News Snapdragon X-powered Surface Laptop 7 gets ‘frequently returned item' warning on Amazon

[Admin]

The Snapdragon X-powered Surface Laptop 7 has been marked with a 'frequently returned item' warning on Amazon.

Snapdragon X-powered Surface Laptop 7 gets ‘frequently returned item' warning on Amazon : Read more

 

[EzzyB]

Not even a little bit surprising. There are usage cases for these early ARM Windows machines, but they aren't going to be for everyone until they mature a bit. At least the (larger than you think) crowd that uses Windows and Windows apps on Apple silicon knows what they're getting into. But there are going to be a certain number of people who buy these not realizing exactly what it is that they're buying and run into problems.

I found a lot of Apple enthusiasts who were actually in the Windows Insider program a couple of years ago and when I asked, they replied that it was the only way they could get Windows for ARM so they could run it on their M-series Macs (surprised me at the time.)

 

[Gururu]

Seems like a solution for no problem.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Compatibility is the biggest thing no doubt, but price has to be another large factor. For upwards of $2000 (Snapdragon X Elite Surface Lapop 7 13.8" model with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD, base price on Amazon, currently $1500 on sale) it's incredibly horrid value. To borrow a chart from TH's sister site Windows Central it's not even the best performing Snapdragon X Elite model, and effectively performs the same as many x86 mobile chips, many of which can be found in cheaper laptops with RTX 4060 or better GPUs and larger screens and/or better battery life.

Snapdragon based Windows laptops have a market, it's the same market the MacBook Air shares, that is primarily people who will be generally be running a limited selection of apps (Adobe, Office, internet, etc), such as students or people who make presentations or sales pitches. The problem is that while you can get a fairly nice M4 MacBook Air for $1000 where everything works, you have to pay more for a Surface Laptop where everything doesn't .

Also again suggesting Microsoft Surface devices be included in all MacBook Air and Pro reviews and vice versa.

 

[hwertz]

Just to point out, fexemu is apparently VERY good, as are the Linux drivers, to the point that you can apparently just throw steam on there and the same games that run on an Intel system run on there.

Since the open source drivers are portable, and Nvidia has had an ARM version of their drivers for over a decade, even an ARM desktop/workstation with video card of choice apparently works well, you can plug in whatever to PCIe, USB, thunderbolt, etc. ports and expect it to work. It does seem a tad unnatural to run an ARM workstation with Intel GPU but it's tested and works (although Nvidia GPU is by far the most common on ones that don't use the integrated Qualcomm or Mali GPU.)

I'm running Ubuntu on a surface now (whatever model came with 7th gen Intel CPU.). It ran everything out of the box but the (weird, using a 7th gen Intel specific camera controller instead of USB) web cam, and the touch screen. I installed a package for adding surface support and those both worked. I turned the screen rez down since running everything at almost 4K then having to run 200% resolution scale to make things big enough seemed silly. and also kicked the crap out of the GPU when gaming. (Deep Rock runs fine with a bit of resolution scaling.)

 

[Brad1]

I love my Surface Pro 11, but I wouldn't blanket recommend it to everyone because the software compatibility concern is real. It fits my needs, which is a PC that has a crazy long battery life (in actual use!) and doesn't sound like a jet engine. I can use my iPhone charger. For gaming and 3D rendering I switch to a tower with a giant Nvidia card.
My Razer laptops were the most versatile, but the weight, power consumption, and noise were a constant frustration. Useless on a plane because the battery life is non-existent and the wattage is too high for a plane outlet.
The only software I'm annoyed about is Adobe Bridge. Pretty much everything else I use works. I was surprised it even handles SketchUp with complicated 3D scenes.

 

[AnandHulk]

Compatibility and reliablity are my number 1 "must have otherwise it's a deal breaker right off the bat items" for any computer.

