Snapdragon X Copilot+ PC: Differentiators (Premium)

With three Snapdragon X-based Copilot+ PCs in-house, I have an interesting opportunity to compare and contrast. In some ways, each is quite similar, but in others, there are notable differences.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X platform is unique for so many reasons, but one of the less well-understood dynamics of the PC industry is that while Microsoft and its PC maker partners are beholden to each other, there is also a natural friction caused by the relative lack of control each has over the other. This relationship has frayed most obviously when Microsoft tried to impose specific limitations on PC makers, as it did with Tablet PCs and Media Center PCs, with PC makers overreacting with obstinate, child-like pushback. For example, instead of shipping Media Center PCs that looked and worked like stereo components and made sense in the living rooms the system was designed for, PC makers initially shipped traditional tower PCs that made absolutely no sense in a living room.

This dynamic reached its lowest point when Microsoft shipped its first Arm-based Windows version, Windows RT, in 2012: To achieve the reliability, consistency, and efficiency that consumers experienced with phones and tablets, Microsoft needed to not just port Windows to this architecture, but also convince PC makers to cede some control over component customization: In many ways, this key benefit of the PC ecosystem was a double-edged sword in which the wide range of choices, inherently a good thing, also led to unreliable, inconsistent, and inefficient PCs, inherently a bad thing. And so with Arm, Microsoft required PC makers to accept some limitations. And that did not go well.

There were other issues with Windows RT, of course—in addition to ignoring what customers expected of something named Windows, Microsoft had also made the controversial decision to compete with its PC maker partners by creating its own in-house family of PC products called Surface. This history, and the resentment Microsoft stoked with PC makers, played a role in the direction it took with future Windows versions for Arm, a product that wouldn’t make any sense until its users could download, install, and run whatever Windows apps they wanted.

But one major thing hasn’t changed since Windows RT. With Windows 11 on Arm running on Snapdragon X-based PCs—Copilot+ PCs, for now—Microsoft is again requiring PC makers to accept limitations tied to the component customizations they can make. It’s doing so for the same reason as ever–reliability, consistency, and efficiency—and those reasons are, if anything, even more valid today than they were in 2012. But you will have noticed something interesting: Where support for Windows RT among PC makers was, to put it politely, on the light side, with just two devices (one Microsoft’s) shipping at the October 2012 launch, and only two more shipping by the end of that year, PC makers are supporting Copilot+ PC far more broadly today: Microsoft and its 6 biggest PC maker partners announced an astonishing 14 PC models at its launch, and many of them were available immediately.

There’s a reason for this shift. Aside from the quality and performance improvements that Microsoft and Qualcomm finally deliver with Copilot+ PC, PC makers have grown tired of dealing with the unreliable terribleness imposed on them by Intel, and they’ve thrown in the towel. They can’t stop partnering with Intel, its chips are inevitable and a requirement. But they are accepting the component customization limitations they previously spurned because they understand that this type of system—one that is reliable, consistent, and efficient—is what their customers want. Maybe Intel gets the memo, or … maybe it doesn’t. But they’re tired of waiting, and they are making their respective bets on this new platform in part to help goad Intel into doing better.

And that is where things get interesting for those of us who, as customers, are likewise considering making our own bets on this new platform. While much of the underpinnings in these PCs are similar, there are still key differences. And each PC maker is differentiating its Snapdragon X-based Copilot+ PCs from those of its competitors to some degree.

As noted, I have three of these PCs in-house now—a Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, an HP EliteBook Ultra, and a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x 14—and there are, perhaps, two high-level approaches one might take to comparing them.

The most obvious is by target market: Where the Surface and Yoga are consumer PCs sold at retail, the EliteBook is a commercial PC that will more typically be sold through resellers with volume discounts. You can, of course, purchase an EliteBook Ultra directly from HP, and HP also sells a consumer-focused Copilot+ PC, the OmniBook X, that is very similar to the EliteBook and less expensive.

The second way to compare is a bit more nebulous, but I’ll call it “approach to market.” That is, the ways in which these companies decided to go to market with new Snapdragon X-based PCs is worth examining. Where Microsoft and Lenovo stuck with existing brands and form factors, HP took this milestone as an opportunity to rethink its entire PC lineup and how it markets them to customers.

To be clear, neither approach is “better.” In offering familiar Yoga- and ThinkPad-branded PCs, one might argue that Lenovo is communicating to its customers that they can trust this new platform, that the business is moving forward normally. Or one might counter-argue that Lenovo has in some way mailed it in, I guess. I don’t see it that way. But Snapdragon X is different and exciting, and it’s not clear whether shipping a new kind of computer with the same names and designs as before, as Microsoft and Lenovo are both doing, sends a mixed message. Opinions vary.

HP’s more dramatic approach is likewise worth debating. On the one hand, HP appears to feel so strongly about the shift that Snapdragon X represents that it used this as an opportunity to rethink and rebrand its entire PC lineup. But on the other, HP’s scattered and inconsistent PC branding hadn’t made sense for years, and maybe this change was overdue. And in the end, it will use consistent naming for all its products, whether they’re based on Qualcomm, Intel, or AMD chips. Maybe it’s not that big a deal.

