Paul Alcorn is the Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-24/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Paul Alcorn Social Links Navigation Editor-in-Chief Paul Alcorn is the Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
-Fran- Qualcomm needs to stop being so damn stupid and collaborate with the Linux people more. Windows has already demonstrated to be awful and slow. Dump your Windows focus and move to Linux instead. Let, for instance, the Ubuntu people get your engineers and get those laptops out there for people at that price segment. Although this should apply to the whole vertical slice of your products. Again: stop being stupid. Heck, Valve is already using the S-X for the Frame; take it from there and grow the ecosystem. Regards. Reply
Notton Hopefully it's not any slower than a SD 7c+ Gen 3. SD 7+ Gen 3 with 12GB RAM and UFS3.1 is just fine on Android, but I can't imagine how it'd perform on Winblows. At $300 and up, it's going to compete not only with MBN, but cheap android tablets, like this one https://www.notebookcheck.net/Compact-fast-and-affordable-review-of-the-Alldocube-iPlay-70-mini-Ultra-tablet.1088014.0.html Reply
bit_user I wonder whether they'll use the latest Oryon cores featured in the Snapdragon X2 SoCs or the the first gen ones. If I had to guess, I'd say they're using the old ones and are made on a TSMC N4 node, in the interest of hitting the lowest price point. Those original cores aren't bad, but using them would make these laptops less of an absolute steal. That's probably another reason they wouldn't use the latest – out of a desire not to cannibalize their newest & highest-margin products. Whatever they use, I hope they keep working to improve Linux support for these & all the rest of their Snapdragon laptops. Notton said: Hopefully it's not any slower than a SD 7c+ Gen 3. SD 7+ Gen 3 with 12GB RAM and UFS3.1 is just fine on Android, but I can't imagine how it'd perform on Winblows. A reason they'd rather use their own Oryon cores is to avoid licensing costs. So, I think it's a pretty safe bet they're on par with the low-end, original Snapdragon X chips. They might even be the same silicon as something like the X1-26-100, just rebranded. Reply
bit_user -Fran- said: Qualcomm needs to stop being so damn stupid and collaborate with the Linux people more. They are, but it's slow going. Their core Linux drivers are solid, but there's a lot of packaging and integration work needed to make their Snapdragon X laptops work seamlessly. To that end, they made a pretty big hire, last year: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Hans-Joins-Qualcomm -Fran- said: Windows has already demonstrated to be awful and slow. Hmmm… not sure. If you compare natively-compiled apps, like browser benchmarks, I think it's actually pretty good. I have barely used my Snapdragon X Plus laptop in Windows, but it seemed fine when I did. I kept it dual-booting. -Fran- said: Dump your Windows focus and move to Linux instead. I haven't tried getting Ubuntu 26.04 on it, but the level of effort needed to make it run 25.10 was nontrivial. -Fran- said: Let, for instance, the Ubuntu people get your engineers and get those laptops out there for people at that price segment. I think the image I used (above) was prepared by an Ubuntu engineer. Reply
-Fran- bit_user said: They are, but it's slow going. Their core Linux drivers are solid, but there's a lot of packaging and integration work needed to make their Snapdragon X laptops work seamlessly. To that end, they made a pretty big hire, last year: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Hans-Joins-Qualcomm Yeah, I know they do have active Linux projects and collaborations, that's why I made it clear it was more of a "focus shift" suggestion instead. On what you linked, that's actually very good news, so thanks for letting me know. bit_user said: Hmmm… not sure. If you compare natively-compiled apps, like browser benchmarks, I think it's actually pretty good. I didn't want to go on that tanget, as it kind of escapes my line of thought on this one. I know Windows can perform and be performant, but… Let's call it "rhythm", in which they've been making progress is rather… Hm… Pedestrian for how much resources they could throw at the problem vs what the Linux community (specially Valve) can achieve in comparison. bit_user said: I have barely used my Snapdragon X Plus laptop in Windows, but it seemed fine when I did. I kept it dual-booting. I haven't tried getting Ubuntu 26.04 on it, but the level of effort needed to make it run 25.10 was nontrivial. I think the image I used (above) was prepared by an Ubuntu engineer. I just used Ubuntu as the more "common people" friendly name example, but I'd personally go directly to either Arch, RedHat/Fedora or Gentoo. Mostly due to Bazzite and CachyOS being very popular and gaining traction quite nicely. Side-note: give CachyOS a try; it's quite a good experience. Recommended 100%. If Qualcomm wanted to get serious, then they should partner up with Valve, hands down. Regards. Reply
