It’s the Web Browser, Stupid (Premium)

In evaluating Windows 10 on ARM again thanks to the Snapdragon 850-based Lenovo Yoga C630, its Achilles Heel is clear. It's not the performance. Yes, this laptop is a bit pokey compared to mainstream Intel Core U-series machines. But it has a bigger problem than that.

I'm referring generally to compatibility, which remains a huge problem for anyone wishing to take advantage of this platform's thin, light, and silent battery life longevity. But I'm referring more specifically to the web browser. This is where the Windows 10 on ARM equation really falls apart.

Yes, we all have that one app or even device driver that we need or really want to use. For me, that app is Adobe Photoshop Elements. It's a Store app, so you might think it'd run fine on Windows 10 on ARM, even in the debilitating S mode. But it doesn't run on ARM, can't run on ARM. Photoshop Elements, as it turns out, is a 64-bit Win32 app that's been "containerized" (for lack of a better term) for Store deployment. And 64-bit Win32 apps will never run on ARM.

I'd like to use Photoshop Elements. But there are alternatives. Paint .NET, for example, is a Win32 app that's also been containerized for the Store, and it is available in both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions there; the former works under emulation in Windows 10 on ARM. There are also other image editors in the Store and on the web that might satisfy my needs. Whatever: I can work around this limitation.

But the one thing I can't work around, the one major issue I have with Windows 10 on ARM now that the performance has improved a bit with the Snapdragon 850, is something that will eat away at most potential users. I'm referring, of course, to the one application all Windows users more than any other.

Yes. The web browser. And the situation sucks on Windows 10 on ARM.

OK, maybe I should issue a bit of a caveat within a caveat. If you're fine with Microsoft Edge today for some reason, that browser does perform admirably in Windows 10 on ARM, at least on this Yoga C630. It launches immediately and the performance is excellent.

But two things to that.

Microsoft Edge as we know it is going away, and while many assume that the coming Chromium-based Edge will look and work exactly---or at least mostly---like today's Edge, that is not at all clear. We simply don't know how this work will progress, and what the outcome will be yet.

Worse than that uncertainty, however, is that only 4.3 percent of users on the desktop have chosen Microsoft Edge. That means that some 95+ percent of users want to use a different web browser. And looking at the usage statistics, the overwhelming majority---about 64 percent---of those people use Google Chrome. A further 10 percent have chosen Mozilla Firefox.

Both Chrome and Firefox are available in 32-bit Win32 versions, so they can run in Windows 10 on ARM in emulation. And as you might expect, that emulation imparts a performance penalty. (And possibly a memory penal...

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