So, because it's running Windows, you're unable to use the normal applications you'd expect to have on a tablet.
But because it's an ARM-derived architecture, it's not compatible the x86/64 applications you'd expect to be able to use on Windows, meaning you're stuck with whatever they decide to build and put on the Windows Store.
What's the point of this again? It looks like the worst of all worlds.
Windows 10 on ARM has supported x86 programs through a compatibility layer since its release. Not x64 programs though, but most things are available in x86.
Then you have the performance hit from translating the instructions into something the Snapdragon knows what to do with. They can claim "near native" performance all they want, but there's always going to be a slowdown when translating instructions between two different architectures. It might not be a dealbreaker for some people, but it WILL be noticeable.
Not to mention the inevitable hit to that "up to 20 hour" battery life if you're making the CPU work harder all the time.
A lot of the apps we can expect to be used on a solution such as this have very low performance demands. If you need high performance - pick something else. So what if some things will be a bit slow, as long as 98 percent of the time I spend are with programs running natively on ARM I would be perfectly happy. Especially so if it means double the battery life as compared to x86.
The big problem with these device that most consumer - not technical geeks - are naïve to the designed of these devices and will attempt to run their x86 application and they will think it problem with the application but it actually because of emulation.
But I believe this is only temporary, Intel Lakefield has several advantages over these ARM emulators - or can we say Windows RT 2.0, Lake field combines a Sunny Cove core which is unlike Skylake cores and has more cache and execution units. I find to most interesting about Sunny Cove is that Intel added addition store unit on process - so instead having two load units and single store unit Sunny Cove has two of each and most important it appears in different frame of execution. I believe with limited knowledge from 80's of CPU design at Georgia Tech that this designed allow execution in parallel better on the same CPU. I would be curious about the performance increase in Sunny Cove architecture alone, but would expect it is significant.
Also Lakefield has 3 smaller cores - these are likely unlike Atom's today but a next generation but designed for efficiency. I would hope with modifications of the kernel this means the background tasks will run on these cores while the main processor runs on the Sunny Cove based core.
Also significant about the Lakefield is the packaging which is next generation of EMiB but this time Intel has gone vertical which allows more components in smaller space.
But I think that the real advantage of Sunny Cove will be seem in higher end processors - but that is yet to be seen.
The funny thing about Windows for ARM ( or Windows for Qualcomm ) is Microsoft, why have Microsoft not release a laptop with it - maybe they don't want to relive the bad reception of the earlier version of which Windows RT.
Intel has lost the process lead, and it will show more and more as time goes on as they resort to more expensive packaging solutions to try to close the gap by reallocating older process node capacity alongside delayed or not fully functional newer process nodes. I do think it's compelling for higher end solutions as you say, but Intel has already lost the lower power segment and seems poised for further losses. You emphasize emulation but the primary use case of such laptops will be the browser (https://xkcd.com/1367/), and both Firefox and Chrome will have a native ARM path very shortly (https://www.anandtech.com/show/14201/firefox-beta-...https://twitter.com/sinclairinator/status/11149820... This will be comparable in performance to Intel's solutions but far more compelling in energy efficiency.
For this form factor, portability, power efficiency and connectivity are more compelling than power, and I think it's better to think of these devices as essentially ARM tablets with x86 compatibility as a feature. Even if you want actual performance, you wouldn't go to an Intel laptop with a similar form factor and power envelope; instead, you'd go to a dramatically different power envelop with a desktop.
process lead doesnt matter as much as people think anymore. if they dont get a new node into major production soon they will be in trouble but with a solid architecture they can easily compete with 3 or 5 nm on 10nm
You mentioned that Lakefield has several advantages, but you don't mention a single one.
You talked a lot about Sunny Cove vs Skylake, but those are higher power (as in electrical power) cores, so not really a comparison. You could just as well claim that an i9-9900K is better than this AMR chip.
I agree with you : I would prefer a fanless (quiet) and much longer battery life computer, and if most of the time (95%+) I spent using my computer on a regular basis are with apps are optimized to run natively ARM processor, I am all in for an ARM based computer.
