Cale Hunt
What I’m working on this week: I’m working through desktop gaming PC testing, and I’m enjoying Vampire Crawlers on Steam Deck while with playoff hockey in the background during the evenings.
When Qualcomm announced its first generation of Snapdragon X Systems-on-Chip (SoC) in 2023, I was perhaps home to one of the most lukewarm opinions here at Windows Central.
Well, as it turns out, the first generation of ARM-based PC silicon kicked off somewhat of a revolution for Windows PCs (as my Editor-in-Chief Daniel Rubino aptly predicted), pushing longtime standards Intel and AMD out of the spotlight where they’ve lived for years.
It was the Zenbook A14, arriving in early 2025, that I think made our team pause the longest and reconsider where we ranked Snapdragon X laptops. The A14 was incredibly light, incredibly long-lasting, and an incredible value.
I’m not discounting the work ASUS put into the laptop’s design, but I don’t see how this sort of device would have been possible in 2025 without Snapdragon X.
Snapdragon X2 arrives, and I get my first real taste of Qualcomm’s chips
Yeah, I dabbled with Windows on Snapdragon using the first-gen Qualcomm chips, but it wasn’t until Lenovo sent me its Yoga Slim 7x (Gen 11) at the beginning of April that I really got to get a full experience of the new Snapdragon X2 silicon.
Now that my Yoga Slim 7x (Gen 11) review is published, it’s time for me to box the PC back up and return it. But I so don’t want to. Let me explain.
Snapdragon X2 Elite performance is better than I expected
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (X2E-94) currently sits at the top of our benchmark performance charts, and the X2 Elite (X2E-88) I tested in the Yoga Slim 7x sits just below it.
It bests the Core Ultra 9 285H chip from the Yoga Pro 9i (Gen 10) we tested, as well as the newer “Panther Lake” Intel Core Ultra X7 358H in the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro. The M5 chip in the 13-inch MacBook Air edges out the X2 Elite’s single-core score, but Qualcomm’s chip easily bests it in multi-core performance.
👉Early benchmarks say it: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Extreme chip is cooking Intel’s top-tier Panther Lake
I know, I know; benchmarks are just a slice of the pie. But for my daily workload, involving high-res photo editing, heavy web browsing, streaming, writing, spreadsheets, video calls, constant Slack use, and a few other random bits, the Snapdragon X2 Elite barely broke a sweat.
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The only, and I mean only, time I heard the fans kick on at all was during a Cinebench rendering test using all chip cores. Otherwise, it was completely silent on and off the charger.
That’s the other thing — I put up with noticeably slower performance off the charger for years using Intel and AMD chips. That doesn’t happen with the X2 Elite.
Snapdragon X2 Elite efficiency changed the way I work
My office desk is where I usually work, either with the laptop I’m currently testing or with a fixed mini PC and docking station setup. I occasionally take a laptop into a different room for a few hours of work when the sun hits right.
Once I discovered that the Yoga Slim 7x was able to last a full workday without needing to be plugged in, on Windows 11’s top performance profile to boot, I’ve been doing a lot more work away from my desk without having to chase around an AC adapter.
As I noted in my review, the Yoga Slim 7x with Snapdragon X2 Elite has a 70Wh battery. I found via the Windows battery report that runtimes averaged out to just more than 14 hours before I plugged in. A week of daily use later, that average has only dropped by about five minutes.
This is as good an estimate as I can give. It’s a lot more accurate than a video streaming rundown or a PCMark 10 test; they have their uses, mainly for comparison, but the Windows battery report is really what you should look at.
With that runtime, I can work all day, stream video in the evenings, and plug in overnight to be ready for the next day. Standby battery life is like 350 hours, so even if I do forget to plug in at night, it’s not going to be dead when I wake up.
App compatibility issues? What about them?
The main argument I see regarding Windows on Snapdragon/ARM involves app compatibility. Because Qualcomm’s chips use an ARM64 architecture, apps designed for x86 chips from Intel and AMD can’t natively make the transition.
There are a couple of things that make this issue largely moot. First is individual developer efforts to create native ARM64 versions of their apps. I love to see it, and I hope those developers know that their work is appreciated.
The other is Microsoft’s Prism translation layer that allows x86 apps to run on an ARM64 system. Yes, there is sometimes a performance drop because of the required emulation, but I was lucky enough to avoid it altogether.
For a fairly casual Windows user like me, ARM64 app compatibility is a complete non-issue.
My main apps, like Slack, GIMP, Spotify, Telegram, and Edge, are all native ARM64 apps. That’s again only a small sample, but it’s getting tougher to find apps that require emulation unless you’re getting into specialized stuff like Adobe Premiere Pro and AutoCAD.
For a fairly casual Windows user like me, ARM64 app compatibility is a complete non-issue. You can see for yourself if the apps you use are native or emulated on the extremely useful WorksOnWOA website.
What about gaming compatibility?
ARM64 still struggles the most with gaming, especially if specialized anti-cheat methods without native support are used. That’s a whole other discussion; the Yoga Slim 7x (Gen 11) isn’t a gaming laptop, nor should you try to make it one.
Although the ARM64 gaming experience is coming along nicely, especially with lighter titles, I still recommend buying a gaming laptop with an Intel or AMD chip to avoid issues.
I’m totally sold on Snapdragon X2 and Windows on ARM
Based on a lot of the negativity I see online, I was half expecting to receive the Yoga Slim 7x (Gen 11) with the Snapdragon X2 Elite chip and immediately begin experiencing issues.
But if you put down two identical laptops, one with Intel/AMD and one with Snapdragon, I wouldn’t immediately know which was which. There would eventually be signs, like how snappy the Snapdragon system feels off the charger and how the Windows battery gauge doesn’t move.
For the average user, the combination of super performance, impressive all-day battery life, and massively improved app compatibility makes Snapdragon easy to recommend.
That’s even before I get into device costs. Qualcomm is somehow managing to sell its chips for a lot less than similar Intel and AMD specs, making laptops with Snapdragon X2 some of the best value out there.
Yes, I think the idea that the advent of Snapdragon chips would cause a revolution in Windows PCs was correct. It’s just taking a bit longer than expected.
👉 Best Windows on ARM laptops in 2026 — Top-rated picks from Surface, ASUS, HP, and more
I want to know what you think about Snapdragon X2. Have you used one of the new chips? Did you try the first generation? How did it go? Let me know in the comments section below!
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