My Multi-Day Experience with the Snapdragon X-Elite Processor

This laptop couldn’t just get a review, and here’s why: we need to look at it through a different lens and answer the question, “should you buy a Windows on ARM laptop or not?”

Well, in terms of overall experience with Windows on ARM, I have to say you barely notice any difference — practically speaking, until certain apps refuse to open, you wouldn’t know you’re on ARM Windows, unless you check the background wallpaper, since ARM Windows machines apparently tend to ship with that particular look. As for working with apps, there’s really no notable difference anymore, and a lot of apps already have an ARM version released or in the works. Given that this is the first time we’re seeing companies besides Microsoft itself ship devices with ARM Windows — like this Asus Vivobook — we can expect more ARM Windows devices, and even more ARM processors, to show up for Windows laptops and start appearing on the market. And it’s not just us noticing this; software companies see it too, which is why companies like Adobe are rolling out more apps for ARM Windows. On top of that, Nvidia is entering this game as well, so we can finally look past Qualcomm’s Adreno graphics being weaker than the competition — especially MacBooks — and be glad that with Nvidia stepping into this space, plenty more laptops will show up in this category, and more games and apps will become compatible with it.

For instance, Rainbow Six barely manages to run, and Cyberpunk barely runs too, but honestly you can’t really say it’s playable, and a lot of games like Apex Legends don’t run at all — even though this device has quite strong processing power, scoring around 1000 in Cinebench 2024. Still, its real-world performance was weaker than I expected in practical tests. For example, in Adobe Premiere, a render time of 21 minutes is really nothing to write home about, not to mention some strange glitches that happen while working in the app, which is simply not acceptable, and that’s down to Microsoft’s PRISM emulation layer.

But that was the bad side, and it’s really not the whole story. Overall, if I were a student, someone who doesn’t push their machine professionally and just wants to use a browser and lightweight apps like Office, using this device would be completely fine for me. I even ran a few other apps like SPSS on it, and it ran smoothly without any issues, including the file that lets you activate it for free, which usually doesn’t run properly on, say, MacBooks. Beyond that, the battery on this device is far better than its Windows rivals. After about 3 hours of work, I could easily keep going for another 5 to 6 hours. Last night, while I was just working in Edge and writing the text for this piece, I was also charging my phone and headphones off it at the same time, which was great, and the screen brightness was also fairly high. As for Windows itself, I honestly don’t know how, but Windows ran really well on this device — not only did it have no issues, it actually performed better than on the Intel and AMD versions, especially on battery, which was outstanding, and I was able to do pretty much anything I wanted — well, anything the device is capable of, that is. For example, you might not believe this, but Photoshop’s performance on battery power was at its absolute best on this laptop, and I didn’t notice any lag or issues at all. Why? Because its performance on battery is identical to its performance while plugged in, something you currently can’t expect at all from an Intel laptop, and even less so from an AMD one, though AMD is still noticeably better than Intel in that regard.

Overall, I have to say I was satisfied with this device’s performance, and if heavy workloads and gaming weren’t part of my job and life, I’d be completely fine keeping this device as my own. The only catch is that Microsoft has a track record of investing heavily in products and then abandoning them, so keep in mind that buying this device could be a real gamble. But honestly, I keep thinking that if someone asked me for a recommendation to go buy, this could well be one of the options I’d suggest. As they say, we’ve come a long way to get here — there’s still more road ahead, but at least we can enjoy the journey along the way.