Summary of What's going on with Windows Laptops?

The video discusses the new Microsoft Surface laptop featuring a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip, marking a significant shift to ARM architecture for Windows laptops. This transition raises questions about whether Windows laptops have finally caught up to Apple’s successful move to ARM with their silicon chips.

Key Features and Performance:

Battery Life: The Surface laptop boasts a quoted battery life of 23 hours, translating to practical all-day usage with mixed activities, outperforming previous Intel models and even some MacBook Air models in synthetic benchmarks.
Performance: While not aimed at high-end gaming, the laptop delivers smooth performance for everyday tasks, including photo editing and office applications. It maintains consistent graphics performance regardless of battery level.
App Compatibility: The transition to ARM has led to challenges with app compatibility:
- Native Apps: Many popular applications like Photoshop, Lightroom CC, Chrome, and Zoom run natively and perform well.
- Emulated Apps: Some applications, such as Lightroom Classic and TickTick, can run through emulation but may experience performance issues.
- Incompatible Apps: Certain apps, including Arc browser and Google Drive, do not work at all on Windows ARM, and some games are affected by anti-cheat software incompatibilities.

Design and Build Quality:

The laptop features a premium all-metal design, a solid keyboard, and a large trackpad with excellent haptics. However, it lacks an OLED display option, offering a 120Hz LCD touchscreen instead.

Additional Features:

It includes a dedicated co-pilot button for AI functionalities, leveraging a neural processing unit (NPU) for specific tasks without taxing the CPU or GPU.

Conclusion:

The speaker emphasizes that the viability of a Windows ARM laptop largely depends on the compatibility of essential applications. The video suggests that while the Surface laptop is a promising step forward, potential buyers should verify that their necessary software supports ARM architecture.

Main Speakers/Sources:

The speaker appears to be a tech reviewer familiar with both Windows and Apple ecosystems, providing insights based on personal experience with the Surface laptop and its features.
The video also mentions a sponsorship by dbrand, which offers a product related to device internals visualization.

Notable Quotes

— 06:15 — « If you are at all considering a Windows arm laptop specifically look up the apps that you have to use and make sure they're at least compatible. »

— 08:59 — « Overall this laptop is a good start, I think I mean I've been waiting personally for a premium built matte black Windows laptop for a while on arm and this is that. »

— 09:21 — « Have you ever looked at a laptop or smartphone and wondered what's going on inside it? »