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Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs With Gigabit LTE (arstechnica.com)
Microsoft and Qualcomm have announced that Windows 10 is coming to devices made by Asus, HP and Lenovo that will run on the Snapdragon 835 platform. "The Snapdragon 835 chip, incorporating Qualcomm's latest X16 LTE modem, forms the basis of the Snapdragon Mobile PC Platform," reports Ars Technica. "Qualcomm claims that using the Snapdragon platform will offer a combination of the PC form factor and breadth of software with features that are standard in smartphones: on-the-go connectivity, light weight, silent operation, long battery life, and no fan." From the report: Qualcomm says that PCs built using the new chips will offer up to 50 percent more battery life than x86 systems, with four- to five-times longer standby times. They'll take the Connected Standby capability already found in some Windows PCs -- this allows the system to do things like sync mail and receive notifications even when "sleeping" -- and make it better, thanks to their LTE connectivity. With a Snapdragon inside your PC, you'll no longer need Wi-Fi to fetch your latest e-mail and catch up on Twitter. Instead, you'll be able to get online wherever there's cellular connectivity. The X16 modem supports up to gigabit LTE connections, too. So as long as your network operator is cooperative and has embraced the cutting edge, this mobile connection will be fast, too. Asus, HP, and Lenovo are all planning to introduce Snapdragon Mobile PC systems at some unspecified time in the future, for some unspecified price. These machines will be laptop-style systems, just without the traditional x86 processor on the inside. Snapdragon 835 has a higher level of integration than Intel's mobile chips, enabling smaller motherboards. This in turn should tend to increase the space available for battery, or reduce the size and weight of machines, or perhaps even both.
a working product is still nearly zero. Too many teams have competing priorities plus our reviews compare us against competing teams so we try to drag everyone down to the same level. It sucks that after over twenty years at Microsoft, nothing I've ever worked on has ever made it into a customer's hands because of stupid infighting.
Other than asking if this hardware will run Linux (I know the basic answer is "yes", but I would like to see the network driver release plan for Linux) I have to wonder about Microsoft pushing a Snapdragon solution in terms of apps.
I would expect that Office 365 (and probably not basic Office) will run under the resulting version of Win 10 (S?) but what about 3rd party applications which includes games? I guess web apps that run decently on Edge will not be affected, but what about the rest of the Windows x86 (and 64bit) catalog?
Would Microsoft subsidize development houses to get their apps on this platform?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Can it run linux or *bsd?
Because the odds of MS continuing to support this in the next cycle of management change are very low.
I'll bet they drop it just like an old version of "windows phone".
Of course, if you are only planning to use it for a maximum of a couple of years go ahead - the stuff that came with it will work and you probably won't miss the new stuff coming out that will not run on it so much.
for this product is probably zero.
As I noted in my post below, there's a shit ton of work to do provide the apps and ecosystem of the basic Win 10 (S?) x64 platform.
Along with the comments by the ACs, I don't believe that Microsoft will put in the investment to make the product competitive in terms of apps and available software.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Other than asking if this hardware will run Linux (I know the basic answer is "yes", but I would like to see the network driver release plan for Linux)
WinRT didn't allow dual boot, I'd say probably not these devices either.
I guess web apps that run decently on Edge will not be affected, but what about the rest of the Windows x86 (and 64bit) catalog?
UWP -> yes, obviously
Win32 ARM -> yes, no longer restricted to Microsoft's own applications
Win32 x86 -> yes, software emulation (but probably slooow)
Win32 x64 -> no
Would Microsoft subsidize development houses to get their apps on this platform?
I would think not, people can run "legacy" software in emulation and pester developers for an ARM-compiled version. It's not RT where if it doesn't exist as UWP/ARM you were screwed.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"With a Snapdragon inside your PC, you'll no longer need Wi-Fi to fetch your latest e-mail and catch up on Twitter. Instead, you'll be able to get online wherever there's cellular connectivity"
Yeah, right... Data only plans start @ 60$/m for 5GB here in Canada. Things might be different in the US market however over hear we still want wifi with our laptops. Besides, wireless AC = 1.8Gbps while LTE-A is only 300Mbps.
"So as long as your network operator is cooperative"
Translation:
"So as long as you fork over all the extra cash that Verizon/AT&T/etc want for the privilege, you can use your cellular data plan directly without Wifi just like a normal mobile device"
For years I've been searching for a way to blow through my monthly 5GB data cap in under a minute and this can do it with 20 seconds to spare! Dreams do come true! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I have no interest in yet another device that requires an overpriced, locked-in, data plan from a US carrier that could learn better customer service from a fast food cashier. Unless these devices are paired with the fabled Microsoft data network and reasonably priced, they are a waste of the promise of the ARM/Qualcomm port of Windows to the chip. I want a great WiFi tablet based on this technology. All other parties need not call.
Every change is not progress, but there is no progress without change.
Is this including some kind of amd64 or x86 emulation? I can't imagine most Windows users will be too happy to find out they purchased a PC that's only capable of running software compiled for ARM! It would be a wonderful device to install Linux on, however, where we should have 100% compatibility. That is, of course, assuming we can reverse engineer Qualcomm's shitty proprietary drivers.
