- Intel co-CEO claims ‘large percentage’ of Arm-based PCs are back
- Qualcomm disagreed, claiming that return rates are within industry norms
- Neither company supported these claims with any concrete data.
It’s all going on in between intel And recently Qualcomm, as one of Team Blue’s new interim co-CEOs, has taken a sharp jab at the Snapdragon-powered CoPilot+ PCAs you can imagine, Qualcomm was able to retaliate immediately – and in no uncertain terms.
windows central The report says it started with Intel’s Mitchell Johnston Holthaus, who currently runs Intel along with co-CEO David Zinsner. After the sudden departure of Pat Gelsinger,
Holthaus observed that Hand-based PCs, which are a major part of MicrosoftQualcomm Snapdragon get a big percentage of these back, ‘because you go to install them, and things we expect don’t work.’
So, the claim here is not that Arm PCs are less reliable on the hardware front, but rather that software compatibility is the main sticking point, and this is why some buyers are returning their devices.
Qualcomm then issued a statement in response, which was published crnWhich read: “Our devices have received over 4+ stars in consumer reviews and our products have received numerous accolades across the industry, including awards from Fast Company, TechRadar, and numerous consumer publications. Our device return rates are within industry norms.
In short – surprisingly – Qualcomm was having none of this, with the spokesperson making it clear that return rates for Snapdragon X laptops are within the expected ‘industry standard’ range for PCs.
Analysis: Laptop reality and false claims
Then again, the gloves are truly off. Of course, Intel has had a tumultuous time this year, so is it just a case of attacking rivals, diverting attention and drawing attention to their weaknesses?
Not so, because I can see Intel’s point here. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where an average consumer buys an Arm laptop, gets it home, then discovers that no games are running on it – or any apps run, but rather slowly. – So they get frustrated and take it back to the store, complaining that it’s ‘defective’ and doesn’t work properly. Not the hardware, but the way the device competes with the software present in the Windows ecosystem.
The basic issue here is that Arm is a different architecture. amd And Intel’s x86 chips, and most Windows apps written for the latter – these are, of course, the dominant CPUs in Windows land by far.
Software (and game) developers must code their products to run Arm natively and fully, and if the Arm incarnation does not exist, Arm-based PCs run the x86 version but must emulate it ( if it can work at all), and some software – and especially sports – may be a non-starter). That emulation involves overheads that can degrade performance somewhat.
Apple Arm and the move to its own M-series silicon macsUsing the Rosetta translation layer for simulation (now significantly refined with version 2). Additionally, a major motivating factor for developers was that Apple was transitioning fully to Arm – so software and game makers coding for macOS had to come on board, or be left behind.
In The case of Microsoft, its Prism emulation – Equivalent to Rosetta – still in early stages, so not as sophisticated. But more importantly, Microsoft is offering Arm PCs as an option, while still lagging behind most x86 chips.
Therefore, there is less incentive for developers to code Arm-specific apps or games for the relatively small area of the laptop – and if that native software doesn’t come, the compatibility issues mentioned come into play, and keep people from buying Arm. Stops the notebook.
Essentially, this is a difficult situation: without software support, it is more difficult to grow the hardware base, and without hardware, motivating developers to write native software is an uphill struggle.
So, it’s easy to imagine what a rocky road Arm on Windows is currently traveling (and indeed has always been traveling on). And it’s true that what Intel is claiming is somewhat plausible – and somewhat confirmed by what I’ve read online. But we ultimately have to be very careful in drawing conclusions based on theories, and what Intel is saying here is very thin air.
We haven’t been given numbers, percentages, or facts by Intel – just a claim that retailers are getting a large amount of Arm PCs back. Qualcomm’s answer is also vague, mentioning only industry norms here, without telling us (or Intel) directly in terms of actual figures.
Also consider that there’s no doubt that Snapdragon X-based laptops are excellent in some respects – TechRadar’s current best laptop One of these machines is (Microsoft Surface Laptop) – despite the weaknesses of Windows on Arm, and they certainly exist.
Analyst companies are also predicting some big growth For CoPilot+ PCs with Arm chips, that’s something Intel undoubtedly won’t mention. But these are just forecasts – and it is believed that x86 growth will also be strong, although the claim is that Arm-based PCs could take 30% of the laptop market by 2028.
I can’t tell about the future, but what I can tell you is that it seems unreasonable for Intel to throw stones at this point, with a very dire 2024 fall for the chip giant in many ways. Qualcomm may be tempted to ask what the return rate is Intel’s 13th and 14th generation desktop CPUsPerhaps after an actual hardware failure in two full generations of silicon.
