Discussion Qualcomm Snapdragon Thread

[FlameTail]

https://x.com/curunnil/status/1743255799680663697?s=46

yo that's my comment.

Quote from Ian about 17 X Elite laptops coming at Computex. That is…. More than I expected.

AMD and Intel “launch” far more but they have a wider breadth which often includes gaming laptops, workstations, sub-premium and AMD often have awful availability in North America.

For Qualcomm’s narrow but demanded target market — ultrabooks in the 15-45W range — generally no dGPU, all LPDDR5x of course — this would be a big if they have 10+ good systems from Lenovo, Asus, HP, Dell etc at launch with real availability. There’s a basic bar of variety they can hit and be fine.

EXCELLENT STUFF

Feel like a lot of people are going to eat their words about this and deny they ever doubted it lol

What?

 

[FlameTail]

Lurking in some Mac subreddits, I am shocked to see the number of people who switched to a Macbook from a Windows laptop, and have no plans of switching back.

The best reason they cited is due to incredible battery life of the Macs (which is thanks to Apple Silicon).

The Snapdragon X Elite should have come sooner.

 

[SpudLobby]

Lurking in some Mac subreddits, I am shocked to see the number of people who switched to a Macbook from a Windows laptop, and have no plans of switching back.

The best reason they cited is due to incredible battery life of the Macs (which is thanks to Apple Silicon).

The Snapdragon X Elite should have come sooner.

Don’t take them at their word re not switching back though. Plus there are probably others out there that switched and would switch back.

 

[moinmoin]

I personally think Windows and MacOS by themselves are a weak selling point. Windows mostly has backward compatibility, but if one already is considering MacOS or Windows on ARM that aspect apparently doesn't matter anymore. MacOS' strength is mostly in the tight integration with other Apple devices, so if one got an iPhone, iPad and/or Apple Watch already MacOS is a natural extension.

 

[Doug S]

Don’t take them at their word re not switching back though. Plus there are probably others out there that switched and would switch back.

I'm skeptical there were all that many people that switched in the first place. Like I always say, most people make the "Mac vs PC" decision before they look at the available options. The big sales gain of M1 made it look like Mac marketshare was really growing, but it has fallen back over time. I'm guessing a LOT of Mac people had been hanging on to their x86 Macs a little longer waiting for the ARM switch - not because they particularly cared about it but because it would have a longer support life. The reason M2 and (likely) M3 haven't come close to those numbers is because so many Mac owners upgraded, and it is only now that the most aggressive upgraders who bought M1 stuff might be looking at replacing it. Most people probably keep it for at least five years between upgrades.

Now sure there were some PC users who got a Mac due to the battery life, or the hype in general. Some will find they like the Mac way of doing things (OS and application uniformity) and stick around, others may decide either they prefer Windows or not have strong feelings and might be induced back. I just don't think there were a whole lot of people who made that move, and thus not a big audience for Qualcomm Windows stuff to win back. The overwhelming majority of whatever market share it gets will come at the expense of Intel and AMD, not Apple.

 

[Thibsie]

I just bought a Mac mini, 'cos that teacher app I need only runs on Macs (and iPads).
I bought a 2018 'cos those are the only ones remotely ok from a budget PoV and be sure, well, it runs Windows too just fine if needed.

I played with a 2011 iMac, boosted to 48 GB ram and data SSD, used Opencore to load Sonoma and.... that app I need will happily crash 10 tomes a day. Huh.
M1 are still way too expensive and offer zero upgrade path. Hate you Apple.

The strategy here is buying the latest you can afford, for OS support reasons.
I still expect Apple to ditch x86 Macs asap and offer longer support for M series as an incentive.

 

[SpudLobby]

I'm skeptical there were all that many people that switched in the first place. Like I always say, most people make the "Mac vs PC" decision before they look at the available options. The big sales gain of M1 made it look like Mac marketshare was really growing, but it has fallen back over time. I'm guessing a LOT of Mac people had been hanging on to their x86 Macs a little longer waiting for the ARM switch - not because they particularly cared about it but because it would have a longer support life. The reason M2 and (likely) M3 haven't come close to those numbers is because so many Mac owners upgraded, and it is only now that the most aggressive upgraders who bought M1 stuff might be looking at replacing it. Most people probably keep it for at least five years between upgrades.

