A huge leap for Windows on Arm
Qualcomm’s latest Arm processor, the Snapdragon X Elite, is the latest talk of the (tech) town for good reason. Finally, undeterred by 12 years of unsuccessful attempts, Windows on Arm is making a wide stride in the right direction. The Snapdragon X Elite seems to be the long-awaited chip that could put Windows PCs back in contention with Apple’s outstanding Macs and MacBooks in terms of performance, power efficiency, and battery life — while offering affordability as the cherry on top.
Better, but still not there
Not quite like the M1 Macs
While Apple’s M-series powered laptops are unparalleled in many respects, the company has, in the last few years, made its products less and less accessible to consumers, angling instead for creative pros who are willing to pay a lot of money for premium gear. Meanwhile, others — frustrated by the fact that there are still a handful of music production and design apps and plugins out there that either don’t run natively or aren’t properly supported on Mac — are looking to see if Windows is a better option.
Price is still a huge factor
If affordability is a priority, Snapdragon offers great options
Consumers seeking a more affordable alternative to a MacBook may find a few appealing propositions (read: better value for the money) in the Snapdragon X lineup, especially if their daily workload doesn’t often involve heavy graphical tasks.
For heavy graphical workloads, Mac still rules
Users whose daily work involves heavy graphical tasks, such as video editors, graphics designers, and 3D animators, will likely require much more graphical prowess than the Qualcomm Adreno (Snapdragon X Elite’s integrated GPU) can offer. As we mentioned earlier, testing done by The Verge showed that none of the available Snapdragon X Elite models can keep up with the more powerful Apple M3 iGPU.
