Snapdragon on Chromebooks: Acer announces Spin 513

Acer announced the first Snapdragon-powered last Wednesday, specifically powered by the Snapdragon 7c. This is huge news for Chrome OS, ARM, and the future of computing itself, but first we gotta talk about the laptop.   

So, let's talk about it! The Acer Spin 513 is the first Chrome OS device announced with a Snapdragon Processor the Snapdragon 7c, it goes up to 8GB of RAM, and 128 GB of storage (sadly eMMC). It has a 1080p 13.3-inch screen that can get to 300 units of brightness, it also happens to be touchscreen thanks to the 2-in-1 form-factor of this device. There's a rich selection of ports with 1 USB-A, 2 USB-C ports, and a headphone jack. The build quality is also quite nice as seen in the video from Chrome Unboxed below, they were able to get their hands on the device and they made a cool video commenting on the hardware.

Video credit: Chromeunboxed.com

 Image credit: Acer

 Image credit: Acer

 Image credit: Acer

Here are also some specs as reported by ChromeUnboxed:

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c with Adreno GPU
• Up to 8GB of RAM
• Up to 128GB of eMMC storage
• Aluminum lid
• Gorilla glass screen and trackpad
• Full-size backlit keyboard
• 13.3-inch 1080p screen at 300 nits
• Convertible 2-in-1 form factor
• 2x USB Type C ports
• 1x USB Type A port
• Headphone/mic jack
• LTE optional
• Bluetooth 5
• Wi-Fi 5 2×2 MIMO
• 2.64 pounds
• 310mm (W) x 209.35mm (D) x 15.55mm (H) mm

The device itself has tremendous value and will start shipping in February of 2021 according to Chrome Unboxed with the starting price $399 for 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, the price for other skews is unknown at this time as are the details about how well the silicon will perform. Overall, the hardware is impressive especially when considering the inclusion of a backlit keyboard and LTE.

Of course, the laptop is just par for the course, the real selling point is the first Snapdragon on Chromebooks: the 7c.  The 7c itself is the lower-end Qualcomm chipset for laptops with the 8c and 8cX above it, the performance of the chip itself is also up for grabs. Several Windows laptops have been released with the 7c; the results have been positive with the 7c going head-to-head with comparable chips such as the Celeron and Pentium gold, often winning in multi-core and being competitive in singe-core comparisons. Of course, on Windows there is the massive app gap surrounding WoA, new announcements have revealed that you'll soon be able to emulate 64-bit programs on WoA but that's most likely only for the higher-end chipsets.  

Another thing to consider is that Windows is not even close to Chrome OS, Chrome OS was made to be lean and fast, Windows was made to be powerful at the cost of being extremely bloated and slow on older or slower silicon.  A Chipset could be garbage on Windows and adequate on a Chromebook, the base Core i3 from intel is a great example since it's barely enough for Windows but it's a rocket on Chrome OS. All of this to say that I don't know how the 7c will perform on Chrome OS because the Windows benchmarks aren't reflective of the difference Chrome OS makes on a chipset. However, I do know that it's probably be fine, I know this because my Lenovo Duet is still going strong with multiple apps and 24 browser windows daily, the 7c will beat the P60T at all times so I'm pretty confident in the abilities of ARM on Chrome OS.

We've all seen the benefits of ARM on Chrome OS with insane Power-Price-Battery package that is the Lenovo Chromebook Duet just flying off the shelves and my own review reflects how ARM is a game-changer. ARM chips have always been considered "underpowered", that's part of the reason why WoA has struggled so much because for Windows ARM needs more power. Chrome OS is in a unique position, Chrome OS can run on ARM chipsets, similarly to Windows there's also an app gap albeit much smaller than the Windows app gap.  All apps on Chrome OS are either web apps, Android apps, or Linux apps which tend to be unstable.  The wide majority on consumers wouldn't even touch the Linux portion of Chrome OS so I'll just put that aside; that leaves us with Web and Android apps. The gap is that ARM chipsets run Android apps much better than even the most powerful of intel or AMD processors. ARM enhances the best parts of Chrome OS by giving better battery life and app support to the consumer.  

MediaTek has already announced 6nm chipsets that are aimed at Chromebooks, if Qualcomm decides to join the fight, they might just give Chrome OS the flagship processor and hardware it's been needing.  The Surface Pro X has been called by some a "glorified Chromebook that just happens to run Windows", why not actually make the dream Chromebook with an 8cX.

Chromebooks need this boost, and frankly, so does ARM. ARM hold the future for Chrome OS and this announcement is either the start or end to that dream.  All I can do now is watch.

 

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