Qualcomm said at Computex in Taipei that its first three OEM partners are set to manufacture mobile PCs powered by the Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC Platform. This new announcement builds on a partnership between Microsoft and Qualcomm to design a new class of mobile PCs that support x86 Win32 and universal Windows apps. ASUS, HP and Lenovo are the first three large OEMs that have stepped forward to challenge the status quo of a traditionally dominated Intel/AMD x86 market segment.
The collaboration between Microsoft and Qualcomm will bring a whole new class of computing to consumers in one thin, light, connected device that they hope will disrupt the current model personal computing. Sleek, thin and fanless mobile PCs running a Windows 10 experience is what we can expect to see from the partners. These designs are possible because Qualcomm is bringing its extensive mobile experience and knowledge in to a market segment that has been stagnant.
At the core of this mobile PC platform initiative is the Snapdragon 835 SoC. The platform features Qualcomm's Kryo 280 CPU, Adreno 540 GPU and Hexagon 682 DSP, to manage separate heterogenous workloads. This solution provides devices with superior thermal handling and greater power efficiency, enabling fanless designs with longer battery life, attributed to it being on the leading 10nm process node.
Like its smartphone counterparts, consumers can expect a wide array of connectivity options between Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth. One of the main features of the platform is the Snapdragon X16 Gigabit LTE modem which will allow for devices to be able to support peak download speeds of up to 1Gbps. We were able to see this demonstrated today in the a controlled development platform and environment. The Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC Platform will also feature 2x2 802.11ac MU-MIMO for optimal Wi-Fi connectivity on the go. Having all of this connectivity integrated into one solution, OEMs can enable a connected standby mode utilizing feature built into Windows, while still delivering on a long battery life.
When OEMs begin shipments of the Snapdragon 835 based systems all Windows 32 applications, Windows 10 certified devices, and a fully optimized version Microsoft Office will be supported on 64-bit Windows operating system. Although Microsoft does not support x86-64 applications at the current time, we suspect that there will be support further down the road. Microsoft also disclosed to us that we will be seeing support for the entire Windows 10 SKU line up, including the recently announced Windows S.
Having Microsoft optimize the Windows 10 package makes it possible to combine the best of ARM architecture and Qualcomm engineering on the Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC Platform to bring what they believe is a cutting edge, hypermobile experience for consumer laptops. Both Qualcomm and Microsoft told us that their investment into the Mobile PC platform was not an experiment to see if the market thrives, but part of a long term plan with a roadmap of at least five years.
