What can you expect from \u00ab\u00a0the most extreme Snapdragon\u00a0\u00bb ever to be found in a notebook? Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx reference designs may not stand out at first<\/b>
\nWhat can you expect from \u201cthe most extreme Snapdragon\u201d ever to be found in a notebook? Qualcomm\u2019s Snapdragon 8cx reference designs may not stand out at first glance \u2013 think sober Lenovo Yoga-esque convertibles, fanless and unobtrusive with their metallic grey casings \u2013 but make no mistake, this is a big deal in connected, ultra mobile computing.
Qualcomm isn\u2019t shy about talking up the Snapdragon 8cx\u2019s potency, certainly. Twice as powerful as before, despite also being 60-percent more power efficient, it checks all the existing Windows on Arm boxes of multi-day battery life and always-on connectivity. However it also marks a tipping point from the consumer-centric focus we\u2019ve seen so far, to aggressively courting enterprise customers with deep pockets.
That makes sense in a lot of ways. Consumers traditionally blanch at spending money \u2013 or even signing up to a commitment \u2013 for integrated cellular connectivity in a laptop. Business buyers are far more comfortable, if it means their employees can be more productive in turn.
Meanwhile the Snapdragon 8cx\u2019s support for Windows 10 Enterprise and straightforward deployment features like remote eSIM provisioning will make managing a fleet of devices more straightforward. The fact that the 8cx will be Qualcomm\u2019s higher-tier, premium option, coexisting \u2013 and more expensive than \u2013 Snapdragon 850-based notebooks should also be more readily accepted by enterprise users.
That\u2019s not to say there\u2019s nothing here for consumers to look forward to. Indeed, just as business users will benefit from an extra turn of speed and improvements in connectivity, so people looking to replace their x86 notebook (or maybe even an iOS or Android tablet) should reap rewards, too.
Two things stand out. First is the Snapdragon 8cx reference design\u2019s ability to drive external displays. Whereas originally the Snapdragon 835 could power a single 4K panel connected to a Windows on Arm notebook, that\u2019s been kicked up considerable by the new chipset. In fact, you can now run two 4K HDR panels, as well as up to a 4K HDR screen on the laptop itself.
As we\u2019ve seen from ultramobile-focused GPUs before, mind, there\u2019s can be a big difference between supporting that sort out display output on a spec sheet and how it works in practice. Qualcomm\u2019s reference design, though, handled it impressively smoothly \u2013 especially when you consider just how early in the product cycle this hardware and software is. Hardware video acceleration on the Adreno 680 for 4K HDR at up to 120 fps clearly helps, there.
The other promising feature is Firefox. Mozilla\u2019s browser isn\u2019t new on Windows on Arm, but native support for Arm chipsets rather than emulation of an x86 version is. The upside to that should be a considerable improvement in performance and energy efficiency.
Again, it\u2019s important to remember \u2013 and Qualcomm\u2019s team were at pains to point out \u2013 that this is still a work-in-progress. Nonetheless even at this relatively early stage there\u2019s a notable change in how smoothly Firefox runs. Loaded up with 5-10 tabs for things like YouTube, Gmail, news sites, and more, there were none of the forced refreshes you can sometimes encounter on Firefox currently, and \u2013 while not entirely smooth \u2013 scrolling was much less jumpy.
Of course, there are a couple of factors in play, here. While native Firefox support for the Snapdragon 8cx\u2019s octacore processor undoubtedly helps, there\u2019s also the fact that the new mobile platform is just plain faster than the Snapdragon 850. As much as double the performance, indeed, Qualcomm says. Without a Snapdragon 850-based notebook to compare side-by-side, it\u2019s tough to say how much of the Firefox improvements have been down to the new software, and how much the new CPU has contributed.
It\u2019s clearly very early days for the Snapdragon 8cx. Third-party laptops are conspicuous by their absence: according to a Qualcomm representative, manufacturers simply haven\u2019t built any yet. The new chipset is shipping to device-makers, but commercial availability isn\u2019t expected until Q3 2019 at the earliest.
That gives plenty of time for the Firefox engine to be optimized, and indeed for Chromium \u2013 which wasn\u2019t available to demonstrate today \u2013 to be prepared. Qualcomm\u2019s list of third-party software and services that Windows on Arm will support by the time the Snapdragon 8cx arrives is considerable, too. That bodes well for it as a platform; now we just need commitment from device manufacturers \u2013 and some indication of price \u2013 to know how well it might seal the deal.<\/p>\n