I'm posting this on my Thinkpad T420 with the 2520m Sandybridge i5 chip. A Snapdragon 835 benchmarks at almost exactly half the speed of this 6 year old laptop. So a chip that at best is half as fast as a low end device of more than half a decade old is now going to be loaded down even more doing "binary translation" of x86 calls into ARM. And I'm supposed to be excited?
FWIW, I dipped my toes into the Atom powered 2-in-1 market with the Acer 10 thing. It checks most of the boxes from this announcement regarding battery life, portability, etc. yet it collects dust. Why? Because it is slow. I don't care how pocketable a full Windows device is, if trying to do any real work on it is a frustrating experience of waiting that makes me want to chunk it out the nearest window, I think I'll pass.
Based on the fact that Intel couldn't even be bothered to stay in the market for this stuff leads me to believe that most other consumers agree with me.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
As proprietary as Qualcomm stuff has been, will it run something more than what Microsoft intends?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I thought "Golden Keys" were designed into the Win 10 OS as backdoors
And roundly denounced as a serious security flaw: http://www.pcworld.com/article...
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Think of this as from the CEO's perspective. What is to stop Intel and AMD from jacking up the prices 5 fold and just sucking all the profit out of the ecosystem? The answer is not much; unless Microsoft has a viable counter partner. Microsoft doesn't want to spend the capital to develop a competitor to x86 AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm know this. But Microsoft wants to prove they can if AMD and Intel do not play nice. Qualcomm benefits a little from investor risk analysis and probably got paid a reason amount to support the effort and everyone is happy.
where is your information from? did MS seriously confirm this or is this just logical wishing?
seriously curious, because everything else ms has been doing with their stuff lately would point to UWP FROM THE FUCKING STORE ONLY AND NO WIN32 LEGACY ACCESS.
win32 arm would be sort of interesting, but ms has done NOTHING OF THE SORT FOR THE PAST 7(about) YEARS NOW.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Sadly he's not joking (or jocking, afaik) and that price is 99$ in the US - before taxes and "other fees."
There are a lot of people that use laptops for extremely low powered shit. They literally do nothing but surf the web, send e-mails (often also from a browser), consume media (again from a browser), and maybe write a document or spreadsheet (yet again, maybe in a browser). You can get away with a pretty low spec system for that and still have an ok experience. So maybe they find this worth it in trade for a longer battery life. Remember the reason we get long batteries these days is not because they've increased in storage a ton, but because we do better with low power states.
Remember that the low end keeps getting better, whereas the target they are trying to reach largely stays the same. The needs for office productivity work haven't really grown in a long time, but computer power has. That makes it an easier target to reach. We even saw this with desktops: Around the Core 2 days desktops stopped sucking. What I mean is that back in the day, even when you got a brand new computer it still sucked. The fastest 486 out there was still slow as dogshit for normal work. Booting up an OS with GUI took minutes, printing out a document took 100% of the computer's power. So every upgrade was noticeable better but regular work. However around about the Core 2 that stopped being true. They were "fast enough". Newer ones were faster and that was nice, but not so much that you'd notice or care a ton.
Plus don't underestimate the worship of the Cult of Thin(tm) these days. This should be very low power compared to a normal laptop, and thus something they can potentially slim down to stupid proportions. That alone is a selling point to some people.
Not saying I'll buy one, but I understand my standards for computers are much higher than many people's.
Microsoft demoed last year Photoshop running on Snapdragon 835 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_GlGglbu1U
Redhat/Fedora is completely fine booting on a Secure Boot system, so is Ubutnu. There are plenty of distros that don't support it, of course, and if your preferred one doesn't go poke at them. Despite being driven by MS it is a standard part of UEFI and open to all. A distro just gets their bootloader signed with the proper X.509 certificate and is good to go. It does require a bit of time and money, and more than a bit of planning and design, but it is 100% doable and not a bad thing security wise. No silver bullet, but then nothing in computer security is.
Other than asking if this hardware will run Linux (I know the basic answer is "yes", but I would like to see the network driver release plan for Linux)
It's not so sure: It's a Qualcom chip.
If cyanogen/lineageos has taught us anything, it's that these chips have some weird design. The summary says :
That sometimes means that on some chips, the wireless modem is the CPU's northbridge.
i.e.: the device that - by laws (specifically laws around licensed frequencies) - runs 3rd party closed binary firmware, some of which gets automatically updated by the service provider, is in charge of bringing up the RAM, and has uncomfortably lots of access everywhere.
(e.g: HP Pre3 has such a configuration. Meaning that some firmware automatic updates could crash the whole phone).
You can also expect that the chip *will* have some linux support (because it's going to be used on countless android smartphones) but you'll have to stick to a specific kernel version provided by qualcomm (probably even a 3.xx).
And you'll probably need to use Jolla's "libhybris" adaptation layer to leverage the rest of the drivers and libraries as you want to use a full blown GNU/Linux layer above the kernel instead of the Android stack for which said kernel was devised.
