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

[Tek-Check]

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.

Arm-based desktop systems will never gain a foothold in DIY space until vendors start to offer fully modular components that can be swapped from one generation to another. This is something that AMD has mastered with AM4 platform, and Intel to a lesser extent.

Soldered systems will gain a few percentages of market share and that's it. It just creates more e-waste as consumers cannot upgrade almost anything.

 

[kondamin]

Sometimes even data from Amazon can be interesting...

So now I'm imagining ST data as an amazon fulfillment worker

 

[cal5582]

Arm-based desktop systems will never gain a foothold in DIY space until vendors start to offer fully modular components that can be swapped from one generation to another. This is something that AMD has mastered with AM4 platform, and Intel so a lesser extent.

Soldered systems will gain a few percentages of market share and that's it. It just creates more e-waste as consumers cannot upgrade almost anything.

yeah vendor lock-in is a huge red flag with a lot of arm systems.

 

[bitsandboots]

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.

Yes, but, good luck trying to steer consumer opinion. They'll see the name Qualcomm and that'll be it.
I think Qualcomm did a good job all things considered - they managed to be mostly competitive in basic use cases.
There's just two problems. One is as you say, Microsoft is too busy making Windows awful lately to be bothered to properly support another architecture at the same time. But second is that AMD is doing so, so well in the mobile space that the reason to use something other than x86 has been minimized. Apple did well to switch away from Intel when it did, but it's not that x86 was the problem... it was just that apple wanted independence and intel was the problem. AMD's continued success makes moving to ARM that much less justifiable for everyone else.

 

[bonehead123]

We are waiting for new data to compare to the rest of the ecosystem.

"Insufficient facts always invites danger." - Mr. Spock

 

[tpa-pr]

From a business perspective this isn't a surprise. A lot of companies like to push out proprietary security products (not made by Microsoft) to devices and a lot of these don't work on ARM. We've also had some business clients run into issues with printers and more esoteric devices that just refuse to work due to missing drivers. My company's policy is "we can't support ARM devices at the present time, please buy something AMD or Intel based".

ARM is probably fine for the basic home user but for the rest of the market it has a long way to go.

 

[R-T-B]

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.

Maybe on OSS but yeah the binary windows AMD drivers were awful in overhead on anything not DX12/Vulkan until about one year ago, and their video encoder is still to this day far far worse.

 

[Draconis]

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

The only point I see is it would be good to have another CPU option, for competition sake, if for no other reason. But and it's a big but as @Tek-Check and @psydroid said (amongst others) Windows on ARM has a long way to go even if they do things well and don't screw it up.

 

[tpa-pr]

The only point I see is it would be good to have another CPU option, for competition sake, if for no other reason. But and it's a big but as @Tek-Check and @psydroid said (amongst others) Windows on ARM has a long way to go even if they do things well and don't screw it up.

From what I remember: Panos Panay (Head of Windows turned head of Surface) basically implied they explored AMD and ARM for the same reason Apple swapped to their own in-house chips: Intel's terrible performance for mobile power-saving/performance. He said it was a part of their "silicon diversity" initiative for Windows to try and get off the Intel platform exclusively.

(Note that they started this initiative well before Intel's current offerings so his comments were on the older generation chips. And Apple started planning their in-house chips just after Sandy Bridge).

I believe it was on one of the Christmas episodes for Windows Weekly he said it.

EDIT: I got my wires crossed, Panos was head of Surface and THEN head of Windows.

 

[Draconis]

From what I remember: Panos Panay (Head of Windows turned head of Surface) basically implied they explored AMD and ARM for the same reason Apple swapped to their own in-house chips: Intel's terrible performance for mobile power-saving/performance. He said it was a part of their "silicon diversity" initiative for Windows to try and get off the Intel platform exclusively.

(Note that they started this initiative well before Intel's current offerings so his comments were on the older generation chips. And Apple started planning their in-house chips just after Sandy Bridge).

I believe it was on one of the Christmas episodes for Windows Weekly he said it.

EDIT: I got my wires crossed, Panos was head of Surface and THEN head of Windows.

Interesting, thanks you. Despite all the challenges, I personally hope that Windows on ARM gains enough traction that developers port apps to ARM and the whole ecosystem takes off. Again, choices and competition.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

From a business perspective this isn't a surprise. A lot of companies like to push out proprietary security products (not made by Microsoft) to devices and a lot of these don't work on ARM. We've also had some business clients run into issues with printers and more esoteric devices that just refuse to work due to missing drivers. My company's policy is "we can't support ARM devices at the present time, please buy something AMD or Intel based".

ARM is probably fine for the basic home user but for the rest of the market it has a long way to go.

yeah i wouldn't touch an AoW device for enterprise use with a 10-ft pole, it's inviting a support headache. I'd love to know how many enterprise AV products and the usual device management software can run on that.

And if the printers are not IPP/universal, forget about them ever working, proprietary drivers have always been shitty even on native windows and some are abandonware.

 

[R0H1T]

Apple did well to switch away from Intel when it did, but it's not that x86 was the problem.

Apple wanted margins, if they had an x86 license & competitive enough design they'd have went with that or RISC-V.

 

[tpa-pr]

Apple wanted margins, if they had an x86 license & competitive enough design they'd have went with that or RISC-V.

Apple were also VERY unhappy with Sandy Bridge and the issues that it brought about. That's cited as the primary reason they moved away from x86 (or rather Intel specifically).

 

[psydroid]

yeah i wouldn't touch an AoW device for enterprise use with a 10-ft pole, it's inviting a support headache. I'd love to know how many enterprise AV products and the usual device management software can run on that.

And if the printers are not IPP/universal, forget about them ever working, proprietary drivers have always been shitty even on native windows and some are abandonware.

I can see the problems in the enterprise, so I expect x86 to stay in place there for a long time to come. Even for my private use I have finally ordered a few (now cheap) x86 CPUs to put together some systems compatible with Windows 11 for specific software that is only available for x86.

But for general-pupose computing including software development I would prefer ARM devices, as especially for Windows you can develop and test software for both x86 and ARM on them, which isn't possible with x86 Windows laptops.

So basically you only have to carry one laptop around with you, whose battery will also last all day without charging. The usefulness and annoyance of each chip architecture wholly depends on your intended purpose(s).