The next most obvious comparison, I think, is the general look and feel. And here, too, two of the PCs I have in for review—the Lenovo and the HP—fall into a single bucket while the other, the Surface, stands alone. That is, the Lenovo and HP look and feel very similar: Both have similar designs, both offer 14-inch-ish displays, and the same basic ports, and they each come in similar not quite blue, not quite black colors. There are design differences, of course, especially in the details, but you’d be forgiven for mistaking either for the other from a distance. They have similar dimension, thicknesses, and weights:

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x 14: 12.80 x 8.86 x (as thin as) 0.51-inches, 2.82 pounds.

HP EliteBook Ultra: 12.32 x 8.8 x (as thin as) 0.57-inches, 2.97 pounds.

Surface Laptop is different. It comes in two screen sizes, 13.5- and 15-inches, that straddle the size and weights of the Lenovo and HP. It provides four distinct colors, though not across all configurations in either size, where Lenovo and HP only offer one. And it obviously mimics the overall design and look and feel of the MacBook Air, albeit the previous generation versions: Surface, as is so often the case, seems to be chasing the past, not looking to the future. It’s OK: I think this design is iconic and desirable. But the Apple envy is pretty obvious.

Here, too, it’s not so much that any approach is “better,” indeed, design is subjective, and certain products will speak to certain people. The good news is that these are all high-quality, premium products with anodized aluminum bodies, terrific displays, great keyboards, and a reasonable number of expansion ports.

But here’s my opinion.

I very early on locked onto the Surface Laptop in large part because I felt like it would most closely mimic the MacBook Air M3 experience, physically in its form factor, of course, but also on a vaguer, vibe-like level. This belief was amplified by how often Microsoft compared it to the MacBook Air at its Copilot+ PC launch event. And my hands-on experience with it over the past 10 days or so has solidified this idea: Though the Surface Laptop has a wedge-like shape that is markedly thicker in the rear than the magically thin MacBook Air (and the HP and Lenovo), it does indeed give off a strong MacBook Air look and feel vibe. It is the closest of the three to that experience, overall.

It’s also bigger and heavier than the HP and Lenovo laptops in the 15-inch version I purchased: 12.96 x 9.41 x (as thick as) 0.72 inches and 3.67 pounds. Noticeably bigger and heavier. The 13.8-inch Surface Laptop is a bit smaller than the HP and Lenovo, but just a tad lighter at 2.96 pounds. Anyway, I have the 15-inch version.

The HP and Lenovo don’t just look alike. They are alike. Not identical, but very similar. And, to me, very familiar: I’ve been reviewing HP EliteBook (and related ZBook and Dragonfly) and Lenovo Yoga laptops for years. Each has a similar take on what it means to be a premium laptop in this modern era, with the caveat (again) that EliteBook is a business brand where Yoga is more of a prosumer brand: Anodized aluminum, crisp lines, terrific keyboards, three USB ports, and Windows Hello facial recognition (but not fingerprint recognition).

From there, they do diverge.

The prosumer/consumer-focused Yoga has a terrific bright and colorful OLED display that is higher resolution (2944 x 1840) than the matte IPS display (2240 x 1400) used by the HP. I’m mixed on this one, but I prefer matte to glossy, even though I do love OLED displays. The Yoga display also supports a 90 Hz dynamic refresh rate that some may enjoy as well, where the HP is just the standard 60 Hz. This doesn’t impact me at all.

Both laptops have thin side display bezels, but the where the Yoga uses a protruding “communications bar,” a sort of reverse notch, to hold its webcam and related sensors, HP uses a more traditional taller bezel. Neither design is offensive, but the Yoga offers a hardware switch for the webcam privacy shade (on the side of the PC), where HP has a manual switch right on the top of the bezel.

Both offer terrific keyboards with excellent typing feel and feedback. The Yoga is a bit quieter than the HP (and notably more quiet than the Surface) but I like prefer the HP overall. It’s a fine point, they’re all good. (I don’t like that HP positioned the power button to the right of the DEL key, but one can get used to that.)

Both offer very good touchpads, as does the Surface. But where I had to disable three- and four-finger gestures on the Yoga, I’ve not done so on the HP or Surface, so those have been more reliable for me.

Performance has been consistent across all three of these PCs and compatibility, of course, is identical. It’s still early days, early indications are that each will provide similar and battery life.  The Surface is trending to that 10 hour mark I get with the Yoga, and while I’ve used the HP the least of the three so far—that changed, starting yesterday—I have started observing some differences: It doesn’t always come right on when I open the lid because of some power management setting, but instead does a short boot. And the initial battery life has been above 10 hours—well above on one day—whereas the other two started off badly and got better over time.

I can explain the latter, I think: I didn’t bulk install all the apps I use up front on the HP, but instead waited to do that until over the weekend after installing just a few key apps. But the power management thing will require some time and investigation. HP, like Lenovo, often works around the power management capabilities in Windows, and it may be doing so here. (That said, I haven’t found such a thing yet, and I’ve looked.)

