Take a Lenovo IdeaPad and stick some lights on it
The past couple of days have been dominated by Google’s announcement about shutting down Stadia by January 2023. The decision, while sadly expected, also took many by surprise — including game developers who were just days or weeks away from launching their titles. But there may be a sliver of hope for gaming enthusiasts within the Google ecosystem. Lenovo is seemingly preparing the release of a “gaming” oriented Chromebook, aptly named the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook.
The revelation comes courtesy of some digging around by the folks at Chrome Unboxed, who also managed to unearth what appears to be a brief demo video of the machine. Furthermore, we’re also treated to what appear to be official images of the IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook, including one which highlights the 4-zone RGB backlit keyboard (pictured above).
It features a 16-inch 2560×1600 resolution screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. This makes it comparable to the IdeaPad 5i Chromebook that Lenovo launched at IFA last month. Moreover, the company’s gaming Chromebook would likely be available with two CPU variants — an Intel Core i3-1215U or an Intel Core i5-1235U.
It’s worth noting that the aforementioned IdeaPad 5i Chromebook also features the Core i3-1215U processor, though it cannot handle gaming services like Steam for ChromeOS. Chrome Unboxed speculates that the Core i5 variant could be marketed as a suitable option for Steam gaming whereas the Core i3 model may be driven towards cloud gaming services.
Rounding out the hardware specs sheet, the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook will feature up to 8GB of RAM coupled with up to 512GB of NVMe storage. The I/O portion contains two USB-C and two USB-A ports in addition to four stereo speakers (2W each) enhanced by Waves MaxxAudio and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Information about pricing or availability is unavailable at the moment, though we expect Lenovo to share more details on this gaming Chromebook imminently.
