Windows ARM laptops

[stanlawj]

Asus Vivobook S15

• Windows 11 Home (64-bit)
• Qualcomm Snapdragon® X Elite X1E 78 100 Processor 3.4GHz (42MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz, 12 cores, 12 Threads); Qualcomm® AI Engine up to 75 total TOPs
• Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU
• 15.6" OLED (2880X1620) 120Hz
• 32GB LPDDR5X RAM
• 1TB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 4.0 SSD
• 2 Years International Warranty
• FHD webcam + IR for Windows Hello
• HDMI 2.1, USB4 type-c, no Thunderbolt ports

TLDR: For office, not for gaming. Battery life as good as M3 MBA 15, negligible battery drain during sleep, about 33% cheaper than M3 MBA 15.

My personal opinion: I will only buy if it comes with digital pen with pressure sensitivity and 100% DCI-P3 calibrated TOUCH screen. Also, buy for what ARM software you can use now, not for what is promised to come.



Da Vinci Resolve tested.


Adobe Premiere Pro tested.

 

[stanlawj]

Qualcomm Snapdragon X CPU Lineup:​

CPU NAME	CORES	CACHE	2-CORE BOOST / ALL-CORE BOOST	GPU TFLOPS	NPU TOPS	MEMORY SUPPORT	TDP
X1E-84-100	12	42 MB	4.2 - 3.8 GHz	4.6 TFLOPs	45 AI TOPS	LPDDR5x-8448	23-80W
X1E-80-100	12	42 MB	4.0 - 3.4 GHz	3.8 TFLOPs	45 AI TOPS	LPDDR5x-8448	23-80W
X1E-78-100	12	42 MB	N/A - 3.4 GHz	3.8 TFLOPs	45 AI TOPS	LPDDR5x-8448	23-80W
X1P-64-100	10	42 MB	N/A - 3.4 GHz	3.8 TFLOPs	45 AI TOPS	LPDDR5x-8448	10-20W

Detailed specifications of the entire Snapdragon X platform (CPU, GPU, and chipsets):
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/mobile/snapdragon/pcs-and-tablets/snapdragon-x-elite
4 sections are notable:

• External displays: max 2 at DisplayPort 1.4 protocol (footnote no. 4 states 3 displays up to 4K @ 60Hz HDR10, 1 display up to 5K 60Hz, or up to 4K @ 120Hz (5K, 4K, 4K in concurrency)
  
  
• VPU: media encoders for video content creation up to 4K60 10-bit for AV1, H.265, H.264. No VP9 (note: AV1 is newer and supersedes VP9, but it means older devices may not be able play AV1 encoded videos)
  
  
• Cellular Modem: X65 5G up to 10Gbps download, 3.5Gbps upload.
  
  
• Wifi 7 & BT4: it has everything that is the latest for 2024.

 

[stanlawj]

Microsoft Surface Pro 11 (OLED edition) (US store site)

• 2-in-1 (Surface Slim Pen)
• Snapdragon® X Elite (12 Core)
• 13" OLED 10-pt multitouch 2880 x 1920 (267 PPI), 4:3 screen with rounded corners, Dolby Vision IQ, Corning Gorilla Glass 5
• 16 or 32GB LPDDR5x RAM
• 1TB SSD PCIe Gen4
• 1440p front camera with IR for Windows Hello, dual mics
• 10MP rear-facing camera
• 2W stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos
• 2 X USB4 supporting DP2.1 and charging
• Wifi 7, BT4
• WWAN with nanoSIM coming soon in Q3 2024 (Surface Pro 5G)
• 53 Wh battery (10 hours active web usage)
• Est price: S$3400 (16GB) to S$3900 (32GB) inclusive of wireless Flex Keyboard with Slim Pen, 2yr warranty.

Microsoft's USB4 ports also supports Thunderbolt? (according to the specs, it supports Surface Thunderbolt docks).
2 X USB-C® / USB4® ports with support for:
Charging
Data transfer
DisplayPort 1.4a
Surface Thunderbolt™ 4 Dock and other accessories
Supports fast charging with minimum 65W power supply via Surface Connect or USB-C


Some problems just revealed:

​

In the comments section: @thangchiba​

I bought the Surface Pro OLED this week. There are no performance issues; it is extremely powerful. However, its screen is grainy and looks terrible. Compared to my MacBook OLED, it is unbelievably bad. From my research on Reddit, it appears that everyone has this issue. This means that the OLED product has a problem, but reviewers are either being paid off or are visually impaired and don't notice. It's really sad that no one mentions this horrible screen

 

[stanlawj]

Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge

• Windows 11 Home
• Snapdragon X Elite (12-core) with Adreno GPU
• 14" or 16" AMOLED 2X touchscreen 120Hz
• 16G RAM
• 1TB eUFS
• Wifi 7
• 1080p FHD webcam (no IR camera?)
• HDMI 2.1
• 2 X USB4
• AKG quad speakers with Dolby Atmos
• Fingerprint Reader
• 55.9WH or 61.8WH battery
• Est. price: S$2600 (16")

14" SGB4E compared with 14" M3 MBP


16" SGB4E vs Surface Laptop 7
Both have >480pts on Speedometer 2.0, compared to <460pts for Intel desktop 14900k CPU.