Each has been totally silent almost all the time. Even when I was installing apps over the weekend on the HP, it was silent. Each has fans, as everyone knows, and each has its own venting and cooling design. But fan noise has never been an issue. As I write this, I’m downloading a large file on an Intel “Meteor Lake” U-series PC, and its fan has been running at a perceptible hum the entire time. As is so often the case—this really does feel like a theme—the Snapdragon X isn’t perfect, but it’s a nice improvement over the x64 norm these days.

Expansion ports is one of those discussion points that either matters a lot or not at all, and I sometimes wonder whether it really matters, even for those who obsess over it. I make a point of documenting this very carefully in each review I write, but in my day-to-day usage, whatever ports come on whatever laptop are rarely if ever an issue.

But obsess we must.

Each, as noted, as three USB ports.

With the 15-inch Surface Laptop, Microsoft has apparently improved matters when compared to previous models, which only had two. But for this rendition, two are USB4 Type-C ports (40 Gbps) and one is a 5 Gbps USB Type-A port. You can free up both USB-C ports using its proprietary Surface Connect-based power adapter, which is nice. Or just use a USB-C charger. But the USB ports are all on the same (left) side of the PC (like the MacBook Air), while the Surface Connect port is on the right (unlike the Mac).

The HP has two USB Type-C ports and one Type-A port, and each is completely different. They are, however, nicely marked, something missing on the other two PCs. The two Type-C ports, USB4 (40 Gbps) and SuperSpeed USB (10 Gbps) are on the left, while the SuperSpeed USB Type-A (5 Gbps) port is on the right. The Type-A port has a drop-jaw cover because the device is so thin.

The Lenovo and three USB4 Type-C (40 Gbps) ports, two on the left and one on the right. And … I gotta say, that’s the best of the lot in my eyes, if only because all three are identical.  You never need to think about which is which, and you can power the device from either side. Nice.

That said, I really don’t care all that much about expansion ports, personally, as noted.

Connectivity is similar across all three. Wi-Fi 6E or 7, Bluetooth 5.3 or 5.4. No cellular. To be clear, each can be configured with Wi-Fi 7 if that’s important. But some HP configurations, including the one I got for review, have 6E. This doesn’t matter to me.

From a hybrid work perspective, each has you covered with reasonably quality webcams, but HP’s 5 MP unit is technically higher quality than the Full HD cams in the Surface and Yoga. Each has at least a dual microphone array that will do in a pinch.

If you care about multimedia, it’s no surprise that the consumer devices—the Yoga and Surface—offer both Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos capabilities and that the HP … does not. I’ve not yet evaluated the HP or Surface for A/V, but the Yoga, with its OLED display, will be the most immersive experience for videos at least.

In the end, your decision will likely come down to various factors, like all decisions, but given the similarities here, we can weight things a bit differently than usual. And that means that price will factor in higher than usual, even though price is, of course, a key concern.

And it is here, I think, where things get interesting.

The Yoga Slim 7x 14 is an incredible deal. For about $1200, you get an OLED display with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD storage. But Lenovo’s RAM and storage upgrades are incredibly reasonable: Upgrade to 32 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage and the price is just above $1300. (You can also upgrade from Windows 11 Home to Pro for just $28, another no-brainer.)

The HP is too expensive for most consumers, in part because of its three years of support, Wolf Security (which I recommend uninstalling), and Windows 11 Pro. And there’s only one configuration right now, with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage for $1699. So I recommend that individuals shop the similar HP OmniBook X instead. It comes in two colors, white and silver, and the prices start at just $1150 ($1050 on sale currently) for the same configuration. There’s no RAM upgrade (yet), but you can get to 1 TB of storage for $100 more, and the Windows 11 Pro upgrade is $69.

The Surface Laptop is tough to configure.

Aside from having two display sizes, there are lower-end models with Snapdragon X Plus processors, its four color choices are not available across all configurations, and the best color—Sapphire blue—is only available on the lower-end configurations. But a 13.8 model with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage costs $1400, much more than comparable HP and Lenovo models. And the 15-inch version of that configuration is $1500. Jump up to 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, and the costs rise to $2000 and $2100, respectively. Surface is priced a bit like an Apple product, frankly.

This is problematic because the RAM is integrated into the processor, and there’s no way to upgrade it after the purchase. I believe that you can upgrade and replace the storage on each of these laptops, but I’m still testing each and am not sure of that yet. But the point remains: You can get a terrific Yoga Slim for $1200 to $1300 and a similarly great HP OmniBook for $1050 to $1200, albeit with no 32 GB RAM option (yet). Surface is more expensive. A lot more.

So that may hone the decision for many people down to the two choices. And the lack of a 32 GB option on the HP may trigger a similar honing if you need or want that.

But again, my overall experience with each has been similar, and they’re all terrific. Assuming you know what you’re getting into with Windows 11 on Arm, you won’t be disappointed with any of these. I’ve not noted any major performance or usability differences, and while battery life testing is ongoing, I feel that will land in a good place all around. None of these have an Achilles Heel-type gotcha, though I suppose the Surface pricing/configuration model qualifies.

I’ll review each of these PCs more fully in the coming month. But that’s where things stand for now.