Qualcomm Snapdragon X-Powered Laptops Flagged with "Frequently Returned Item" Tag

[AleksandarK]

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X platform is hitting more road obstacles as the platform matures. First, it was low sales in the third quarter of 2024, and now it is the latest flag from the world's largest online retailer—Amazon. According to Windows Central, Amazon has flagged Microsoft's Surface Laptop 7 AI PC with the "Frequently Returned Item" flag. Being pretty much self-explanatory, the flag marks items "with the highest return rates for their product category." Presumably, Amazon's algorithm has weighted out return rates of AI PCs, and it turns out that Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered Surface Laptop 7 has not stuck with consumers for long. Amazon's return policy allows product returns 30 days after receiving an item, and it seems like customers aren't pleased with it.

However, the laptop currently maintains a 4.2/5-star rating based on 360 ratings. 12% of these are one-star and 71% are five-star ratings. A sudden spike in returns may be boosted by Microsoft updating the Surface Laptop 7 with an Intel Core Ultra series of processors, so customers are returning their Arm-based laptops for x86 variants. We need more data to make further conclusions. As a reminder, despite sequential growth of 180% in Q3 2024, Snapdragon X-powered devices represent less than 1.5% of the Windows market, according to research from Canalys. Qualcomm sold around 720,000 Snapdragon X devices, accounting for only 0.8% of all PCs sold in Q3 2024. We are waiting for new data to compare to the rest of the ecosystem.



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[kondamin]

Pricing is completely wrong for mass adoption and acceptance.
they should offer something in the iPad price range

 

[_roman_]

Reminds me of the Windows Home S ... Edition

Do people just buy things by looking at a picture?

 

[Toss]

same as 5090 garbage

 

[_roman_]

the Nvidia 5090 is not that worse. Nvidia finally met AMD gpu driver quality. I doubt intel gpu drivers are any better (judging by their mobile wlan and ethernet chips = hardware + firmware + software)

There are no recalls for Nvidia 3090 ti / 4090 / 5090 yet. People buy it and seem to be happy.

 

[docnorth]

Sometimes even data from Amazon can be interesting...

 

[Vayra86]

Reminds me of the Windows Home S ... Edition

Do people just buy things by looking at a picture?

Ass Edition yeah

And this is the con pilot.

I'm really not seeing the sell with this whole AI bullshit. We have the internet, guys.

Its almost as if Microsoft is just throwing shit at the wall; well almost... actual.

 

[psydroid]

It doesn't really appear to be all that expensive in the US looking at a listing on Amazon. But if you absolutely require compatibility with certain Windows x86 software, I can see why this wouldn't work.

Devices with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (2) would be compelling for me, if they ran Linux out of the box. Ubuntu 25.04 is supposed to finally ship with some support. I'm pretty sure in that case more Linux users would buy them than Windows users currently do.

 

[phanbuey]

I got one for my wife on deep discount (the surface laptop) -- they're nice from a device point of view where it has nothing to do with the chip (screen, keyboard, trackpad, speakers) but the compatibility is killing it. The fact that it can't run vmware or virtualbox, and the linux support is hit or miss, means I can't touch it.

You can get a 16GB Macbook air M4 for almost the same price is probably not helping things either.

 

[N3utro]

The title of this article is a bit misleading.

The real problem here is not qualcomm, it's the fact people think they are buying a regular PC to find out they have an arm variant running on windows which has reduced capabilities compared to the regular x86 variants.

Qualcomm CPUs work quite well. Got one in my tablet (Snapdragon 8 gen 1) and it's pretty fast for its price range.

I'd put the blame on microsoft rather than qualcomm. They are selling windows arm PCs without proper warning to buyers. Apple can afford arm based cpus in their device because they forced the developpers of apps to release arm versions as well. Microsoft didn't as they dont have that kind of ecosystem.

 

[Vayra86]

I'm still amazed by the investment that has gone into building a laptop everyone loves and how they still haven't even managed to get remotely close to it.

They're still weak performers unless plugged in. They're still barely serviceable or upgradable. The quality of them for the price you pay is so-so. The lifetime of your average laptop is still far lower than you'd want. A lot of them are a somehow just not high on quality of life when using them. They all invite you to neck problems.

