HP Chromebook x2 is a 2-in-1 Tablet Running Chrome OS

We’ve recently seen what should be the first Chrome OS tablet with Acer Chromebook Tab featuring a Rockchip RK3399 / OP1 processor, and a 9.7″ display. The device is now joined by a high-end tablet, or more exactly a 2-in-1 tablet/ laptop with HP Chromebook x2. Specifications: SoC – Intel Core M3-7Y30 dual core/four thread processor @ 1.0 / 2.6 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 615 @ 300 / 615 MHz; 4.5W TDP System Memory – 4GB or 8GB LPDDR3-1600 RAM Storage -32GB eMMC flash, micro SD slot up to 256 GB Display – 12.3″ touchscreen display with 2400 x 1600 resolution; Camera – 13MP rear camera, 5MP front-facing camera/webcam Audio – Stereo speakers, dual microphones, headphone jack Connectivity – 802.11 ac 2×2 MIMO WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2 LE USB – 2x USB 3.0 type C ports User Input – Detachable island-style keyboard and an HP Active Pen for pressure-sensitive input. Battery […]

Linux 4.16 Release – Main Changes, Arm and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 4.16: So the take from final week of the 4.16 release looks a lot like rc7, in that about half of it is networking. If it wasn’t for that, it would all be very small and calm. We had a number of fixes and cleanups elsewhere, but none of it made me go “uhhuh, better let this soak for another week”. And davem didn’t think the networking was a reason to delay the release, so I’m not. End result: 4.16 is out, and the merge window for 4.17 is open and I’ll start doing pull requests tomorrow. Outside of networking, most of the last week was various arch fixlets (powerpc, arm, x86, arm64), some driver fixes (mainly scsi and rdma) and misc other noise (documentation, vm, perf). The appended shortlog gives an overview of the details (again, this is only the small stuff in […]

Acer Chromebook Tab 10 is the First Chrome OS Tablet

Chrome OS has been found in laptops (Chromebooks), and mini PCs (Chromeboxes) or even All-in-One PCs (Chromebases) for a while, but a new category has launched with Chrome OS tablets starting with Acer Chromebook Tab 10. The tablet is powered by a Rockchip RK3399 / OP1 processor, comes with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage, a 9.7″ display, supports Wacom EMR stylus, targets the education market. Acer Chromebook Tab 10 (D651N) specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399-C / OP1 hexa core processor with two Cortex A72 cores, four Cortex A53 cores, and a Mali-T860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, micro SD card slot Display – 9.7″ touchscreen IPS display with QXGA (2048×1536) resolution Audio – Headphone/speaker jack Connectivity – 802.11ac 2×2 MIMO WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2 Camera – 2MP front-facing camera USB – 1x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type C  port for charging, data transfer and connection […]

Imagination Releases PowerVR CLDNN Neural Network SDK and Image for Acer Chromebook R13

Last month, Imagination Technology released their PowerVR CLDNN SDK, an AI-oriented API that leverages OpenCL support in PowerVR GX6250 GPU in order to  create network layers for constructing and running a neural network on PowerVR hardware. Eventually the SDK will support PowerVR Series2NX Neural Network Accelerator, but while waiting for the hardware, the company has provided a firmware that runs only on Mediatek MT8173 based Acer Chromebook R13. The SDK includes a demo taking a live camera feed to identify the object(s) the camera is pointing at, using known network models such as AlexNet, GoogLeNet, VGG-16, or SqueezeNet. All models are Caffe models trained against the ImageNet dataset, a benchmark function is included within the demo. Beside simply playing with the demos, you’ll be able to study the source code to check out various helper functions such as file loading, dynamic library initialisation and OpenCL context management, and read documentation such as the PowerVR CLDNN reference […]

Linux 4.12 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 4.12: Things were quite calm this week, so I really didn’t have any real reason to delay the 4.12 release. As mentioned over the various rc announcements, 4.12 is one of the bigger releases historically, and I think only 4.9 ends up having had more commits. And 4.9 was big at least partly because Greg announced it was an LTS kernel. But 4.12 is just plain big. There’s also nothing particularly odd going on in the tree – it’s all just normal development, just more of it that usual. The shortlog below is obviously just the minor changes since rc7 – the whole 4.12 shortlog is much too large to post. In the diff department, 4.12 is also very big, although the reason there isn’t just that there’s a lot of development, we have the added bulk of a lot of new  header files […]

ARM Chromebooks Run Android Apps Better, Exhibit Longer Battery Life than Intel Chromebooks (Study)

Google has been working on supporting Android apps and the Play Store on Chromebooks, which are normally sold with either ARM or Intel processors. So the ability to run Android apps well is one of the things to consider before purchasing a Chromebook. Shrout Research has published a paper entitled “Chromebook Platform Choice Important for Android App Performance” comparing an Acer Chromebook R13 with a Mediatek MT8173C ARM Cortex A72/A53 processor to Acer Chromebook R11 with an Intel Celeron N3060. The Intel Chromebook has a smaller resolution so this could be an advantage, so less resources are needed to update the display. However, the ARM processor is significantly more powerful than the Intel one according to GeekBench results, and Chromebook R13 is sold for $399 on Amazon US, while Chromebook R11 goes for $299 (and lower during promotions). So it’s not a perfect comparison, but it should give an idea […]

Samsung Chromebook Plus / Pro with ARM Based OP1 / Intel Core m3-6Y30 Processor to Sell for $449 and Up

Samsung Chromebook Pro was first discovered last October on some reseller’s website with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 4GB RAM, and a $499 price tag. The company has finally announced two new Chromebooks at CES 2016 with Chromebook Pro actually based on an Intel Core m3-6Y30 “Skylake” processor, and Chromebook Plus powered by “OP1” hexa-core ARM Cortex-A72/A53 processor. We’ll that apart from the different processor, both new Chromebook have exactly the same specifications Model Code XE513C24-K01US XE510C24-K01US Chromebook Plus Chromebook Pro Operating System Google Chrome Processor / Chipset OP1, Made for Chromebooks. Hexa-core (Dual A72, Quad A53) Intel Core M3 Processor 6Y30 (0.90 GHz up to 2.20 GHz, 4 MB L3 Cache) Graphic Internal Graphics Intel® HD Graphics 515 Display 12.3″ 2400×1600 LED Display (3:2 aspect ratio) with Touch Screen Panel Memory 4GB LPDDR3 Memory (on BD 4GB) Hard Drive 32GB e.MMC Color Platinum Silver Multimedia Internal Dual Array Digital […]

ARM based Acer Chromebook R13 is Now up for Sale for $349 and up with Chrome OS or Windows 10

Acer Chromebook R13 was unveiled in September as one of the first 64-bit ARM Chromebook. Based on Mediatek MT8173C quad core Cortex A72/A53 processor with 4GB RAM, the “Chromebook” now ships in three variants running either Chrome OS as expected, but also Windows 10 Home. All three models share the same specifications, except for storage and operating system options: SoC – Mediatek M8173C quad core processor with 2x ARM Cortex A72 cores @ up to 2.1 GHz, 2x ARM Cortex A53 cores, and a PowerVR GX6250 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR3 RAM Storage CB5-312T-K8Z9 / K6TF – 32 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot CB5-312T-K0YQ- 64GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot Display – 13.3″ touchscreen IPS LED display; 1920×1080 resolution; 10-point touch; 360-degree hinge design Audio – Integrated microphone, dual built-in speakers, microphone and headphone jacks Video Output – HDMI Camera – HD webcam (1280×720 resolution) with […]

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