What’s the Value Proposition for Snapdragon-Based Always Connected PCs? (Premium)

Now that we’ve had our first hands-on experiences with ARM-based Always Connected PCs, we have a clearer understanding of how these devices will fare compared to their more established x86 rivals.

Long story short, there are no surprises. And in speaking with folks from Qualcomm, various PC makers, and industry experts here at the Snapdragon Tech Summit, it’s very clear how the battle lines will be drawn going forward.

If you want the best possible mobile experience, meaning instant on performance, days of battery life and weeks of standby, and always-on connectivity, an ARM-based Always On PC will be the right choice. What you’ll give up, obviously, is performance.

More on that in a moment. But if you want the best possible performance, regardless of the scenario—productivity work, games, software development, or whatever—then a traditional x86 PC is the way to go.

There are a few nuances to this equation, of course.

First, and it’s important not to forget this, Intel is part of the Always Connected PC initiative too. And that means that you will be able to buy standard x86-based PCs that deliver always-on connectivity, just like those based on Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon 835.

Those PCs will be part of a far more diverse market of products, too. So far, we’ve only heard about two specific ARM-based Always Connected PCs, though we know that other PC makers are involved, and that Lenovo will announce something at CES in January. But there are hundreds and hundreds of PCs based on the x86 architecture in the market today. And it is only natural that PC makers will add eSIM capabilities to at least some models, making them Always Connected PCs too.

It’s also fair to point out that some Intel-based PCs deliver very reasonable battery life. In my own testing of portable PCs this year, I’ve seen battery life ranging from a low of 6:52, for the HP Spectre x360 4K (2017), to a high of 11:30, for Surface Book with Performance Base. (OK, the HP OMEN 17 gaming laptop delivered just 3:22 of battery life. But it is a gaming PC.)

So what’s the point of bringing Qualcomm and the Snapdragon 835—and newer chipsets like the Snapdragon 845—to Windows 10 and the PC?

For starters, 20-22 hours of battery life is about double that of the best PC I’ve tested this year. And its about triple the average battery life I’m seeing. Assuming these are real-world numbers, that’s amazing. But even assuming they’re not, it’s still impressive: I find that real-world battery life is often about 2/3 of the official claims.

I don’t have an ARM-based Always Connected PC, so I can’t speak to the freedom that both Microsoft’s Terry Myerson and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon described when you can just leave the power brick at home. I will admit to a bit of skepticism: Amon noted that no one carries around a power cable for their phone, but, in fact, many people do just that.

The one thing I do buy is the notion that bringing mobile technology to the PC will forever change the PC: By using Qualcomm’s smaller and more efficient chipsets, PC makers can build thinner, lighter, and more efficient designs and emulate the rapid form factor innovation that we see in the smartphone market. This provides hardware makers with access to the same kinds of mobile influences that we’ve already seen on the software side, for example, with the touch interfaces built into Windows 10.

But the performance of these systems will be the key.

From what I can tell—and again, it’s early days—Snapdragon 835-based PCs, at least the ones I got to play with today—perform like low-end PCs based on Intel m3 or Y-series processors. This isn’t horrible, to be fair, and one might argue that this level of performance is exactly what’s needed by most. And that this performance is nicely offset by the silent, fanless nature of such devices, by the low pricing, and by the excellent mobility and connectivity.

And that is fair. But the question is whether this level of performance is adequate for even standard productivity tasks. And it was very interesting to me that Mr. Myerson specifically noted that these PCs would be compatible with an version of Office 365 that was “optimized” for the Snapdragon 835. That might have been an innocuous statement referring only to the fact that this x86 software had to be recompiled or modified for ARM. But it might be a subtle admission that running x86 code on ARM doesn’t really work all that well. Whatever the reason, one can understand how important it is that Microsoft get Office on ARM right.

As I’ve written recently about different tech products, we all have our needs, wants, and preferences, those things that matter more than others. ARM-based Always Connected PCs will land decisively for those who value battery life and connectivity, in that order, more than all else. If occasionally pokey performance is an issue, you will want to look elsewhere.

PC makers can help matters by not treating ARM-based PCs like electric cars. That is, instead of having special models that look and behave differently, they should sell the same PCs with both Intel and Qualcomm processors. I believe that HP will do so, and I’d be surprised to see them not announce an Intel version of the new ENVY X2 as soon as CES. Let the market decide.

And things will improve. More powerful ARM processors will become available, and Microsoft and various third party developers will get better at optimizing for ARM. Intel, too, could respond in interesting ways, and I suspect the microprocessor giant will not let this threat stand.

The next year will be interesting, at least.