I am a Surface Laptop 2 user and love it. Waiting for a new Surface Laptop to come out with either Lunar Lake or Arrow Lake, although I think I'd prefer Arrow Lake.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I can tell you we purchased a surface pro x with a snapdragon cpu a few months ago because he had an older surface pro and liked the form factor. Software compatibility was terrible. We ended up returning it and purchased a Dell latitude, it may have been the 7350 detachable. But was basically the same form factor and was using Intel CPUs. We’ve since purchased about 3 of those units. Really Microsoft should develop software similar to Apple’s Rosetta. Until that’s done I can’t recommend the new arm CPUs.

 

[bit_user]

This high return rate is good for those of us who like good deals on refurb stuff. I was going to sit out this generation of Snapdragon X laptops, but I'd probably have to jump at the right deal on a refurb.

My last laptop was similar. I think it was a store demo model or a return. I got it for less than half of the list price and it worked flawlessly and didn't even have any cosmetic blemishes. It arrived in OEM packaging with accessories, so it seemed legit.

 

[hwertz]

*cut*
It fits my needs, which is a PC that has a crazy long battery life (in actual use!) and doesn't sound like a jet engine.
*cut*
My Razer laptops were the most versatile, but the weight, power consumption, and noise were a constant frustration. Useless on a plane because the battery life is non-existent and the wattage is too high for a plane outlet.
*cut*
The only software I'm annoyed about is Adobe Bridge. Pretty much everything else I use works. I was surprised it even handles SketchUp with complicated 3D scenes.

Indeed, I had a Arm Chromebook a few years back (that I threw Chrubuntu on). 22 hour battery life, and 13 hours under FULL load. And it performed very nicely! (It had a Tegra K1 so it had a Nvidia GPU that benched about dead even with a GTX650...unfortunately back then fex didn't exist so some x86/x86-64 stuff ran in qemu but multithreaded apps didn't, so I didn't get to try game after game in wine.) My current machine? 2/3rds the performance of a steam deck, supposedly 3-4 hours battery life but like 45 minutes gaming and MAYBE 1:30 under realistic usage. Ugh.

If you (the "general you") haven't used a portable that actually runs cool, fast, and huge battery life, you're missing out. I'm really looking forward to picking up a used/refurbed one of these (or new if the price drops plenty) at a good cost and throwing Ubuntu on.

And indeed, the Qualcomm GPUs are apparently VERY good. They're apparently a descendent of the mobile Radeon -- when AMD bought ATI, they spun off the mobile unit and Qualcomm ended up with it. It probably isn't even breaking a sweat in SketchUp. Nicely, apprently the Qualcomm Ardredno Mesa 3D driver is right up to par with the AMD one.

 

[bit_user]

And indeed, the Qualcomm GPUs are apparently VERY good. They're apparently a descendent of the mobile Radeon -- when AMD bought ATI, they spun off the mobile unit and Qualcomm ended up with it. It probably isn't even breaking a sweat in SketchUp. Nicely, apprently the Qualcomm Ardredno Mesa 3D driver is right up to par with the AMD one.

Adreno was the IP from ATI's Bitboys, Oy acquisition. The sale to Qualcomm happened well before even the GCN era. It seems reasonable to expect there was some cross-pollination of ideas & knowledge between the teams, but that's probably the extent of it. Any of that would be far overshadowed by what's happened in the meantime. They were only part of ATI for less than 3 years and Qualcomm got them way back in January 2009.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitBoys
​

 

[hwertz]

Adreno was the IP from ATI's Bitboys, Oy acquisition. The sale to Qualcomm happened well before even the GCN era. It seems reasonable to expect there was some cross-pollination of ideas & knowledge between the teams, but that's probably the extent of it. Any of that would be far overshadowed by what's happened in the meantime. They were only part of ATI for less than 3 years and Qualcomm got them way back in January 2009.

​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitBoys​

​

Oh nice. That makes more sense -- I had wondered how they had a nice, clean split between "Radeon" and "Mobile Radeon" developmnt teams, when (similar to with Nvidia devices) the mobile version tends to be largely the same design, just with lower clock speeds and fewer execution units... it would't make sense in that case to have two teams independently developing the new features for the next version of the desktop and mobile GPU lines.

