The First Snapdragon 850 PC Sheds Little Light on Improvements (Premium)

Today, Lenovo announced the first laptop based on Qualcomm's first-ever PC-centric family of mobile processors, the Snapdragon 850. Like many of you, I'm eager to discover how---or even whether---this new chipset advances the platform and makes it viable for day-to-day use.

For now, however, I'll need to rely on what Lenovo is communicating about the device. And here's what I have gleaned from the marketing materials it provided to me previously.

The Yoga C630 WOS is the first PC announced that is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850. The high-level marketing message is very similar to that of the initial Snapdragon 835-based PCs: Epic battery life and seamless LTE connectivity.

That performance isn't a key part of the elevator pitch is a bit concerning. The only thing that Lenovo mentions about this key concern is that the C630 WOS "supports up to a 30 percent performance increase over previous Windows on Snapdragon devices." But that is based purely on Qualcomm's estimates, which of course date back to the original Snapdragon 850 announcement. So there's no additional information from Lenovo about whether this increase is meaningful day-to-day.

Since Lenovo doesn't address performance, it is perhaps obvious that it likewise doesn't address compatibility, the other major issue with this platform. But then the Snapdragon 850 doesn't include anything that can help overcome this platform's compatibility issues. Only time and support from app makers and peripheral driver makers will help with that.

From a battery life perspective, Lenovo again parrots Qualcomm's previous marketing: This device delivers "25+ hours of local video playback on a single charge." This again matches what Qualcomm said originally: It noted a 20 percent battery life improvement over 835-class devices, which were rated at 20+ hours.

There's no new news on connectivity either, though that makes sense: PCs powered by the Snapdragon 850 ship with a Snapdragon X20 LTE modem that supports speeds of up to 1.2 Gbps via LTE Advanced Pro. The previous-gen LTE modem could theoretically hit 1 Gbps, so this again matches what Qualcomm told us.

Like previous-generation devices, the Yoga C630 WOS is silent and fanless. It's also thin and light, as one might expect: It's less than half an inch thick and weighs only 2.6 pounds. It looks a lot like the Lenovo Flex 6 (14") that I recently reviewed, and features a polished aluminum cover and a 13.3-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS display.

RAM and storage are unknown at this time. But like the HP Envy x2, the Yoga C630 WOS will support a smartpen, though in this case it's optional.

Finally, the pricing seems commensurate with the first-generation Windows on ARM PCs: The Yoga C630 WOS will cost $850 when it goes on sale in November.

So. As noted, not a lot of "new" here given that ostensible excitement around the first-ever Snapdragon 850 PC. This platform, you'll recall, was announced in early ...