MediaTek Kompanio 1200 and 1380 overview

Chromebooks are no longer niche gadgets. The pandemic brought the limelight back to these laptops as more and more people wanted a device that will help them work, teach, and learn remotely. As more people bought these Chromebooks, they also discovered that these are quite versatile and ideal gadgets for them. Sure, power users and gamers still swear by Windows machines, but for those who work online most of the time, the browser-focused and cloud-based approach of ChromeOS is game-changing.

Along with the software aspect, what enables these Chromebooks to ensure a smooth user experience is the hardware inside. Leading chipmaker MediaTek recently refreshed its Kompanio lineup to offer solutions for creating premium Chromebook laptops. The MediaTek Kompanio 1380 and MediaTek Kompanio 1200 are two such processors that will allow device makers to create powerful offerings with fanless designs, larger batteries, and thin and lightweight shells. Here’s why you should be excited about the Chromebooks powered by MediaTek Kompanio.

The gap that Chromebooks are filling

Those wishing to buy laptops are usually faced with two choices – opt for a Windows machine or choose a premium MacBook. While professionals swear by their MacBooks, people in most other professions have no other choice than to go for Windows laptops that suit their budgets. Since the arrival of Chromebooks, there has been a third choice. And as mentioned earlier, it was glaringly visible during the pandemic. Several working professionals and students realised that their work and studies take place inside a browser, and increasingly started opting for Chromebooks. 

Ensuring that the users can run heavy workloads or multitask easily, MediaTek Kompanio 1380 and Kompanio 1200 feature an octa-core chip that consists of four ARM Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 3GHz and four ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2GHz. This kind of powerful processing makes them ideal for providing a snappy user experience. And the fact that there’s an ARM Mali G57 GPU present alongside means great visuals and graphics in the Android games that you can play on these machines. The chipsets also balance performance with power efficiency as they have been built using TSMC’s 6nm process.

Impressive multimedia prowess

Both these chips are meant for premium Chromebook laptops and that’s evident in the fact that they support 4K displays. Furthermore, the MediaTek Kompanio 1380 can support dual 4K 60Hz HDR displays or dual 2.5K 120Hz panels, providing brands with a wide variety of sizes and resolution options to choose from.

That’s not all; they even support 7.1 surround sound audio and in-chip 4K HDR video decoding – including AV1 hardware decoding. This means streaming movies and TV shows on such Chromebooks will be a richer and more immersive experience.

Incredible battery life

Did you know that Chromebooks have significantly more battery life than regular Windows laptops? Most of them can keep going for 12 hours straight without needing to be connected to an adapter. That’s because ChromeOS is a light operating system that doesn’t demand many resources. To add to this, chips like the MediaTek Kompanio 1380 and MediaTek Kompanio 1200 offer power-saving abilities. What this means is that you can go on for an entire day of meetings with the Chromebooks powered by these SoCs without having to carry around the charger. 

The Chromebook advantage

One of the biggest advantages of owning Chromebooks is that they are incredibly thin and lightweight. They offer fanless designs, run on minimal hardware, offer flash memory, and are overall, extremely compact.

The best part is that these advantages don’t mean there are any compromises in terms of performance. Along with powerful processing abilities, both MediaTek Kompanio 1380 and Kompanio 1200 come with advanced AI capabilities thanks to their speed of 4.8 TOPs (tera operations per second). Their integrated MediaTek APUs are capable of providing 8x more performance than mainstream Chromebook chips. The power of these APUs can be harnessed by manufacturers to enable a variety of voice and vision-based applications like voice ID recognition, voice control, speech and image recognition, speech-to-text, live translation, background removal, and more.

It’s no surprise that the use of Chromebooks is on the rise. They clearly are great options for those whose jobs involve video calls and browsing the Internet over long periods. Teachers and students can also make the most of these laptops, while those who only use laptops for streaming content, browsing their social media accounts, and playing casual games also have a lot to look forward to in the Chromebook. And it’s all thanks to premium chipsets like the MediaTek Kompanio 1380 and Kompanio 1200 that OEMs are able to come up with high-end Chromebooks that can cater to different requirements of prospective buyers.