That explains a lot! I didn't realize what Qualcomm got was essentially the devs from Bitboys Oy. Well, it's nice that the results turned out good! My understanding is (for Mesa 3D) both the AMD and Ardreno GPU drivers have 99% coverage -- I think Intel GPU was about 97% coverage or so. As opposed to the "other" GPUs Arms are usually stuck with (Malis and PowerVR-based GPUs) where frankly the drivers tend to suck.

 

[bit_user]

Oh nice. That makes more sense -- I had wondered how they had a nice, clean split between "Radeon" and "Mobile Radeon" developmnt teams, when (similar to with Nvidia devices) the mobile version tends to be largely the same design, just with lower clock speeds and fewer execution units... it would't make sense in that case to have two teams independently developing the new features for the next version of the desktop and mobile GPU lines.

I guess you've also heard that "adreno" is an anagram of "radeon"?

One of the AMD graphics office buildings actually has part of Qualcomm's Adreno team on the second floor. It dates all the way back to when that transfer happened, with some of the folks still working there presumably being former AMD employees.

My understanding is (for Mesa 3D) both the AMD and Ardreno GPU drivers have 99% coverage

But that's more recent. Freedreno started out as a community effort and then Qualcomm eventually got on board.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/MTgyNzM
​

-- I think Intel GPU was about 97% coverage or so. As opposed to the "other" GPUs Arms are usually stuck with (Malis and PowerVR-based GPUs) where frankly the drivers tend to suck.

Keep in mind that Mesa is the open source userspace. It doesn't cover proprietary userspace graphics stacks that are still maintained by virtually all vendors besides Intel. I don't actually know Qualcomm's status or direction, in that regard. AMD does look like it's trying to dump its proprietary OpenGL, given that it's contracting Redhat to do lots of optimizations in Mesa.

Arm keeps their Mali drivers proprietary, for whatever reason. It could be due to them containing 3rd party IP, not due to ideological or commercial concerns, because you can get free driver builds from them (just like Nvidia). I think Arm's proprietary graphics drivers are pretty good, but I don't have any supporting data to cite.

Imagination's drivers have always been a disaster, from everything I've heard. In the past few years, they've been working on a new open source driver. I think it's still pretty immature, however.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/PVR-Compiler-Mesa-25.0
​

According to Mesa Matrix, at least the userspace portion isn't fully Vulkan 1.0-compliant:

https://mesamatrix.net
​

 

[usertests]

I'll pick it up for $150

 

[bit_user]

I'll pick it up for $150

LOL, I think you'll be waiting a while for that! I am seeing some on ebay for < $400, but only with 16 GB of memory. At $150, I'd buy one, even if it had only 8 GB.

 

[thestryker]

From my experience with the "frequently returned" label on products with decent overall ratings it tends to be the level of manufacturing defects and/or something not working as expected. In the case of these Surface devices I'm assuming the majority of it is about compatibility.

I think if they had a plot of returns over time there is probably a lot less now. These devices launched without some basic functionality most people don't think about needing to verify (google drive and VPNs being the specific ones I remember off the top of my head). Most of these have either been resolved, there's a timeline for it, or it's been made clear it isn't happening.

 

[Talys1767]

The compatibility issue is very real. Printer and scanner drivers for multifunction machines are sparse or very basic (to be generous). Essentially, nearly every strange external device could have an issue (3D printer, router, bottle filler, engraving machine, lasers, security dingles, programmable logic controllers, etc.).

And, of course, it you want to play a wide variety of games, it's not the right platform. Putting aside actual compatibility, most DRM runs into trouble.

And for what... More battery life, and very good wake from sleep. Usually (but not always) a cellular option.

I have a Surface Laptop 7, and have bought two ARM Surface Pros of different generations, and they've all ended up being novelties that I appreciate technologically, but cannot use as my main laptop.

 

[usertests]

LOL, I think you'll be waiting a while for that! I am seeing some on ebay for < $400, but only with 16 GB of memory. At $150, I'd buy one, even if it had only 8 GB.