 

[chaiscool]

Be prepared for issues that come with being early adopters.

Even the oem not fully into arm windows - see asus only have vivo laptop instead of their premium zenbook and lenovo yoga arm laptop is a normal laptop and not even their usual yoga kind that have 180/360 screen.

If want arm, go with macbook as they already in gen 3/4.

Unless battery life is very important no point getting windows arm laptop that have lower performance and similar weight to the x86 laptops (also have more choices)

 

[chaiscool]

Honest reviewer who say don't buy, tech savvy reviewer struggle so badly to even do basic installation. General users GG.



Walao hard to even install basic dev stuff like intellj, git(need via install powershell), fedora, java. Davinci cannot even find gpu. Adobe photoshop cannot even start. Even if application can install, doesn't mean can start haha. Qualcomm own website give wrong drivers. Can only use firefox to download app cuz chrome and edge cannot.

Typical Microsoft, overhyped unpolished trash.

 

[stanlawj]

Honest reviewer who say don't buy, tech savvy reviewer struggle so badly to even do basic installation. General users GG.



Walao hard to even install basic dev stuff like intellj, git(need via install powershell), fedora, java. Davinci cannot even find gpu. Adobe photoshop cannot even start. Even if application can install, doesn't mean can start haha. Qualcomm own website give wrong drivers. Can only use firefox to download app cuz chrome and edge cannot.

Typical Microsoft, overhyped unpolished trash.

The Speedometer 2.0 browser results for the QC Snapdragon X Elite CPU smokes Intel desktop 14900k CPU: 490 vs 450 pts.

 

[chaiscool]

The Speedometer 2.0 browser results for the QC Snapdragon X Elite CPU smokes Intel desktop 14900k CPU: 490 vs 450 pts.

Aiya can 10x better also no use if things so hard to use or doesn't even work.

Simple task like download app also need to try various browser and pray it works. Even after installing also need to pray it will open and not crash later on.

Microsoft treat early adopters like beta tester. The software is the issue, snapdragon is ok but competition from amd / intel will respond within few months with zen 5 and lunarlake (if they can get close to the arm battery, this snapdragon will be doa)

For users, really no upside unless really want battery life on windows.

 

[stanlawj]

Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 13.8" or 15"

• 13.8" HDR IPS multi-touchscreen 2304 x 1536 (201 PPI) or 15" HDR IPS multi-touchscreen 2496 x 1664 (201 PPI), 120Hz Dolby Vision IQ, Corning Gorilla Glass.
• Snapdragon® X Plus (10 Core)
  Snapdragon® X Elite (12 Core)
• 16 or 32 or 64GB LPDDR5X RAM
• 1TB SSD
• 1080p front camera with IR for Windows Hello
• Dolby Atmos speakers
• 2 x USB4 supporting DP2.1
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Wifi 7, BT5.4
• Maxed out specs est. price: S$4k (4-yr warranty)

Surface Laptop 7 13.8" vs M3 MBA 13":

 

[stanlawj]

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X

• 14.5" 3K (2944 x 1840), OLED, Glare, Dolby Vision™, Multitouchscreen, HDR 600 True Black, 100%DCI-P3, 1000 nits (Peak)/500 nits (Typical), 90Hz, Glass
• Snapdragon™ X Elite X1E78100 Processor (3.40 GHz)
• 16 or 32 GB LPDDR5X-8448MHz (Soldered)
• 1TB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe Gen4 TLC
• 1080P FHD IR Hybrid front camera with Dual Microphone
• Wi-Fi 7 2x2 BE 320MHz & Bluetooth® 5.3
• Est price: S$2.2k (2-yr warranty)

 

[quantumhz]

Yeah was excited when these snapdragons were released... Now contented to wait for the amd ryzen ai300 and intel lunar lake cpus to duke it out in a three way battle.

 

[stanlawj]

Deep dive of Snapdragon X Elite CPU:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/21445/qualcomm-snapdragon-x-architecture-deep-dive

• Memory (DDR RAM) is still off-CPU
• Memory bandwidth: max 135GB/s (mind you, it's shared with GPU)

This chip cannot fight with Apple Silicon M3 Max. Don't expect any performance miracles. Expect only power-savings from ARM architecture.

