Snapdragon 7c Chromebook Appears To Mix Up The Budget Playing Field

29 May 2020

A mysterious new Chromebook has now reportedly appeared at Geekbench, touting Qualcomm's budget-minded Snapdragon 7c platform. The device, codenamed Trogdor, reveals very few details in the listing. But it is shown to have that processor backed up with 8GB RAM. That's noteworthy since the Snapdragon 7c processor is meant to represent the budget-end from Qualcomm.

As pertinently, that's an eight-core processor, clocked at a base of 1.8GHz. Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 7c, touting a chipset for devices up to 20-percent more powerful than competitive platforms. That's compared to other budget-friendly laptop processors — although no distinction was given with regard to which one. Similarly, the manufacturer claims that up to two-times the battery life can be had there too.

Other key aspects of this particular chipset include support for 4G LTE via the Qualcomm X15 LTE modem and support for Bluetooth 5.1. Continuing down the networking side of things, Trogdor supports up to Wi-Fi 6 as well. That's atop support for up to 4K resolutions with compatibility for HDR 10. AI is a big part of the package too.

Trogdor stands on a borderline with the Snapdragon 7c on board

Now, none of the supported specs or features of this processor necessarily points to a device that will ship with all of them intact. In fact, earlier rumors surrounding "Trogdor" indicated that it would be a budget-friendly device, as noted above. But there could be quite a few top-tier features here as well.

Early commits to the Chromium Gerrit code repository point to a clamshell-style design with at least one USB-A port. USB-C has become something of a standard with Chromebooks in terms of charging. So it's safe to say at least one port will be included for that as well. Backlighting on the device's keyboard is also part of the initial build in the code repository. So that should be at least an option if the OEM launches more than one variant.

For the time being, it's less clear who, exactly, will be manufacturing this device. While benchmarks are notoriously easy to spoof, the Geekbench listing all but confirms that this will be a wallet-friendly gadget. The scores land at around 558 on the single-core side. That's comparable to an Exynos-powered Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite. On the multi-core side, Trogdor scores 1528 points — closer to a Samsung Galaxy A70 mid-ranger.

That means it should be comparable, or slightly better, than many other gadgets launching on new — to Chrome OS — hardware platforms.

When will this arrive and how much will it cost?

Trogdor remains a mystery in terms of nailing down a plausible manufacturer and when it might arrive. Chromebooks typically land on benchmarking sites several times before finally appearing in announcements. All of the specifications here also put Trogdor right in the middle of the market, in terms of expectations for performance and performance.

That makes determining a likely cost difficult. So does the fact that this is the first purportedly "budget-friendly" Chromebook to appear at all bearing the Snapdragon 7c platform under-the-hood. Regardless, if this device is priced properly and comes with enough over-the-top features, it could easily be one of the best Chromebooks available.