(See the porting of any GNU/Linux stack (Jolla's Sailfish OS, Canonical's Ubuntu Touch) on other smartphone).
Though if the chip gets popular enough, you'll probably eventually see support for it in vanilla kernels.
(Though you might need to fall back to Mesa Freedeno if you want to use the GPU on a kernel different than that provided by Qualcom to smartphone manufacturer).
Also, because it's a non x86 chip, you can bet that microsoft will be using UEFI as a firmware and only in signed/secure mode, tough that one has been tackled with signed shims for quite some time.
So in short :
Linux is technically possible, but it's going to be as cumbersome as on any smartphone using the same chips as this laptop.
In other words: You're better off getting a Pyra.
I have to wonder about Microsoft pushing a Snapdragon solution in terms of apps.
Yup. Microsoft will indeed probably port some of their code base, but...
legacy x86 applications are going to run as crap due to slow emulation (and some even break the emulator).
And forget about games. Emulation wouldn't be useful most of the time, and WSL already failed as an attempt to open Windows to the android apps & games ecosystem. (but at least brought us bash in windows)
Which renders the whole purpose of having Windows as an OS moot.
You'd better hope for Google to make Chromebooks around the same platform.
Those at least are going to be easier to hack into full blown GNU/Linux.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
At least the "SecureBoot" part of the equation is more or less solved.
Most distro can use signed shims to chain into their bootloaders (eg.: UEFI SecureBoot -> shim -> .grub -> Linux kernel or whatever you pick from the grub menu).
driver on the other hand..
You'll probably be still stuck with a very old 3.xx kernel that qualcom provides to manufacturer of smartphones and tablets built around the same chipset.
and/or
you'll need to use libhybris to leverage the android drivers on a normal full blown GNU/Linux.
So it's not going to be trivial.
On the other hand, if that chips get realy widespread, you might end up seeing support in vanilla kernel (but would probably need then to stick to Mesa's Freedreno driver for the GPU).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Regarding DRM ?
Yes.
SecureBoot has been since long worked around. Most distributions use signed shim (signed with the official Microsoft keys) which can then in turn whatever they want (UEFI SecureBoot -> shim -> grub -> Linux or whatever else you picked from grub's menu).
Drivers ?
Meh...
You'll probably be stuck with some old 3.xx kernel version that Qualcom provides to manufacturer of smartphones that use the same chipset.
and/or
You'll need to use libhybris to get the drivers (normally designed by Qualcom for android) to be useable in a full blown GNU/Linux distribution.
(This laptop will be similar to the efforts of getting any full blown GNU/Linux (Jolla's Sailfish OS, Canonical's Ubuntu Touch, etc.) ported to smartphones/tablets).
With some luck, if this chip gets popular enough, there will be efforts to support it in vanilla kernels, but then you'd only could use Mesa's Freedreno for driving its GPU.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Microsoft heavily promotes .NET for Windows Store apps, so those should work just fine on ARM without any effort from the developer. Beyond that they have an x86 emulation layer.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Finally, my dream of having a laptop loaded with apps is coming true!
Gone are those days of being productive with actual software and reasonably powerful processors.
Even before your self-driving Lyft car left the curb, it knew you were;
- headed home
- would stop on the way to pick up the makings for dinner
and it booked a charger at the grocery for 15 minutes to top off. Your 'phone' was charging wirelessly the moment you touched the car door handle.
When it could calculate arrival accurately, Lyft notified your net, and things started...
- A/C came on, high speed first to rapid cool.
- No oven, you bought a steak.
- Downloading today's viewing package; old Babylon Five episode, Blindspot, Walking Dead III, and news feeds. No one buffers or streams any more.
- Triggered the security system to fall back to monitor mode as you approach.
When you've come within WiFi range, everything in the house switches from mesh to your 'phone'. Which is running gigabit LTE+. Your door was waiting for your handprint. Inside the door, your deck switches to the video screen. It was in your pocket, nothing to cast there, but the home page comes up.
And of course you've given it voice commands galore. Everything but the outdoor grill is responding. No, you can't quite let that be connected, imagine the hilarity of running the gas for 15 minutes and THEN igniting it... the neighbor kids are such little gomers.
Your 'phone' has been charging here since you touched the front door handle.
If we rely on gigabit LTE-whatever, our 'phones' (think 'deck' here) have enough computing power to do what we want always, and can cast the display wherever we are, even to a PiP at work, we really have little need for a dedicated PC at home. Lots of IoT gadgets do what they need to. Even a gaming console could be in the deck. SoC development is going here, a gigabit LTE modem, Wifi, Google Cast, it's almost possible now. Add in some minimal but expensive battery improvements, OR ubiquitous wireless charging. We are within a few years of this being commonplace. Next year some of this will be in the Galaxy S9, or a competitor. And the above scenario isn't too far behind that.
Your future network will be LTE everywhere.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
But will it run OpenOffice? Firefox portable? Neh heh.