Max memory bandwidth of Apple Silicon
M3: 100 GB/s
M4: 120 GB/s
M3 Pro: 150 GB/s
M3 Max: 300 GB/s, 400 GB/s

Max memory bandwidth of Intel mobile chips:
Meteor Lake: 120 GB/s only with LPDDR5X (but you're not getting anywhere near this if the timings are very lax. My Yoga Book 9i: less than 60 GB/s).

Max memory bandwidth of AMD mobile chips:
Ryzen 8000: 100GB/s

 

[leongws]

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X

• 14.5" 3K (2944 x 1840), OLED, Glare, Dolby Vision™, Multitouchscreen, HDR 600 True Black, 100%DCI-P3, 1000 nits (Peak)/500 nits (Typical), 90Hz, Glass
• Snapdragon™ X Elite X1E78100 Processor (3.40 GHz)
• 16 or 32 GB LPDDR5X-8448MHz (Soldered)
• 1TB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe Gen4 TLC
• 1080P FHD IR Hybrid front camera with Dual Microphone
• Wi-Fi 7 2x2 BE 320MHz & Bluetooth® 5.3
• Est price: S$2.2k (2-yr warranty)

Saw this at Harvey. Price at $2099 for 32GB + 1TB nvme. Not sure warranty is it for 2 years (premium?). Tempted but may wait a while for more review especially apps using emulator.

For Microsoft office(excel etc) and web browsing, it should not have any issue right?

 

[trenzterra]

Saw this at Harvey. Price at $2099 for 32GB + 1TB nvme. Not sure warranty is it for 2 years (premium?). Tempted but may wait a while for more review especially apps using emulator.

For Microsoft office(excel etc) and web browsing, it should not have any issue right?

I think no issue although not sure if Firefox has native arm right now. Quite tempted also. Just that there's no USB-A ports so it's back to dongle world

 

[stanlawj]

Saw this at Harvey. Price at $2099 for 32GB + 1TB nvme. Not sure warranty is it for 2 years (premium?). Tempted but may wait a while for more review especially apps using emulator.

For Microsoft office(excel etc) and web browsing, it should not have any issue right?

I would only buy the Snapdragon X Elite laptop if it has 2-in-1 features. It's efficient only within 20W to 30W power consumption. So basically this ARM cpu will make the ultimate perfect killer Windows writing tablet that can replace both Macbook Air + Ipad. At the moment, only Microsoft Surface Pro 11 is the viable Windows ARM laptop. Qualcomm makes both Wifi and 5G modems, so they are fully capable of integrating their modems on chip. Wait for next version.

As for the lack of USB-A ports, this is not the only drawback of the Yoga Slim 7X. There's also no HDMI port. That makes life difficult for doing presentations. Have to buy the USB dock and dongles.

 

[leongws]

I would only buy the Snapdragon X Elite laptop if it has 2-in-1 features. It's efficient only within 20W to 30W power consumption. So basically this ARM cpu will make the ultimate perfect killer Windows writing tablet that can replace both Macbook Air + Ipad. At the moment, only Microsoft Surface Pro 11 is the viable Windows ARM laptop. Qualcomm makes both Wifi and 5G modems, so they are fully capable of integrating their modems on chip. Wait for next version.

As for the lack of USB-A ports, this is not the only drawback of the Yoga Slim 7X. There's also no HDMI port. That makes life difficult for doing presentations. Have to buy the USB dock and dongles.

The usb c 4 in 1 hub are included in the Harvey bundle.

Lenovo® USB-C® 4-in-1
Hub(USB,HDMI,VGA+AUDIO JACK)+ lenovo backpack

Harvey also got promo for this laptop “Free 24” monitor worth $171”.

 

[joesph]

 

[stanlawj]

It has touch screen, but if it has digital pen writing capability, it would be a definite buy.

 

[stanlawj]

Dell XPS 9345

• Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 (12cores)
• Windows 11 Pro
• up to 64GB LPDDR5X RAM
• up to 2TB SSD
• 13.4" OLED 2880x1800 multi-touch screen, 60Hz (take note, it's not 90 or 120Hz screen)
• 1080p FHD front camera with IR for Windows Hello, dual mics
• seamless glass haptic touchpad
• Wifi 7, BT4
• Quadspeakers
• 55 Wh battery
• Est price: $3k to $4k (maxed out)

 

[chaiscool]

Saw this at Harvey. Price at $2099 for 32GB + 1TB nvme. Not sure warranty is it for 2 years (premium?). Tempted but may wait a while for more review especially apps using emulator.

For Microsoft office(excel etc) and web browsing, it should not have any issue right?

Spend $2k to be beta tester ah(it cannot even do basic things like downloading and installing software).

Why not get x86? If willing to wait, next gen of intel and amd "supposedly" have battery life that is comparable to arm but also all software sure work.