Now sure there were some PC users who got a Mac due to the battery life, or the hype in general. Some will find they like the Mac way of doing things (OS and application uniformity) and stick around, others may decide either they prefer Windows or not have strong feelings and might be induced back. I just don't think there were a whole lot of people who made that move, and thus not a big audience for Qualcomm Windows stuff to win back. The overwhelming majority of whatever market share it gets will come at the expense of Intel and AMD, not Apple.

Doug we consistently have this argument but I actually don’t disagree at all about the magnitude — ultimately Qualcomm will be taking users from AMD and Intel, not Apple, and yeah the butterfly keyboard holdout boosted Arm Mac sales numbers.

 

[SarahKerrigan]

I'm skeptical there were all that many people that switched in the first place. Like I always say, most people make the "Mac vs PC" decision before they look at the available options. The big sales gain of M1 made it look like Mac marketshare was really growing, but it has fallen back over time. I'm guessing a LOT of Mac people had been hanging on to their x86 Macs a little longer waiting for the ARM switch - not because they particularly cared about it but because it would have a longer support life. The reason M2 and (likely) M3 haven't come close to those numbers is because so many Mac owners upgraded, and it is only now that the most aggressive upgraders who bought M1 stuff might be looking at replacing it. Most people probably keep it for at least five years between upgrades.

Now sure there were some PC users who got a Mac due to the battery life, or the hype in general. Some will find they like the Mac way of doing things (OS and application uniformity) and stick around, others may decide either they prefer Windows or not have strong feelings and might be induced back. I just don't think there were a whole lot of people who made that move, and thus not a big audience for Qualcomm Windows stuff to win back. The overwhelming majority of whatever market share it gets will come at the expense of Intel and AMD, not Apple.

The last part really makes the tech media's "Qualcomm to challenge Apple!!" narrative baffling. People who start with "I want an ARM laptop" and then decide from there between a Mac and Win/ARM are fringe.

 

[poke01]

I'm skeptical there were all that many people that switched in the first place. Like I always say, most people make the "Mac vs PC" decision before they look at the available options. The big sales gain of M1 made it look like Mac marketshare was really growing, but it has fallen back over time. I'm guessing a LOT of Mac people had been hanging on to their x86 Macs a little longer waiting for the ARM switch - not because they particularly cared about it but because it would have a longer support life. The reason M2 and (likely) M3 haven't come close to those numbers is because so many Mac owners upgraded, and it is only now that the most aggressive upgraders who bought M1 stuff might be looking at replacing it. Most people probably keep it for at least five years between upgrades.

Now sure there were some PC users who got a Mac due to the battery life, or the hype in general. Some will find they like the Mac way of doing things (OS and application uniformity) and stick around, others may decide either they prefer Windows or not have strong feelings and might be induced back. I just don't think there were a whole lot of people who made that move, and thus not a big audience for Qualcomm Windows stuff to win back. The overwhelming majority of whatever market share it gets will come at the expense of Intel and AMD, not Apple.

Apple exists within its own vacuum but it also majorly impacts the PC industry. Look the latest Dell laptops. It’s full of 2016 Mac era type features. Worse, even cause no headphone jack on a laptop is stupid and “Touch Bar” is even more dead silly.

what will make chip vendors scared is if Apple ever sells these chips or licenses macOS both which Apple will never do but Apple’s influence is unmatched in the tech space.

 

[Doug S]

The last part really makes the tech media's "Qualcomm to challenge Apple!!" narrative baffling. People who start with "I want an ARM laptop" and then decide from there between a Mac and Win/ARM are fringe.

The only person I can think of who has long wanted an "ARM laptop" full stop is Linus. He was riding that particular hobby horse for years, complaining about how there was no good platform to do ARM kernel development on. He got himself an M2 Macbook Air (when the Asahi port was far enough along for him to quickly port Fedora to it) and it became his go-to for the "business" part of his work (i.e. emails, approving patches) as well as when he's traveling. Since he doesn't care about running macOS or Windows I'm sure he would happily replace it with a Qualcomm laptop down the road if it was better in some way for his use case.

 

[soresu]

The last part really makes the tech media's "Qualcomm to challenge Apple!!" narrative baffling. People who start with "I want an ARM laptop" and then decide from there between a Mac and Win/ARM are fringe.

I think even among the iPod People crowd most would just exclaim "HUH?" at you if you mentioned ARM to them.

Apple sells it to them as Apple Silicon - that's all most of them know or care about it.

My dads a pretty technical guy who has been working with computers in one way or another (originally PCB test and design) since before I was able to do more than drool on a keyboard, and even he was completely dumbfounded recently when I told him that the CPU ISA most phone chips are based on was created here in Britain.