The operating system (Windows 10), the office suite Microsoft Office are already optimized to run natively on ARM processor.
I read somewhere that there is some work done to port internet browser Chrome and Firefox on ARM processor.
There is already a version of the videoplayer VLC optimized for ARM.
Until x86 apps are not too sluggish when using the emulation layer (= if performance is good enough), then I would happily consider buying a Windows on ARM (WoA) computer...
I am actually really looking forward to see tests and benchmark of Windows computer that have the processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx : it looks promising, but it may still need 1 or 2 more years to mature a bit...
Once high performance browsers like Firefox and Chrome are ported to native ARM (soon), these laptops will offer most of the functionality required for many consumers at typical laptop speeds; for casual and mobile use, most applications run on top of web browsers. These laptops will also offer good compatibility with x86 apps as well which iOS and Android tablets don't, along with the same good battery life, instant on and connectivity. I think a Snapdragon 8cx based laptop would suit my purposes great.
@Raqia : I am looking for to replace a 2011 Apple Macbook Air, and due to the poor decisions of the current Apple management on the butterfly keyboard, and lack of usefull innovation, I am considering to buy a Windows laptop.
I don’t need a powerfull laptop but I would like the laptop to have : 1. reasonably good responsiveness (low latency data storage)
2. preferably high battery autonomy (> 8 / 10 hours real usage in semi intensive workload (video-streaming of video on Netflix through WIFI / cellular network)
3. preferably fanless design to be quiet : I don’t like to hear the fan kick in when watching a video
5. preferably at least 2 x USB-C Thunderbolt 3 connectors
6. preferably an OLED display for deep black with 3:2 ratio
So I also think that a laptop or a 2-in-1 computer based on the future Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx that should be on the market in H2 2019 / H1 2020 would allow to have sufficient (but still in the low end) performance when emulating x86 applications, and from there, suit my purposes great : I was hoping that Huawei Matebook E (2019) would be based on it...
I hope that Huawei would consider doing the 13.9-inch Matebook X Pro 2019 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx, or a version of the Matebook E with it.
Alternatively, a Microsoft Surface Pro or Microsoft Surface laptop with a Snapdragon 8cx would be very appealing to me...
think as well that a Snapdragon 8cx based laptop would suit my purposes great
1. Avoid a sub-par Mac keyboard by buying a wholly sub-par Windows laptop 2. Pay a $200 ARM tablet price but get an OLED screen from a $3000 laptop 3. Fanless low-power laptop but with two high-performance TB3 ports (for those 5K screens and external multi-drive solutions)
lol I agree. The best tablet screens (for a yet reasonable price) are currently the IPS screens on iPPs, and low power SoCs have very limited TB lanes.
Windows laptops are subpar? This is 2019, not 2009. Many products have caught up and even surpassed Macs, especially given the latter's polarizing keyboard design and lack of ports
1. I would say that the issue with the butterfly keyboard is that during ALL the lifetime of the usage of the Mac computer, it will be painfull to use, and there is even a high likelyhood that it would get worse with time due to mechanical issues that are very likely to happen at some stage after 2 years / 3 years / 4 years,... of usage.
2. For the ports, I would agree that, as of April 2019, it is an annoyance as you will likely need an external hub to connect USB-A devices, Ethernet devices or else.
But the difference is that, as time goes on, in 1 year / 2 years / 3 years..., this may become less and less an issue as more and more device will have USB-C connectivity : so at the moment, it may be more a (long) temporary annoyance but it could get less annoying with time...
1. The issue with the butterfly keyboard on Apple computers is that it makes the user experience of the whole laptop poor.
Sure, you can plug an external keyboard on a Apple laptop to work around thus issue, but it is not practical when you are traveling with the laptop.
In the last 8 years, I have been exclusively using Apple laptops but I would think that the Windows 10 OS experience would be good enough for my usage, even though, I agree less good than Mac OS.
2. I didn’t say that I wanted to pay 200$ for an ARM based 2-in-one or laptop computer with an OLED display : in fact, it is the opposite as, on a personal basis, I am ready to pay 100$ / 200$ premium for this (but to be honest, I think I would be part of a minority of people willing to do, and from there, as of 2019, it is unlikely to make economic sense for computer manufacturers).
3. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor as 4 x PCIe 3.0 lanes and is with compatible NVMe. So it may be possible to have a fast NVMe SSD inside a device with this processor, and with Thunderbolt 3 ports, you could benefit of faster transfer rates.
Also, I think that Thunderbolt 3.0 may allow to benefit of external display at 4K / 60 frames per second (fps)
Thunderbolt 3.0 is just more polyvalent than USB-C, and open options that may not be available with only USB-C...
It is actually quite the opposite : a ARM based computer with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx (or future, more powerfull version of it) would have the advantages of using full Microsoft Windows 10 system compiled for ARM64 architecture, AND also allow to re-use x86 applications developped for Windows.
Sure the x86 applications will need to use an emulation layer, but if the Qualcomm processor AND Windows emulation layer are optimized enough for this, then the end user experience could be good enough when using those applications.
In My Opinion (IMO), it is a much better way for Windows computers to handle the transition from a x86 processor to ARM64 processor, giving some time to the developper to catch-up and develop applications also optimized for ARM64 processor...
The only thing is that, from my point of view, this makes sense if ARM processors are used in stay fanless and less heat dissipation computers compare to Intel processors, where as of 2019, Intel processors still doesn’t correctly perform
Yeah. Forced to use Windows 10 forever, without access to any normal programmes, thereby removing the main reason people use Windows. It sounds like a hellish pile of junk.
Huawei doesn't have experience working with other OEMs and platforms, and it would take quite a bit of new work for Huawei to write bootloaders, as well as schedulers and drivers that both performed well and in an energy efficient way with Windows. Qualcomm by comparison has had several generations of experience working with various configurations including Windows as evidenced by their bootloader:
Price is going to be king here. If ARM machines are going to be every bit as expensive as x86 then I don't see many people switching, even if the battery life is better. Has to provide a great value proposition in comparison, like Chromebooks used to without the Windows licencing fees.
The Samsung version is $1000, seems high, especially when I think of these things as competing in the same space as a $400 netbook. Perhaps I'm underestimating the performance.
Going by the specs, you should rather compare it to a Surface Go which starts at $399 (not including the type cover) and comes with a rather anemic CPU and no LTE connectivity.
If you want that, you are already at $679 and still have a worse screen and no type cover.
I don’t understand why they are waiting for Windows to deliver that hardware. These days most of what you need to be productive on a notebook is quite capably delivered also by a “normal” Linux desktop or Linux running an Android user-land: Mostly browsers and an office suite. Firefox or Chromium *do* run natively on Android and on Ubuntu ARM64 (or Fedora for that matter) and with a Cinnamon desktop the switch between a ‘sane’ Windows 10 (with Classic Shell) and Linux is much less of a ‘culture shock’ than say MacOS (Gnome for ex-Mac’s works, too).
I am running both Android-x86-64 via a Phoenix desktop and AMD64 Ubuntu with Cinnamon on Atom desktops and notebooks and I am also running a native ARM64 Cinnamon on the Nvidia Jetson Nano at 4k. All are quite capable of sustaining a normal bureaucratic workload, while Atoms and the cut-down Tegra X1 are significantly slower than a Snapdragon 850 (or even an 820 for that matter).
Getting Ubuntu for ARM64 to run Android applications should really be little more than a finger exercise, when it’s already fairly well working on x86 with Anbox (where you still need to add emulation in the other direction to run ARM native code on x86) and that opens up the use of Microsoft Office for Android on Ubuntu for those who insist, only Microsoft can do Office properly.
My impression is that Microsoft is banging the Windows on ARM drum so much is that they are very much afraid that Snapdragon CPUs might actually gain Linux the type of headway on the desktop, that they have worked very hard to avoid on x86. If you really need native Windows, I’d say you’re much better running that on VDI or terminal services, for which clients exist on every OS.
I believe the Microsoft AppStore monopoly already is a significant reason to avoid Windows on ARM like the pest, but on top I believe vendors and consumers are making a serious mistake waiting for Windows on ARM to catch up before selling/buying seriously capable Linux desktop hardware in an ultrabook form factor at better performance/power specs than anything that Intel and Microsoft can deliver.