I see WoA (DOA) Slopdragon X L33t for what it is, another billion-dollar failure to create a Chromebook replacement. No price is too low, and if it doesn't get there, I'll put the money towards some more useful refurbished thing.

Maybe we'll see a true race to the bottom after Nvidia/MediaTek and AMD Sound Wave enter the market.

 

[bit_user]

I see WoA Slopdragon X L33t for what it is, another billion-dollar failure to create a Chromebook replacement. No price is too low, and if it doesn't get there, I'll put the money towards some more useful refurbished thing.

Oh, I'm not planning to put Windows on it. I'm happy with the level of software compatibility that Raspberry Pi provides, so Linux will be fine.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

I fully support the move to ARM for Windows, but have always said it would be a cold day in hell before I'd buy into a first gen product. I'm not rich enough to be a beta tester for the platform. I'm very eager to see how the next gen stack up though. We know for certain third gen Elite will offer huge improvements especially on the iGPU side and software compatibility should also be pretty good by then.

Apart from that we have Nvidia/Mediatek entering the fray this year in ARM and next year AMD releases ARM apu targeting the 5-10W class to replace the Mendicino apu. But it will be a 2P+4E + 8CU iGPU config and should be pretty good in the ultra low power segment like for tablets.

 

[watzupken]

The issues that Snapdragon chips for Windows is not unexpected. This is pretty much the first proper effort from Qualcomm to actually design a SOC that is not meant for mobile phones. However, this being the first iteration is going to face compatibility issues which may be resolved over time. There are other factors at play here,
1. Poor track record of Microsoft to improve their OS. To me, this is probably the main elephant in the room. It is not possible for Qualcomm to achieve the same level of success as Apple with their M series chip simply because they do not have control over both the software and hardware layer. Microsoft can't really be bothered to spend significant effort to help.

2. The other problem I feel is that high cost of SD based machines at launch. Again, this is probably a more experimental chip and Qualcomm should have focused on getting more people to adopt with an aggressive pricing. I understand they are trying to make a profit, but when you don't have a reasonable market share to begin with, software developers are less likely to channel resources to optimize their software for the chip. Apple's first M1 Macbook air was priced very reasonably at the time, and I believe it was then the sales of M1 based Macs took off.

 

[usertests]

Very generous to excuse it as "first iteration", "first gen product" when there have been:

Snapdragon 835, 850
Snapdragon 7c, 8c, 8cx
Snapdragon 7c, 8cx Gen 2
Snapdragon 7c+, 8cx Gen 3

We are already in Year 8 of Snapdragon Windows on ARM.

 

[bit_user]

Very generous to excuse it as "first iteration", "first gen product" when there have been:
...
We are already in Year 8 of Snapdragon Windows on ARM.

You're right, but this was their biggest push yet and the first time they've been performance-competitive.

For me, what makes it a 1st gen product is how the CPU cores are new. I'm excited to see what the next product, featuring 3rd gen cores and a more competitive process node, will look like. This is obviously unrelated to the Windows-on-Arm issues, but I'm just saying how/why I regard it as 1st gen.

 

[thestryker]

This is also the first time Microsoft has appeared to take Windows on Arm seriously which to me means it cannot be compared to that which came before.

 

[Doug333]

The Snapdragon X-powered Surface Laptop 7 has been marked with a 'frequently returned item' warning on Amazon.

Snapdragon X-powered Surface Laptop 7 gets ‘frequently returned item' warning on Amazon : Read more

This year I bought the Snapdragon based Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x. The Yoga 14" 4K OLED display is amazing, but it has frustrating stability issues that make using it painful to use at times. The keyboard disappears and is only recoverable by booting into the BIOS. The processor begins to glitch rendering videos in bursts with pauses. I don't know if this is due to Lenovo hardware or the wider Snapdragon ecosystem, but the high return rate of ARM Windows systems including the Surface PRO makes me suspect that it's a wider problem. Are any of you on Snapdragon based Surface Pro laptops experiencing these sorts of instabilities, or are these Lenovo-specific problems?