News Snapdragon X Elite laptops last 15+ hours on our battery test, but Intel systems not that far behind

[abufrejoval]

Anyway, maybe I'm a little slow, but I think I picked up on a key detail. It seems the OLED models are at a disadvantage in runtime. If we divide their battery capacity by their runtime (in hours), we get the average power dissipation, which is pretty comparable among the lot. Furthermore, it paints the lowest performer in a decidedly better light.

I'm afraid that OLED vs. other panel types (except passive) is one of those things that is making comparisons difficult if not impossible, because it depends on what's on the screen.

"Dark mode" is becoming so popular, because black pixels cost no energy to illuminate on OLED, my old eyes suffered from monochrome letters on black CRTs for far too many years to see anything but paperwhite backgrounds as progress.

I believe modern OLEDs also support variable refreshes much more easily, another important energy saver when you're staring for hours at your code to find the error (and Copilot doesn't either).

So an OLED with nothing "...running benchmark..." on the center of a black screen, might manage with a few milliwatts for weeks.

And then display that over everthing for rest of the devices life time, because of burn-in, but that's another story: what's the energy cost of the burn-in compensation schemes?

 

[bit_user]

I'm afraid that OLED vs. other panel types (except passive) is one of those things that is making comparisons difficult if not impossible, because it depends on what's on the screen.

They claimed it's running some sort of a web browsing benchmark. So, I assume it has one or more browser windows pointing at a (hopefully) static snapshot of web pages and is running a pre-programmed click pattern through them.

"Dark mode" is becoming so popular, because black pixels cost no energy to illuminate on OLED, my old eyes suffered from monochrome letters on black CRTs for far too many years to see anything but paperwhite backgrounds as progress.

I'd hope it's just running the Windows default color scheme.

 

[cyrusfox]

With the advent of GaN chargers that are tiny, and provide 65W anywhere (As well as cheap and abundant battery banks supplying the same). The appeal/need of 12+ hour battery life is lost on me. The main benefit I see is a cool running system that can handle work without getting too hot, but that is more of a build quality issue. The X-elite is a soft launch to try and capitalize on Microsoft free press trying to push AI and copilot🥱

The comparison I care about is all the new 2024 silicon facing off, Lunar, Strix and Qualcomm, and we should get that in the next couple months.

Qualcomm seems to have a decent offering here, but the pricing is too premium for it to get any sizeable market share.

Has anyone done an analysis on the BOM cost? How much silicon is the X-elite using, Ian Cuttress use to do those type of pieces for anandtech.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMcsW-myRCU&t=2s

Perhaps Qualcomm and partners can't afford to price it lower based on Microsoft system requirements to be an "AI PC". I would be interested in a netbook level spec with one of these(or even a handheld/mini desktop), I think that is the killer market. none of the AI crap, just a fancy web browsing machine with all day battery life, useful and competitive against the used market. But as a $1k laptop for an arm windows machine... Good luck!

 

[bit_user]

Qualcomm seems to have a decent offering here, but the pricing is too premium for it to get any sizeable market share.
...
But as a $1k laptop for an arm windows machine... Good luck!

🤯

Um, wow. Just $1k??? I expected you were building to a figure >= $2k, like they tried to do with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. Honestly, $1k for a decent ultrabook is not bad at all! What do their x86 competitors cost?

The X-elite is a soft launch to try and capitalize on Microsoft free press trying to push AI and copilot🥱

If there's hardware available for purchase, then it's not a soft launch!

 

[baboma]

>Has anyone done an analysis on the BOM cost?...Perhaps Qualcomm and partners can't afford to price it lower based on Microsoft system requirements to be an "AI PC".

Laptop pricing isn't cost-based, but is mainly target-based. For this initial WoA launch, the emphasis is on performance & battery life, which explains usage of the top X Elite line as opposed to the lower X Plus or some other SoC. It's also why most of these sport OLED which is a premium part as opposed to just IPS.

The target then is the premium ultraportable segment, which is indeed in the $1K-2K range.

It's SOP for a new category launch to target early adopter demo who are price-insensitive, and more tolerant of compatibility issues. Doing a "value" launch for mainstreamers wouldn't make sense at this point anyway, as compatibility caveats would turn them away even if price points are good.


>I would be interested in a netbook level spec with one of these(or even a handheld/mini desktop), I think that is the killer market.