bit_user -Fran- said: Windows has already demonstrated to be awful and slow. If you really care to be up-to-date and accurate in your assessment, then it'd be worth your time to go through this review in detail: Verdict – The Asus Zenbook A16 is pretty much unbeatable at $1599 The new Zenbook A16 is a very interesting 16-inch laptop and has the potential to shake up the x86 competition. The device itself with the lightweight, yet high-quality chassis with a weight of just 1.2 kg, good keyboard and great OLED screen is already very convincing, but paired with the new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, the A16 is just so much more powerful than AMD's or Intel's mobile processor. Both the single-core as well as multi-core performance are big improvements and the GPU performance basically doubled. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-A16-Laptop-Review-X2-Elite-Extreme-48-GB-RAM-for-1599.1261795.0.html Pretty much the only thing beating it is Apple's M5. Reply
-Fran- bit_user said: If you really care to be up-to-date and accurate in your assessment, then it'd be worth your time to go through this review in detail: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-A16-Laptop-Review-X2-Elite-Extreme-48-GB-RAM-for-1599.1261795.0.html Pretty much the only thing beating it is Apple's M5. Ah, I see; one of those "brain thinks one thing, but hands type another". I wanted to say "Microsoft". Ugh. Regards. Reply
bit_user -Fran- said: Pedestrian for how much resources they could throw at the problem vs what the Linux community (specially Valve) can achieve in comparison. Valve is a very wealthy company. Being privately-held, they also have much more discretion about how that money is spent. https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-makes-almost-usd50-million-per-employee-raking-in-more-cash-per-person-than-google-amazon-or-microsoft-gaming-giants-350-employees-on-track-to-generate-usd17-billion-this-year -Fran- said: If Qualcomm wanted to get serious, then they should partner up with Valve, hands down. As you mentioned earlier, Valve is using one of their SoCs in its Frame headset. So, they actually did. Reply
-Fran- bit_user said: Valve is a very wealthy company. Being privately-held, they also have much more discretion about how that money is spent. https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-makes-almost-usd50-million-per-employee-raking-in-more-cash-per-person-than-google-amazon-or-microsoft-gaming-giants-350-employees-on-track-to-generate-usd17-billion-this-year I don't thin it's worth entering in this line of discussion/topic, as it feels like an argument of who's peepee is bigger, so let's spare ourselves that, please. I don't disagree for the record, but at least understand that money generation is not equal to how they're managed (as corporations). bit_user said: As you mentioned earlier, Valve is using one of their SoCs in its Frame headset. So, they actually did. I did not see Valve quoting or giving cudos to Qualcomm for all their support and help on their contributions to FEX, so I'd say the only collaboration is them willing to sell the SoCs to Valve. Similar topic to how much Valve has contributed to Proton when they focused on the Deck and AMD. I'd say AMD is better than Qualcomm on that front, but I doubt either has approached Valve and said "hey, let's do this together!". The latter was my implication when I said that, yours is more "they are using Qualcomm; good enough level of collaboration". Happy to be wrong though, since Valve may be collaborating, actively, with Qualcomm engineers for the Frame, but I doubt is a very deep collaborative effort. I think Qualcomm couldn't care less if the Frame succeeds or not as long as Valve pays for the SoCs 😀 Regards. Reply
bit_user -Fran- said: I don't thin it's worth entering in this line of discussion/topic, as it feels like an argument of who's peepee is bigger, so let's spare ourselves that, please. But it's not just who's bigger. Valve is a software company, and they have margins like one. Being a hardware company, Qualcomm probably has lower margins and we know they have activist investors who expect them to pay out any "extra" they have in dividends and share buybacks. -Fran- said: Valve may be collaborating, actively, with Qualcomm engineers for the Frame, but I doubt is a very deep collaborative effort. I think Qualcomm couldn't care less if the Frame succeeds or not as long as Valve pays for the SoCs 😀 I'm 100% sure Valve is being supported by Qualcomm engineers. Otherwise, Valve will not use them again. The level of that support can be debated, but not the fact of it. Qualcomm is very accustomed to working with many partners and helping them through the hardware and software hurdles of using its chips in their products. Remember, Qualcomm doesn't sell any end-user products. For its survival, its customers/partners must be successful. Reply
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- https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-c-platform-for-usd300-and-up-laptops-windows-on-arm-and-npus-for-the-budget-market#main
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