image processing. The main exponent of this is, without a doubt, the magic eraser, the function that allows us to eliminate unwanted elements from images, which are replaced by a generative AI that fills that space based on its environment. Well, the AI-based edition of Magic Eraser will be present in the Google Photos application integrated into Chromebook Plus, which will also have smart functions such as HDR settings, background blur in portraits (bokeh) and suggestions to improve photos.

For more demanding needs, Google has added some very interesting extras:

• For advanced image editing, with the purchase of a Chromebook Plus we will get three months of free use of Photoshop web and Adobe Expresswhich will allow us to assess its operation on the platform and, in this way, respond to advanced needs.
• If we talk about video editing, Google claims that these new equipment is up to the task and, to prove it, it offers a 25% discount for all those users interested in purchasing LumaFusiona non-linear video editing application that has already been very successful on other platforms.
• For productivity environments where artificial intelligence can make a difference, Chromebook Plus also offer a Duet AI free trialthe assistant that is integrated into Google Workspace and that substantially speeds up many of the tasks that we regularly carry out in Google’s cloud productivity suite.

Without a doubt, Google has bet heavily on this evolution of the Chromebook specificationwhich with these new equipment (and those to come) aims much higher, still maintaining fairly moderate starting prices.

More information: Google