He hadn't even heard of it before 😅

 

[ikjadoon]

There has been some shift to macOS and away from Windows. This convo happened in the Apple Silicon thread a while back and there was some questioning on methodology.

Global usage share
2019 | Windows: 77.8% vs macOS: 14.2% vs Chrome OS: 1.2%
2023 | Windows: 68.3% vs macOS: 18.7% vs Chrome OS: 3.4%
Conclusion: macOS grew +32% relatively worldwide

United States usage share:
2019 | Windows: 69.4% vs macOS: 20.1% vs Chrome OS: 5.3%
2023 | Windows: 56.7% vs macOS: 31.3% vs ChromeOS: 7.6%
Conclusion: macOS grew +56% relatively in the United States

Source: statcounter, https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#yearly-2009-2023 (switch to US via Edit Chart Data)

//

Even IDC sees a pronounced growth in Apple laptop & desktop shipments globally. (Compared to the 2019 baseline)

2019
Apple: 17.7m (0%)
Non-Apple: 249.0m

2020
Apple: 22.8m (+29%)
Non-Apple: 281.1m (+13%)

2021
Apple: 27.8m (+57%)
Non-Apple: 321.0m (+29%)

2022
Apple: 27.9m (+58%)
Non-Apple: 273.6m (+10%)

2023
Apple: 21.7m (+23%)
Non-Apple: 237.8m (-4%)

Apple is vastly outperforming its Windows peers in relative growth to a 2019 baseline. Intel & AMD & Qualcomm still compare their silicon to the Apple M1, M2, M3, etc: they know their customers care enough.

Honestly, even as I've switched to macOS on my laptop (but not desktop) and so have a few friends, it's honestly not that big.

As long as Chrome looks & feels the same, it's good enough.

//

In my anecdotal experience less about "Arm" or what CPU, but more the bread & butter of device:

1. battery life
2. fanless
3. feels fast (e.g., wake up, powered or not, etc.)

People are used to fanless in their phones, tablets, TVs, smart home, etc. The laptop & desktop Windows PC are basically the only remaining electronics that require fans.

I say fanless as most macOS devices in use have no fan, i.e., the MacBook Air is, IIRC, 50%+ of the entire macOS market. I saw that somewhere, but let me find the source.

 

[soresu]

In my anecdotal experience less about "Arm" or what CPU, but more the bread & butter of device:

1. battery life
2. fanless
3. feels fast (e.g., wake up, powered or not, etc.)

True - but when it comes down to brass tacks a lot of it is the grift of the sales person at the store for most people that just walk in and buy one, and what their supervisors have told them to push in any given day, week or month.

The laptop & desktop Windows PC are basically the only remaining electronics that require fans

Eh wah wussat nau?!

Plenty of TVs still use fans - I'm sure other consumer electronics do also.

All current major brand game consoles including the ARM based Switch have fans, as does the Steam Deck - and don't some of the wall powered Mac SKUs have a fan too?

Even some STB devices like digital terrestrial and digital satellite DVRs have fans.

 

[FlameTail]

All current major brand game consoles including the ARM based Switch have fans

The Switch has a fan? I had no idea.

Now that's the perfect thing to slap in an AIRJET!

 

[FlameTail]

There has been some shift to macOS and away from Windows. This convo happened in the Apple Silicon thread a while back and there was some questioning on methodology.

Global usage share
2019 | Windows: 77.8% vs macOS: 14.2% vs Chrome OS: 1.2%
2023 | Windows: 68.3% vs macOS: 18.7% vs Chrome OS: 3.4%
Conclusion: macOS grew +32% relatively worldwide

United States usage share:
2019 | Windows: 69.4% vs macOS: 20.1% vs Chrome OS: 5.3%
2023 | Windows: 56.7% vs macOS: 31.3% vs ChromeOS: 7.6%
Conclusion: macOS grew +56% relatively in the United States

Source: statcounter, https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#yearly-2009-2023 (switch to US via Edit Chart Data)

//

Even IDC sees a pronounced growth in Apple laptop & desktop shipments globally. (Compared to the 2019 baseline)

2019
Apple: 17.7m (0%)
Non-Apple: 249.0m

2020
Apple: 22.8m (+29%)
Non-Apple: 281.1m (+13%)

2021
Apple: 27.8m (+57%)
Non-Apple: 321.0m (+29%)

2022
Apple: 27.9m (+58%)
Non-Apple: 273.6m (+10%)

2023
Apple: 21.7m (+23%)
Non-Apple: 237.8m (-4%)

Apple is vastly outperforming its Windows peers in relative growth to a 2019 baseline. Intel & AMD & Qualcomm still compare their silicon to the Apple M1, M2, M3, etc: they know their customers care enough.

