Microsoft Debuts Windows 10 on ARM; Asus and HP Unveil Laptops With 20-Hour Battery Life, Gigabit LTE (zdnet.com)

Mary Jo Zoley, writing for ZDNet: A year ago, Microsoft announced it was working with its PC partners to bring Windows 10 to Qualcomm's ARM processors. The resulting machines, part of the "Always Connected PC" ecosystem, would start rolling out before the end of calendar 2017, officials said. Today, December 5, Microsoft provided a progress report on Windows on ARM at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Tech Summit. Microsoft and PC makers Asus and HP showed off new PCs running Windows 10 on Snapdragon 835 at the event. Asus' NovoGo will begin shipping at least in quantities before year-end, I've heard. Models with 4 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage will be available starting at $599, and 8GB/256 GB storage model at $799, Asus officials said today. Asus is claiming 22 hours of continuous video playback and 30 days of standby. HP's Envy x2 -- like most of the ARM-based Always Connected Windows 10 devices -- won't be available until Spring of 2018. Users can get up to 20 hours of active use and 700 hours of "Connected Modern Standby." Pricing is not yet available.

Comments

Fuck Windows 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Linux. No spying. No forced updates. Totally secure.

Re:Fuck Windows 10

[scumdamn]

If your living involves development it's actually a great operating system. Windows can't even do node.js correctly without WSL.

Re:Fuck Windows 10

[ThePawArmy]

Like you would be doing heavy video or photo editing on a ARM processor.

Re:Fuck Windows 10

[110010001000]

Why does everyone who is pro-Windows do "heavy video" and "photo editing"?

Re:Fuck Windows 10

[OrangeTide]

I'm guessing you don't do heavy video or photo editing.

It's a safe guess as most people do not. There are a thousand other jobs.

My job requires Linux, so obviously Windows is a bad choice for me. But I am not going to apply my own requirements broadly to all people, that would be silly.

Re: Fuck Windows 10

[Zero__Kelvin]

Yes, that's why the motion picture companies like Pixar insist on Windows for all their movie making needs!

Re:Fuck Windows 10

[ChunderDownunder]

One of the test scenarios for emulation was running 32bit Photoshop (x86) on Qualcomm chips. Check the promo videos from when this was announced last year.

$599 for a 4GB RAM/16GB storage

[b0s0z0ku]

Is this a bad joke? This is basically an underpowered netbook, regardless of battery life.

Also, it comes with Windows 10S, which is essentially crippled by design. Yeah, 10 Pro is free. For now.

Also, LTE replacing private WiFi for sensitive corporate applications? In whose dreams?

I can buy 2-3 refurb Thinkpad X-series for the same price.

Re:$599 for a 4GB RAM/16GB storage

[sirxpax]

it's not compatible with all the windows x86 applications and the number of windows ARM applications is non-existent.

Did you read the linked article at all? You must've missed the part about the WoW being extended to provide x86 emulation on ARM. Most existing Windows apps will run on it, and the emulation will be refined as they have more real-world examples of what works and what doesn't.

Re:$599 for a 4GB RAM/16GB storage

[sirxpax]

Also, LTE replacing private WiFi for sensitive corporate applications? In whose dreams?

Why do you think it's replacing WiFi? The article clearly states;

Always Connected is the branding for PCs that include built-in gigabit LTE and WiFi; long battery life (in ARM devices' case, allegedly multiple days without a recharge); run Windows 10; and be thin, light and fanless.

Re: $599 for a 4GB RAM/16GB storage

[Zero__Kelvin]

I have an ASUS T-100-chi that was quite responsive running Windows 10. They only drawback was that it ran Windows 10, so I put Linux on it. It's an awesome setup for on the go frankly.

Re:$599 for a 4GB RAM/16GB storage

[theweatherelectric]

How's that going to perform

It performs well. The x86 compatibility layer is fast enough that x86 and ARM binaries run well together.

This is going to be a terrible user experience which will quickly earn a terrible reputation.

Doesn't seem to be. Maybe try it out first.

store only and Edge engane only = fail

[Joe_Dragon]

store only and Edge engine only = fail

Recall macOS's transition from 68K to PPC to x86

[tepples]

A laptop that's already underpowered, being forced to do emulation?

Your phone is forced to do emulation whenever it visits a website containing JavaScript, or whenever it runs a PhoneGap app written in JavaScript, or whenever it runs an Android app written in Java.

How's that going to perform, and what's going to happen to battery life when you're running apps through emulation?

Probably about as well as 68000 emulation in Mac OS 7.5 and 8.x for PowerPC, or about as well as PowerPC emulation in Mac OS X 10.5 for Intel. The former was an interpretive 68LC040 emulator, and Connectix sold a replacement emulator called Speed Doubler that used dynamic recompilation. Apple eventually got its own dynarec going by the time the Power Macs switched to PCI. The latter was Rosetta, an outsourced dynarec. In both cases, syscalls were native, and apps that spent a lot of time inside syscalls saw little speed hit. Likewise, any calls from an emulated x86 application into the DLLs that implement Windows API will more than likely switch to native code.

"Always connected PC?"

[JohnFen]

Running Windows 10?

No. Just No.