QUALCOMM

Qualcomm Unveils First Snapdragon Chip For Windows 10 PCs

Always-Connected PCs are the new fashion in the tech-town. As we know, these devices run Windows and are based on Arm’s processor architecture. Recently, Arm announced their latest processor architectures to power the Always-Connected PCs.
At Computex 2018, Qualcomm has announced their first Snapdragon mobile platform that’s intended for Windows 10 PCs running on Arm, mostly 2-in-1 devices.
There aren’t any big differences. Snapdragon 850 also features the octa-core Kryo 385 CPU but with an increased clock speed of 2.96Ghz which makes it around 30% faster in overall performance. The chip also delivers about three times improvement in the AI performance.
The onboard X20 modem on Snapdragon 850 could deliver around 1.2Gbps speeds. It comes with support for HDR displays and 4K video recording.
One thing in the spec sheets that would amaze you is the support for battery life up to 25 hours. But, real-life conditions may be different.
However, it’s still better because an average Intel-powered Windows laptop lasts around 5-6 hours. Also, a 25-hour battery life is almost equivalent to a smartphone these days.
So, the latest SoC is an improvement over Snapdragon 835 with various software tweaks done to optimize it for Windows 10. These “Always On, Always Connected” devices have to run powerful apps like Adobe Photoshop.
Qualcomm said Always Connected PCs powered by Snapdragon 850 are expected to arrive later this year. Samsung is one of the device makers working on a 2-in-1 device powered by 850.


Aditya Tiwari