I mean look at phones. They've eliminated all those issues minus the neck problems over the years, well and the planned obscolecence.

 

[Tek-Check]

I'd put the blame on microsoft rather than qualcomm.

The blame is mutual. Qualcomm also needs to inform buyers better about Windows on Arm and not be sneaky about it. Hence many returns.

The fact that it can't run vmware or virtualbox, and the linux support is hit or miss, means I can't touch it.

You can get a 16GB Macbook air M4 for almost the same price is probably not helping things either.

Precisely. Those devices are heavily overpriced for what they can deliver.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Reminds me of the Windows Home S ... Edition

Do people just buy things by looking at a picture?

Cant windows S be unlocked to full fat windows?

 

[R0H1T]

You can get a 16GB Macbook air M4 for almost the same price is probably not helping things either.

You can also get the cheapest SD X/X plus laptops for around $500~600 on sale, so much cheaper than the base M4 air besides the slight advantage of upgradeable storage!

Qualcomm also needs to inform buyers better about Windows on Arm and not be sneaky about it. Hence many returns.

That's the biggest issue IMO, I bet half the buyers don't even know they can't run regular x86 programs on these

 

[Caring1]

Reminds me of the Windows Home S ... Edition

Do people just buy things by looking at a picture?

Yes.

 

[phanbuey]

You can also get the cheapest SD X/X plus laptops for around $500~600 on sale, so much cheaper than the base M4 air besides the slight advantage of upgradeable storage!

The cheapest one in my area is around $750 - which is in macbook air m2 territory... and it has a worse screen.

 

[R0H1T]

Probably not enough demand there as of now. I've seen the cheapest deals here close to $500 this includes exchange but even a 10 year old laptop is giving $100~200 off the listed price. If I exclude the exchange it's about $600 USD for the cheapest SD X laptop I could find.

 

[john_]

Qualcomm is promising something that is still in beta, while also charging like it is the Apple of Windows.
They lost an opportunity here by being shortsighted, arrogant and greedy. Laptops with Snapdragon SOCs should had prices from $300 to $800. No more than that.

 

[N3utro]

The blame is mutual. Qualcomm also needs to inform buyers better about Windows on Arm and not be sneaky about it. Hence many returns.

Qualcomm doesn't deal with retail customers. They only work with businesses, B2B. Their ARM cpu is a component microsoft chose for their surface laptop. Blaming qualcomm for this makes no sense at all. It's like trying to put a square inside a round hole and blaming the wood manufacturer because it doesn't fit.

 

[Bwaze]

Yeah, advertising "Windows" laptop and delivering something that doesn't run x86 and has all kinds of limitations and problems of a startup, while charging a premium - I'm surprised there even are buyers.

 

[Tek-Check]

Qualcomm doesn't deal with retail customers. They only work with businesses, B2B. Their ARM cpu is a component microsoft chose for their surface laptop. Blaming qualcomm for this makes no sense at all. It's like trying to put a square inside a round hole and blaming the wood manufacturer because it doesn't fit.

We all remember how heavily Qualcomm advertised their CPUs for Windows last year, especially their gaming marketing nonsense. There is no running away from it now, no matter which device is in question.

 

[cal5582]

man 1200 for essentially a locked in brick.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

WOA will probably always struggle, because it removes the best thing Windows has going for it—wide hardware and software support. I’m surprised other players like NVIDIA are rumored to enter this market. It’s not amounting to much so far, and MS doesn’t have a great track record on supporting product lines that don’t get wide adoption.

 

[cal5582]

i gotta be honest, i dont even see the point of windows on arm.

 

[psydroid]

i gotta be honest, i dont even see the point of windows on arm.

There isn't really a point other than Microsoft hedging its bets in case Intel and/or AMD disappear or ARM chips get so far ahead across various metrics that it would hurt Microsoft's fortunes not to get involved.

I've been using ARM hardware for almost 8 years now to run Linux and it's been a fairly smooth experience, as all the latest software is available for it. The situation is different but also improving for Windows. It will surely take years for Windows on ARM to gain a foothold, if it ever happens at all.