Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 Review: ChromeOS Gets Outside Its Comfort Zone

This Chromebook’s most distinct feature is the MediaTek Kompanio 910 processor. Not only is this a lightweight Arm-based processor well-suited to ChromeOS, but it is also equipped with an NPU capable of outputting 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS). That’s enough to support cutting-edge on-device AI features, such as image generation and text summaries. On a Windows machine, that would be enough to qualify as a Copilot+ laptop. On a Chromebook, however, that AI prowess applies to Gemini features and AI quality-of-life improvements. 

That NPU is an impressive bit of technology for a Chromebook. Few Chromebooks have one; the only other we’ve seen is the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514, which uses the same Kompanio Ultra 910 chip.

Because common Chromebook benchmarks do not directly measure NPU throughput, the impact is usually reflected in battery life, responsiveness, and AI features. Some AI-enhanced features, like Smart Grouping, confer productivity benefits. Smart Grouping can scan your open apps and browser tabs, and put several related items onto their own virtual desk, separating projects or just making it easier to swap between work and play.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Others, like Gallery Image Generation, can create images while offline, but you’ll need to download a small on-device model before you can use it. It’s not top-of-the-line image creation, like you’d see on Gemini, but it’s useful for expanding images. Meanwhile, the Gallery Image Editor lets you edit photos with some extra AI magic.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with the NPU is that it doesn’t seem all that important to the AI features you’ll use most often, which are cloud-based Gemini tools baked into the browser, Google apps, and Gemini itself.