I agree that yours above would be a compelling use case, although constraints exist. One, a cheaper SoC likely would not come from Qualcomm, but another vendor like MediaTek. That reportedly will happen next year,

https://reuters.com/technology/medi...-microsofts-ai-laptops-say-sources-2024-06-11

A caveat on top of this caveat is that MediaTek's forte is in high-volume, low(er)-margin SoC, and unless this early adopter WoA gen can get traction, MediaTek & associated OEMs may not stick around for Act Two.

Two, SoC cost is only a portion of overall unit (laptop) cost. Other parts (screen, RAM, SSD, etc) cost the same regardless of platform. You can find $400 Wintel laptops that are relatively full-featured, and WoA laptops can only compete if it has sufficient economy of scale (and compatibility issues are ironed out). This goes back to point one, that WoA has to first get traction, THEN get big--both of which are still question marks.

What's not a question is that for both to become true, it will take time--at least a few years. The company doing the heavy lift has to be Microsoft as chief evanglist, and it'll need to be a multi-year effort. I'm not sure if MS has the perseverance, and this won't become an aborted venture like many before it.

Personally, I hope WoA will be a thing, simply for the increased competition. As an investor/betting man, I assign it less than even odds. AI was to be a key driver for WoA, and MS fumbled that ball, so the key pitch is now battery life, which is not that compelling. Both Intel & AMD are hot on WoA trail with LNL & Ryzen AI, respectively.

So, rubbing my rabbit's foot and burning some incense for WoA. But you won't see me putting any money on it at this point.

 

[cyrusfox]

Um, wow. Just $1k??? I expected you were building to a figure >= $2k, like they tried to do with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. Honestly, $1k for a decent ultrabook is not bad at all! What do their x86 competitors cost?

I am probably a unique case here, too cheap when it comes to laptops, been burned when I bought above $1k, never again! I buy used or Christmas specials (unless they are reimbursable, then I go to the dollar limit). Above $600 I am not even looking for a personal purchase. Most current personal laptop is a AMD 4700U, which is nearly 4 years old and still gets 4-6 hours on battery. Besides the occasional USB issue and Windows attempting to stealth install windows 11 constantly, its a great machine.

I have picked up "ultrabooks" for as cheap as $30 (This was an HP elitebook 8GB soldered with an Intel I7-6500u and TB3).Battery for it was an anemic 3-4 hours. For a modern ultrabook, the n100 class from china are more my style than these $1k-2k windows arm machines.

 

[cknobman]

Where is the "Sponsored by Intel" disclaimer

So many variables and usability characteristics not covered here the numbers are meaningless.
As a developer, if I unplug my Intel machine, it is gimped so hard the thing is largely unusable unless I go in and bump up the performance on battery settings manually.
Then the battery is trash in less than 3 hours.

And no its not my particular laptop because I work for 2 different companies both give me Intel laptops from different OEM's and both exhibit the same behavior.

 

[dalek1234]

The "4 - 5 month wait for new laptops" is for Intel only. AMD is releasing Strix Point in the middle of next month. So the wait for AMD's laptops is about for weeks

 

[abufrejoval]

With the advent of GaN chargers that are tiny, and provide 65W anywhere (As well as cheap and abundant battery banks supplying the same). The appeal/need of 12+ hour battery life is lost on me.

I completely understand your perspective and can see myself arguing exactly the same.

And then real life intervenes, you've forgotten the charger and you feel crippled because the "always there" PC isn't.
That sort of feeling tends to stick in your mind for a long time, dopamines overpowering ratio in spades.

And perhaps more so, because it mirrors that previous experience of near constant Battery Angst on phones.
And the giant relief I felt, when that simply stopped being an issue beyond the Snapdragon 820.

There is a real [emotional?] benefit, when you can simply toss "battery capacity management" from the worries of your life. And I for one am ready to spend a couple hundred bucks on just that and consider it a bargain.

I'd never accept that coming at the cost of becoming an iSlave, nor being locked into M$' fruity cult clone. So on top I demand that on Linux or perhaps Qubes or Fuchsia.

 

[bit_user]

I am probably a unique case here, too cheap when it comes to laptops, been burned when I bought above $1k, never again! I buy used or Christmas specials (unless they are reimbursable, then I go to the dollar limit). Above $600 I am not even looking for a personal purchase.

Oh, I definitely draw a distinction between what I'd spend on a laptop vs. what's a reasonable street price for certain specs in something new.

I'm with you: I last bought a laptop in 2017 and got it refurb/new on ebay. Had no issues with it and it's still doing just fine as a streaming device connected to my TV. I went with a basic iGPU Intel model, since I didn't want anything big, heavy, loud, or likely to have driver issues, etc.