Chrome OS has seen a number of new devices based on the “Reef” baseboard pop up lately with Intel’s Apollo Lake silicon in tow, and a mysterious convertible known only as “Nasher” is the newest such Chromebook. This particular device seems to have precious little information available, but what is suggested so far is that the device will have tablet mode on board, will feature a 360 degree hinge, and will run on the latest Atom-level, Apollo Lake silicon from Intel. The specs, maker, and most physical characteristics of the device are not mentioned in the codebase files just yet, and most of the drivers being listed for use can be applied universally across Reef-based hardware, meaning that they don’t offer any information we don’t already know.
In being based on the Reef board, the newest Chromebook on the block shares a key feature with a few recent models to come across the codebase, such as HP’s Chromebook x360 and ASUS’ Chromebook Spin. The Apollo Lake chipset found in the Reef board has already made itself quite comfortable as an in-place Braswell replacement for the education sector, striking a good balance between cost, features, and raw horsepower. Apollo Lake is indeed an x86 architecture chipset, which means that devices packing it will bring the horsepower, but tend to be inferior in battery life and Android app compatibility compared to their ARM-powered contemporaries like the Samsung Chromebook Plus. As a bonus, if an owner of an x86 Chromebook wants to run Windows, they can.
In the end, all we can really conclude about Nasher is that it will run neck in neck with newer low-power x86 Chromebooks. It will likely share a number of drivers and a ton of code with other Reef-based devices, which means that they may end up with similar release windows and price points. Nasher is interesting in that a manufacturer has not yet been declared in the code which could suggest that this is a template device for OEMs to borrow “starter code” from it creating similar devices to save development costs, we could be looking at a freelance device that could easily be picked up and rebranded, or we could be looking at something specialized. There is also the chance, of course, that the manufacturer will be declared later and this new device won’t be any more special than its peers.