Of course it would help if vendors wouldn't try to sell these ultrabooks at i7 prices. Well, sure, go ahead and sell some magnesium premium to those who like to throw their money around, but please, pretty please, also sell a variant with lots more plastic, 12 hour battery, good-enough keyboard and display for the price of an Atom notebook.
Actually a Chuwi 12.3 with Snapdragon 835-855 would do just fine for me at the same price point as the Atom variant (without Windows of course).
Linux is a very tough sell for most consumers. As soon as the solution to a problem involves going to the terminal, you've lost 99% of users.
I run Mint with KDE on one of my laptops, and most of the time it works well enough that I could recommend it to a normal user. However, every once in a while I'll run into weird issues that require a lot of Googling and fiddling to fix. Most recently, my CPU stopped using its turbo frequencies. Fixing it required editing a config file after doing a bunch of diagnostics in the terminal. It was annoying for me to fix, but it would have been nearly impossible for most of my family to fix.
I don't get this segment. These machines end up being as expensive as last year's Surface Pro, so it's not a value proposition and then you're giving up massive amounts of performance and functionality so you can stay unplugged for a couple more hours?
OTOH, if you're looking for that long battery life and are willing to go with the "ACPC" form factor then why not buy a chrome book, which was custom built for that purpose from day one.
From a purely technical point of view I'd agree. Especially if they were to sell a Chromebook with a recent Snapdragon.
But a Chromebook is more of a Google terminal than a Personal Computer: I want them broken into more mini-Bells than there are letters in Alphabet, not owning my personal data.
So if I could convert such a Chromebook into a Google-less PC at say $300-400, I'd hit the order button right now.
Would it be able to emulate old/light games, created in Win98-WinXP-Win7 era that run on Win10, without any issue? Like Fallout1/2, Heroes3, Nolf2, FTL?
Here yet another possible reason for Huawei using the SD 850 instead of their Kirin: If this whole "Windows on ARM" thing goes down in flames, the Kirin brand name won't be tarnished by that potential fiasco. If Windows on ARM takes off, Huawei can start using its own chips in the next iteration of ultralight portable laptops and 2-in-1s.
WOA could be the next revolution. Contrary to the past, top ARM CPUs are already on par with the best Intel 15w CPUs... And now with Chrome and Firefox onboard, and Windows and Office already there, a lot will be native. The make or break thing will be the price. If these laptops are priced competitively they could be the next revolution. It's not just battery life, stand-by time is a major thing... The time to ditch Intel cannot come soon enough...
ARM high performance only has great speed in benchmarks.. For around 30 seconds. Then, they are slow..... And the battery life isn't better than Intel at all.... Just ignorant people think ARM is more power efficient. They are only when speed is much lower. Intel's LATEST 14nm Whiskey Lake is *much* faster and more power efficient than ipad A12x. See Mate Book pro X powered by Whiskey Lake vs ipad pro. No OS, even they didn't use Intel's iGPU and low power display. Its battery is smaller than ipad pro. And it has the same Wattages without trottlng..
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FSWKU - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
So, because it's running Windows, you're unable to use the normal applications you'd expect to have on a tablet.But because it's an ARM-derived architecture, it's not compatible the x86/64 applications you'd expect to be able to use on Windows, meaning you're stuck with whatever they decide to build and put on the Windows Store.
What's the point of this again? It looks like the worst of all worlds.
peterfares - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
Windows 10 on ARM has supported x86 programs through a compatibility layer since its release. Not x64 programs though, but most things are available in x86.FSWKU - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
Then you have the performance hit from translating the instructions into something the Snapdragon knows what to do with. They can claim "near native" performance all they want, but there's always going to be a slowdown when translating instructions between two different architectures. It might not be a dealbreaker for some people, but it WILL be noticeable.Not to mention the inevitable hit to that "up to 20 hour" battery life if you're making the CPU work harder all the time.
