Future Google Chromebooks Might Be Powered By Qualcomm Snapdragon 845

Earlier this month, Qualcomm officially revealed the Snapdragon 845 processor which will be in Android flagship smartphones in 2018. However, commits recently discovered in the Chromium repository suggest that the Snapdragon 845 might soon power future Chromebooks.

The commits were first spotted by the folks over at XDA Developers. The site discovered various references to “chipset-qc845” and they were accompanied by a generic board overlay referred simply as “cheza.” The “chipset-qc845” name is clearly a hint that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 is being used. Meanwhile, “cheza” is believed to be the reference device that’s being powered by the Qualcomm processor.

XDA also dug through the other readable files and found references to the Rockchip rk3399, the ARM-based chip that’s powering the Samsung Chromebook Plus. The rk3399 is a mobile processor that’s considerably less powerful than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845, but it’s also one of the few ARM-based chipsets that’s powering a Chrome OS Chromebook.

So, what does this all mean? It looks like Google is seriously considering to put Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor in future Chrome OS laptops. Chromebooks, regardless of manufacturer, are mostly powered by Intel processors. During the early days of Chrome OS, there were also handful of Chromebooks that were powered by ARM chipsets made by MediaTek and Rockchip, as pointed out by 9To5Google. However, Google has never fully embraced Qualcomm ARM processors for Chromebooks.

One of the major reasons why Google is reluctant to use Qualcomm’s chipsets is because it was only capable of providing two years of driver support. Google typically requires Chrome OS laptops to provide at least five years of software updates.

“One difficulty is Qualcomm's reluctance to open-source and upstream the various drivers that make up Linux support for the embedded devices,” two former Googlers explained last year. “If Qualcomm doesn't demonstrate ongoing support for their devices in the Linux kernel, then Google (or a Chromebook OEM) would best significant engineering risk if an update needs to be made in the future.”

It’s possible that Qualcomm may have already changed its mind and is now collaborating with Google to bring the Snapdragon 845 to future Chromebooks. Qualcomm has already partnered with Microsoft to bring the Snapdragon 835 to Windows 10 laptops and it would make sense that the chip maker would like to try the same thing to Google’s Chromebooks with teh SD845.

Microsoft and Qualcomm have already launched ARM-powered Windows 10 laptops manufactured by HP, Lenovo and Asus. The Snapdragon 835 allowed the devices to be always connected to LTE networks while also providing the laptops with “beyond all-day battery life.” This is possible due to the power-saving features of Qualcomm’s processor. If Google is truly planning to bring Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 to Chromebooks in the near future, it’s very likely that those same benefits will become a reality for Chrome OS.