In short: Google’s suspected Chrome OS tablet, codenamed ‘Nocturne’ and expected to arrive on market as the Google Pixel Slate, has now been spotted on Geekbench in three more configurations. Beginning with what would almost certainly represent the budget end of the spectrum, if these listings turn out to be accurate, is a variant powered by Intel’s Celeron 3965Y processor. That’s a Kaby Lake series processor while all of the remaining suspected Pixel Slate devices are shown with chips in Intel’s Amber Lake series. Next up is another version that’s listed to be centered around the Intel Core m3-8100Y followed by another “Google nocturne” device running on an Intel Core i5-8200Y processor.
Background: The Google Pixel Slate is currently expected to launch alongside a new version of Google’s Pixelbook, which was first spotted in the Chromium Gerrit with the codename “Atlas.” However, Nocturne has proved to be the more active of the two in terms of leaks and information showing up in both that repository and elsewhere online with a consistent indication that this is a dedicated tablet rather than a Chromebook. In fact, the dedicated Chrome OS tablet first appeared on Geekbench just days ago and these newer listings appear to have cropped up just hours later. That initial benchmark was Google’s tablet device, powered by an Intel Core i7-8500Y Amber Lake processor backed up by 16GB of RAM. That’s a chip with a base clock of 1.5 GHz and a turbo boost of up to a relatively massive 4.2 GHz.
By comparison, the more recent devices aren’t quite as powerful but each should offer solid performance across Chrome OS operations, Android apps, and Linux desktop apps. The Intel Celeron 3965Y, for example, is a chip with a frequency set at 1.5 GHz across two cores and threads. It’s shown for Nocturne as being backed by 8GB RAM, although the chip actually supports up to 16GB of memory. The Intel Core m3-8100Y variation, meanwhile, is also listed with 8GB RAM but has a base clock of 1.1 GHz and a turbo boost of up to 3.4 GHz across two cores and four thread. Just above that is a configuration with Intel’s dual-core four thread Core i5-8200Y. That’s a processor clocked at 1.3 GHz base and a max of 3.9 GHz. Again, that’s shown with only 8GB RAM despite a maximum of 16GB supported.
Impact: The recent changes noted for Google’s ‘Nocturne’ aren’t necessarily one hundred percent accurate, as benchmarks aren’t always the best way to ascertain either performance or specifications. Bearing that in mind, further options with either more or less RAM could also be made available in all but the case with the upper end of the spectrum – since it’s already shown with the chip’s maximum supported memory. In the meantime, there still isn’t any indication as to how much storage will be offered, what to expect for battery capacity, or what other new features could unexpectedly appear. But everything does seem to imply that there will be at least four versions of Google’s new Pixel Slate Chrome OS gadget to choose from following the company’s upcoming hardware event on October 9.