Calista - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
A lot of the apps we can expect to be used on a solution such as this have very low performance demands. If you need high performance - pick something else. So what if some things will be a bit slow, as long as 98 percent of the time I spend are with programs running natively on ARM I would be perfectly happy. Especially so if it means double the battery life as compared to x86.HStewart - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
The big problem with these device that most consumer - not technical geeks - are naïve to the designed of these devices and will attempt to run their x86 application and they will think it problem with the application but it actually because of emulation.But I believe this is only temporary, Intel Lakefield has several advantages over these ARM emulators - or can we say Windows RT 2.0, Lake field combines a Sunny Cove core which is unlike Skylake cores and has more cache and execution units. I find to most interesting about Sunny Cove is that Intel added addition store unit on process - so instead having two load units and single store unit Sunny Cove has two of each and most important it appears in different frame of execution. I believe with limited knowledge from 80's of CPU design at Georgia Tech that this designed allow execution in parallel better on the same CPU. I would be curious about the performance increase in Sunny Cove architecture alone, but would expect it is significant.
Also Lakefield has 3 smaller cores - these are likely unlike Atom's today but a next generation but designed for efficiency. I would hope with modifications of the kernel this means the background tasks will run on these cores while the main processor runs on the Sunny Cove based core.
Also significant about the Lakefield is the packaging which is next generation of EMiB but this time Intel has gone vertical which allows more components in smaller space.
But I think that the real advantage of Sunny Cove will be seem in higher end processors - but that is yet to be seen.
The funny thing about Windows for ARM ( or Windows for Qualcomm ) is Microsoft, why have Microsoft not release a laptop with it - maybe they don't want to relive the bad reception of the earlier version of which Windows RT.
Raqia - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
Intel has lost the process lead, and it will show more and more as time goes on as they resort to more expensive packaging solutions to try to close the gap by reallocating older process node capacity alongside delayed or not fully functional newer process nodes. I do think it's compelling for higher end solutions as you say, but Intel has already lost the lower power segment and seems poised for further losses. You emphasize emulation but the primary use case of such laptops will be the browser (https://xkcd.com/1367/), and both Firefox and Chrome will have a native ARM path very shortly (https://www.anandtech.com/show/14201/firefox-beta-... https://twitter.com/sinclairinator/status/11149820... This will be comparable in performance to Intel's solutions but far more compelling in energy efficiency.For this form factor, portability, power efficiency and connectivity are more compelling than power, and I think it's better to think of these devices as essentially ARM tablets with x86 compatibility as a feature. Even if you want actual performance, you wouldn't go to an Intel laptop with a similar form factor and power envelope; instead, you'd go to a dramatically different power envelop with a desktop.
HStewart - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
I think you are talking about the past - Lakefield is a future cpu.,ARM is good for some tablet and phones - this is majority a gaming site would you trust one o latest games to ARM CPU - no.
Opencg - Sunday, April 14, 2019 - link
process lead doesnt matter as much as people think anymore. if they dont get a new node into major production soon they will be in trouble but with a solid architecture they can easily compete with 3 or 5 nm on 10nmZoolook13 - Monday, April 15, 2019 - link
They have to get 10nm up and running first, and no it isn't until they can ship larger processors with working integrated gpu's.ajp_anton - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
You mentioned that Lakefield has several advantages, but you don't mention a single one.You talked a lot about Sunny Cove vs Skylake, but those are higher power (as in electrical power) cores, so not really a comparison. You could just as well claim that an i9-9900K is better than this AMR chip.
Diogene7 - Saturday, April 13, 2019 - link
@CalistaI agree with you : I would prefer a fanless (quiet) and much longer battery life computer, and if most of the time (95%+) I spent using my computer on a regular basis are with apps are optimized to run natively ARM processor, I am all in for an ARM based computer.
The operating system (Windows 10), the office suite Microsoft Office are already optimized to run natively on ARM processor.
I read somewhere that there is some work done to port internet browser Chrome and Firefox on ARM processor.
There is already a version of the videoplayer VLC optimized for ARM.
Until x86 apps are not too sluggish when using the emulation layer (= if performance is good enough), then I would happily consider buying a Windows on ARM (WoA) computer...