Honestly, even as I've switched to macOS on my laptop (but not desktop) and so have a few friends, it's honestly not that big.

As long as Chrome looks & feels the same, it's good enough.

//

In my anecdotal experience less about "Arm" or what CPU, but more the bread & butter of device:

1. battery life
2. fanless
3. feels fast (e.g., wake up, powered or not, etc.)

People are used to fanless in their phones, tablets, TVs, smart home, etc. The laptop & desktop Windows PC are basically the only remaining electronics that require fans.

I say fanless as most macOS devices in use have no fan, i.e., the MacBook Air is, IIRC, 50%+ of the entire macOS market. I saw that somewhere, but let me find the source.

I am pretty sure atleast 50% of the people switched to Macbooks because of the battery life- which is turn is thanks to Apple Silicon.

As I said in the other thread, Snapdragon X Elite should've have come sooner.

 

[soresu]

The Switch has a fan? I had no idea.

Now that's the perfect thing to slap in an AIRJET!

Probably all such lower powered devices (that don't require a waterproof ratng) will have a SKU with one by the next gen of AirJet.

 

[soresu]

Global usage share
2019 | Windows: 77.8% vs macOS: 14.2% vs Chrome OS: 1.2%
2023 | Windows: 68.3% vs macOS: 18.7% vs Chrome OS: 3.4%
Conclusion: macOS grew +32% relatively worldwide

Doing Chrome OS a dirty there.

They grew by almost 2.84x, almost half as much as MacOS did in global total %.

Which makes me surprised that Google switched back to pursuing Android tablets, and downgraded Chrome OS development 😕🙃

 

[soresu]

Honestly, even as I've switched to macOS on my laptop (but not desktop) and so have a few friends, it's honestly not that big.

Meh if I was switching from Windows I'd rather go with Linux at this point.

If Valve could just spend a bit of those sweet Steam dollars on a nice easy UX for Steam OS outside their own games store I'd probably ditch Windows for that with how good Proton has become.

Plus the continuous work on FEX emu means any ARM based system should be able to handle x86/64 software at least as well as WoA.

 

[SarahKerrigan]

Doing Chrome OS a dirty there.

They grew by almost 2.84x, almost half as much as MacOS did in global total %.

Which makes me surprised that Google switched back to pursuing Android tablets, and downgraded Chrome OS development 😕🙃

ChromeOS volume got huge during the rona, and tanked immediately after - declined 48% in 2022.

 

[Glo.]

In the topic of Fanless - build yourself just for laugh and giggles a truly passive/fanless computer, and you will understand what it is all about. Its a complete game changer in terms of comfort of use.

EOT.

 

[FlameTail]

Probably all such lower powered devices (that don't require a waterproof ratng) will have a SKU with one by the next gen of AirJet.

Are you implying that a device with AirJet cannot be waterproof?

That is wrong.

Frore has mentioned that it is possible to make devices with AirJets that have an IP68 filter to filter in air through for the AirJet. The AirJet's generate such high pressure that it can move air through the filter with no issue- something which conventional fans cannot do.

IP68 means it's not only dustproof, but also waterproof.

So yes- you can make waterproof devices with AirJets.

 

[FlameTail]

It seems going forward, ultrabooks will adopt more qualities of smartphones.

• Non-upgradeable RAM/storage
• Cellular connectivity (4G/5G)
• Gorilla Glass
• IP67/IP68 rating
• Punch-hole/notch displays
• Passive cooling (fanless/airjet)
• OLED screens

 

[poke01]

All current major brand game consoles including the ARM based Switch have fans, as does the Steam Deck - and don't some of the wall powered Mac SKUs have a fan too?

The MacBook Pros have fans as well.

 

[soresu]

• Punch-hole/notch displays

No reason for that.

Space is at much more of a premium for phones vs laptops.

Notch displays are ugly IMHO - a step backwards made to save space or increase screen size in the same space.

 

[soresu]

In the topic of Fanless - build yourself just for laugh and giggles a truly passive/fanless computer, and you will understand what it is all about. Its a complete game changer in terms of comfort of use.

EOT.

In the words of a well known IT technician:



😂🤣😆