Qualcomm just threw a curveball into the world of Windows laptops. Earlier this summer, they made a splash with their first wave of Windows machines, starting at $999. But now, they’re introducing a new, slightly less powerful chip that could save you some serious cash. Say hello to the eight-core Snapdragon X Plus, a chip that’s making its debut in laptops like the Asus Vivobook S 15 and Dell Inspiron 14, both retailing for $899. In fact, you can already grab the Asus model at Best Buy.
But it’s not just Asus and Dell getting in on the action. Acer, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung are also expected to roll out laptops featuring the Snapdragon X Plus soon. Acer’s got a $999 Swift Go 14 AI in the pipeline, and Samsung is prepping a 15-inch version of the Galaxy Book4 Edge, set to drop in October.
So, what’s the catch with this new chip? Well, it’s not as powerful as Qualcomm’s 10-core and 12-core processors. Specifically, the graphics take a hit—less than half the GPU power, to be exact. That’s not great news if you’re into gaming or other graphics-heavy tasks. Plus, while the AI performance remains solid at 45 TOPS, you’ll be working with 12MB less CPU cache.

Qualcomm’s own benchmarks (which you might want to take with a pinch of skepticism) suggest that the new eight-core chips are about 80% as powerful as the 12-core versions when it comes to CPU performance. They’re on par with the 10-core chips for everyday productivity, but the graphics capabilities are definitely scaled back.

Asus isn’t stopping there. They’re also launching a new Qualcomm-powered creator laptop today, the $1,099 ProArt PZ13. This model comes with a 3K OLED touchscreen, a 70-watt hour battery, a detachable keyboard, and stylus support. And yes, it’s available at Best Buy right now.
Dell has another laptop in the works too, the Latitude 5455, which packs the new chip and has specs similar to the Inspiron. However, Dell hasn’t revealed the pricing for this model just yet.
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