I am actually really looking forward to see tests and benchmark of Windows computer that have the processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx : it looks promising, but it may still need 1 or 2 more years to mature a bit...
s.yu - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
I haven't found any 850 powered device that doesn't have performance issues in fact, those were out last year, and now this...coschizza - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
x64 is supportedRaqia - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
Once high performance browsers like Firefox and Chrome are ported to native ARM (soon), these laptops will offer most of the functionality required for many consumers at typical laptop speeds; for casual and mobile use, most applications run on top of web browsers. These laptops will also offer good compatibility with x86 apps as well which iOS and Android tablets don't, along with the same good battery life, instant on and connectivity. I think a Snapdragon 8cx based laptop would suit my purposes great.Diogene7 - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
@Raqia : I am looking for to replace a 2011 Apple Macbook Air, and due to the poor decisions of the current Apple management on the butterfly keyboard, and lack of usefull innovation, I am considering to buy a Windows laptop.I don’t need a powerfull laptop but I would like the laptop to have :
1. reasonably good responsiveness (low latency data storage)
2. preferably high battery autonomy (> 8 / 10 hours real usage in semi intensive workload (video-streaming of video on Netflix through WIFI / cellular network)
3. preferably fanless design to be quiet : I don’t like to hear the fan kick in when watching a video
4. preferably 4G Gigabit LTE cellular connectivity
5. preferably at least 2 x USB-C Thunderbolt 3 connectors
6. preferably an OLED display for deep black with 3:2 ratio
So I also think that a laptop or a 2-in-1 computer based on the future Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx that should be on the market in H2 2019 / H1 2020 would allow to have sufficient (but still in the low end) performance when emulating x86 applications, and from there, suit my purposes great : I was hoping that Huawei Matebook E (2019) would be based on it...
I hope that Huawei would consider doing the 13.9-inch Matebook X Pro 2019 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx, or a version of the Matebook E with it.
Alternatively, a Microsoft Surface Pro or Microsoft Surface laptop with a Snapdragon 8cx would be very appealing to me...
think as well that a Snapdragon 8cx based laptop would suit my purposes great
not_anton - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
@Diogene7You want to:
1. Avoid a sub-par Mac keyboard by buying a wholly sub-par Windows laptop
2. Pay a $200 ARM tablet price but get an OLED screen from a $3000 laptop
3. Fanless low-power laptop but with two high-performance TB3 ports (for those 5K screens and external multi-drive solutions)
What's wrong with you people?
s.yu - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
lol I agree. The best tablet screens (for a yet reasonable price) are currently the IPS screens on iPPs, and low power SoCs have very limited TB lanes.Retycint - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Windows laptops are subpar? This is 2019, not 2009. Many products have caught up and even surpassed Macs, especially given the latter's polarizing keyboard design and lack of portsDiogene7 - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
@Retycint1. I would say that the issue with the butterfly keyboard is that during ALL the lifetime of the usage of the Mac computer, it will be painfull to use, and there is even a high likelyhood that it would get worse with time due to mechanical issues that are very likely to happen at some stage after 2 years / 3 years / 4 years,... of usage.
2. For the ports, I would agree that, as of April 2019, it is an annoyance as you will likely need an external hub to connect USB-A devices, Ethernet devices or else.
But the difference is that, as time goes on, in 1 year / 2 years / 3 years..., this may become less and less an issue as more and more device will have USB-C connectivity : so at the moment, it may be more a (long) temporary annoyance but it could get less annoying with time...
Diogene7 - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
@not_anton1. The issue with the butterfly keyboard on Apple computers is that it makes the user experience of the whole laptop poor.
Sure, you can plug an external keyboard on a Apple laptop to work around thus issue, but it is not practical when you are traveling with the laptop.
In the last 8 years, I have been exclusively using Apple laptops but I would think that the Windows 10 OS experience would be good enough for my usage, even though, I agree less good than Mac OS.
2. I didn’t say that I wanted to pay 200$ for an ARM based 2-in-one or laptop computer with an OLED display : in fact, it is the opposite as, on a personal basis, I am ready to pay 100$ / 200$ premium for this (but to be honest, I think I would be part of a minority of people willing to do, and from there, as of 2019, it is unlikely to make economic sense for computer manufacturers).
3. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor as 4 x PCIe 3.0 lanes and is with compatible NVMe. So it may be possible to have a fast NVMe SSD inside a device with this processor, and with Thunderbolt 3 ports, you could benefit of faster transfer rates.
Also, I think that Thunderbolt 3.0 may allow to benefit of external display at 4K / 60 frames per second (fps)
Thunderbolt 3.0 is just more polyvalent than USB-C, and open options that may not be available with only USB-C...
beginner99 - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Came here to say this. Why would you want this device? It loses the advantages windows x86 while gaining nothing. Would make more sense to use Linux.Diogene7 - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
@beginner99It is actually quite the opposite : a ARM based computer with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx (or future, more powerfull version of it) would have the advantages of using full Microsoft Windows 10 system compiled for ARM64 architecture, AND also allow to re-use x86 applications developped for Windows.
Sure the x86 applications will need to use an emulation layer, but if the Qualcomm processor AND Windows emulation layer are optimized enough for this, then the end user experience could be good enough when using those applications.
In My Opinion (IMO), it is a much better way for Windows computers to handle the transition from a x86 processor to ARM64 processor, giving some time to the developper to catch-up and develop applications also optimized for ARM64 processor...
The only thing is that, from my point of view, this makes sense if ARM processors are used in stay fanless and less heat dissipation computers compare to Intel processors, where as of 2019, Intel processors still doesn’t correctly perform
piroroadkill - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Yeah. Forced to use Windows 10 forever, without access to any normal programmes, thereby removing the main reason people use Windows. It sounds like a hellish pile of junk.Raqia - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
>Why not Kirin?Huawei doesn't have experience working with other OEMs and platforms, and it would take quite a bit of new work for Huawei to write bootloaders, as well as schedulers and drivers that both performed well and in an energy efficient way with Windows. Qualcomm by comparison has had several generations of experience working with various configurations including Windows as evidenced by their bootloader:
https://worthdoingbadly.com/qcomxbl/
Raqia - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
P.S. Samsung came to the same conclusion:https://www.anandtech.com/show/13498/samsung-unvei...
Irata - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Huawei did a very good job with their Ryzen powered Matebook, something large OEM appear to have a problem with.While this particular model is most likely not for me, I am actually quite confident they will get it right.
tipoo - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
Price is going to be king here. If ARM machines are going to be every bit as expensive as x86 then I don't see many people switching, even if the battery life is better. Has to provide a great value proposition in comparison, like Chromebooks used to without the Windows licencing fees.stephenbrooks - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
The Samsung version is $1000, seems high, especially when I think of these things as competing in the same space as a $400 netbook. Perhaps I'm underestimating the performance.Irata - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Going by the specs, you should rather compare it to a Surface Go which starts at $399 (not including the type cover) and comes with a rather anemic CPU and no LTE connectivity.If you want that, you are already at $679 and still have a worse screen and no type cover.
HStewart - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
I would think Chromebook would make a better platform for these chips - don't have to worry about x86 compatible.abufrejoval - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
I don’t understand why they are waiting for Windows to deliver that hardware. These days most of what you need to be productive on a notebook is quite capably delivered also by a “normal” Linux desktop or Linux running an Android user-land: Mostly browsers and an office suite. Firefox or Chromium *do* run natively on Android and on Ubuntu ARM64 (or Fedora for that matter) and with a Cinnamon desktop the switch between a ‘sane’ Windows 10 (with Classic Shell) and Linux is much less of a ‘culture shock’ than say MacOS (Gnome for ex-Mac’s works, too).I am running both Android-x86-64 via a Phoenix desktop and AMD64 Ubuntu with Cinnamon on Atom desktops and notebooks and I am also running a native ARM64 Cinnamon on the Nvidia Jetson Nano at 4k. All are quite capable of sustaining a normal bureaucratic workload, while Atoms and the cut-down Tegra X1 are significantly slower than a Snapdragon 850 (or even an 820 for that matter).
Getting Ubuntu for ARM64 to run Android applications should really be little more than a finger exercise, when it’s already fairly well working on x86 with Anbox (where you still need to add emulation in the other direction to run ARM native code on x86) and that opens up the use of Microsoft Office for Android on Ubuntu for those who insist, only Microsoft can do Office properly.
My impression is that Microsoft is banging the Windows on ARM drum so much is that they are very much afraid that Snapdragon CPUs might actually gain Linux the type of headway on the desktop, that they have worked very hard to avoid on x86. If you really need native Windows, I’d say you’re much better running that on VDI or terminal services, for which clients exist on every OS.
I believe the Microsoft AppStore monopoly already is a significant reason to avoid Windows on ARM like the pest, but on top I believe vendors and consumers are making a serious mistake waiting for Windows on ARM to catch up before selling/buying seriously capable Linux desktop hardware in an ultrabook form factor at better performance/power specs than anything that Intel and Microsoft can deliver.
Of course it would help if vendors wouldn't try to sell these ultrabooks at i7 prices. Well, sure, go ahead and sell some magnesium premium to those who like to throw their money around, but please, pretty please, also sell a variant with lots more plastic, 12 hour battery, good-enough keyboard and display for the price of an Atom notebook.
Actually a Chuwi 12.3 with Snapdragon 835-855 would do just fine for me at the same price point as the Atom variant (without Windows of course).
cfenton - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Linux is a very tough sell for most consumers. As soon as the solution to a problem involves going to the terminal, you've lost 99% of users.I run Mint with KDE on one of my laptops, and most of the time it works well enough that I could recommend it to a normal user. However, every once in a while I'll run into weird issues that require a lot of Googling and fiddling to fix. Most recently, my CPU stopped using its turbo frequencies. Fixing it required editing a config file after doing a bunch of diagnostics in the terminal. It was annoying for me to fix, but it would have been nearly impossible for most of my family to fix.
sorten - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
I don't get this segment. These machines end up being as expensive as last year's Surface Pro, so it's not a value proposition and then you're giving up massive amounts of performance and functionality so you can stay unplugged for a couple more hours?OTOH, if you're looking for that long battery life and are willing to go with the "ACPC" form factor then why not buy a chrome book, which was custom built for that purpose from day one.
abufrejoval - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
From a purely technical point of view I'd agree. Especially if they were to sell a Chromebook with a recent Snapdragon.But a Chromebook is more of a Google terminal than a Personal Computer: I want them broken into more mini-Bells than there are letters in Alphabet, not owning my personal data.
So if I could convert such a Chromebook into a Google-less PC at say $300-400, I'd hit the order button right now.
neblogai - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Would it be able to emulate old/light games, created in Win98-WinXP-Win7 era that run on Win10, without any issue? Like Fallout1/2, Heroes3, Nolf2, FTL?eastcoast_pete - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Here yet another possible reason for Huawei using the SD 850 instead of their Kirin: If this whole "Windows on ARM" thing goes down in flames, the Kirin brand name won't be tarnished by that potential fiasco. If Windows on ARM takes off, Huawei can start using its own chips in the next iteration of ultralight portable laptops and 2-in-1s.edzieba - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
I don't see this going any better than every single previous Windows on ARM attempt has.digiguy - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
WOA could be the next revolution. Contrary to the past, top ARM CPUs are already on par with the best Intel 15w CPUs... And now with Chrome and Firefox onboard, and Windows and Office already there, a lot will be native. The make or break thing will be the price. If these laptops are priced competitively they could be the next revolution. It's not just battery life, stand-by time is a major thing... The time to ditch Intel cannot come soon enough...nobodyblog - Sunday, April 14, 2019 - link
ARM high performance only has great speed in benchmarks.. For around 30 seconds. Then, they are slow..... And the battery life isn't better than Intel at all.... Just ignorant people think ARM is more power efficient. They are only when speed is much lower. Intel's LATEST 14nm Whiskey Lake is *much* faster and more power efficient than ipad A12x. See Mate Book pro X powered by Whiskey Lake vs ipad pro. No OS, even they didn't use Intel's iGPU and low power display. Its battery is smaller than ipad pro. And it has the same Wattages without trottlng..