Windows 10: First Reviews of new ARM Always Connected PCs Decidedly Mixed

Laptop Magazine and The Verge have come out with the first reviews of the new generation of Always Connected ARM-based PCs and they're strongly mixed. Indeed, they do have amazing battery life. But both sources mention that Win32 apps -- most notably, Chrome, but also web-wrapper or Electron-based apps such as Slack -- have noticeable performance issues. Adjectives like "laggy" (Laptop Mag) and "abysmal and frustrating" (The Verge) are used to describe how such things behave at runtime on the HP Envy x2 (Laptop Mag) and the Asus NovaGo (The Verge). Sigh.

To read more: check any of these items:
1. onMSFT "First reviews for Windows 10 on ARM PCs are out, and they're not great" 3/21/2018
2. Laptop Magazine "HP Envy X2 (Qualcomm) Review" 3/19/2018
3. The Verge "Always-connected Windows laptops show promise but still need work" 3/20/2018

--Ed--

[Note Added 10 mins later]
Paul Thurrott is also getting the Envy X2 but hasn't received it yet. He'll be reviewing it later, but wrote a "Preview" for Thurrott.com today: "HP Envy x2 (Qualcomm) Preview: Here Comes the Future."
[Note Added 1 day later]
Avram Piltch of Laptop Magazine/Tom's Guide concurs with the growing and still less-than-enthusiastic consensus on these devices in his review of the HP Envy x2 and the Asus NovaGo: Why I'm Waiting for the Next Generation of Windows ARM Laptops
[Note Added 2 days later]
Thurrott has started publishing little "Review Check-Ins" to document his ongoing experiences with the HP Envy X2. Here's what's out there so far: Performance and App Compatibility. Coming "soon": app performance and cellular connectivity.

:)

 

windows media player not in windows 10

I am surprised to learn that MS has released a new Media Player:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/17615/...

Personally I use VLC for video (I don't don't audio)

I've got this review of an audio and video player :

https://www.howtogeek.com/219132/sponsored-arm-...

 

++ the future of Microsoft Lumia mobile phones ++

Sorry to say, but I still do not understand! If you put
always connected laptops to this equation, which of those are ARM based, so MS still must maintain ARM version of Windows. So where is the win abandoning Windows phones?

Additional to that, MS still makes investments on
IoT market. So I ask again where, is the benefit abandoning Windows phones?

But, Okay MS does not earn any thing on phone market and Okay MS pushing us to choose from the only two option left for us. I think MS still need to make Visual Studio and .Net echo system run flawless on both system. It is not enough to ship MS products
on them!

+++ Window Phone === Simplicity +++ Easiest phone development ever +++

 

OOPS! Missing some from Thurrott's ongoing series of Review Check-ins from yesterday: Battery Life and First Impressions.

After reading all this stuff so far, any inclination I might have had to spend my own $$$ for a 'try-it-out myself' experience has pretty much evaporated.

The HowToGeek has also weighed in on this platform in a 3/23/18 story entitled Windows on ARM Doesn't Make Any Sense (Yet)
Sigh.
--Ed--

 

Like a lot of tech, they will have advantages and disadvantages. Trade offs will be made in one area to gain in another. My Raspberry Pi's use ARM processors, they aren't Snapdragons though unfortunately. Even on my quad core version you need a lot of patience when web browsing. It is what it is though, I didn't buy it to be my daily user PC. I bought it for the other things it can do that I can't do on my PC. My wife would likely be fine with one of these Arm always connected devices. As long as Facebook loaded in a reasonable time. *Wink That's about all she uses her laptop for. I don't see myself using one though.

 

Perhaps multi processor versions will be more interesting?

ARM processors are key for new supercomputers

 

Interesting reading thanks Ed, although I only read the link for the HP Envy, probably because I've just got myself an HP Envy, of course not one that has phone capabilities and it doesn't have a removable keyboard although it is a convertible one so I can use it as a tablet and I have an HP Pen with it. *Smile

 

The thing that really disgusted me about the HP PC is that, for nearly $1000, I would personally expect a laptop that "screamed", not one with "sluggish performance"! The latter is what I would expect from a $200 entry-level notebook.

 

The HP Envy x2, if that's the one your referring to, is a tablet, not a laptop. It looks to me, like your paying for thin, light, and long battery life. That's not always synonymous with performance. I'm not defending it, just my observation. And since its Arm powered and has to use emulation for 32 bit programs, that's going to slow things down. I see "not for power users" mentioned so that about sums it up. Just my 2 cents.

 

Here's another round-up from TechRadar that echoes the "great battery life, questionable performance" theme that's emerging in the press coverage and reviews on the current generation of SnapDragon Always Connected Win10 PCs. I had a chance to play with the Lenovo, HP and Asus versions at the MVP Summit. For email, casual web surfing, and media consumption, these machines are acceptable but can be slow. I'm thinking now that things will get interesting when -- as other posters have observed on this thread and elsewhere -- newer, faster SnapDragon chips with more cores that are available now, but weren't available when these machines were built show up in the next generation of these devices. They may not be total game-changers, but they make make it more fun to play on these machines. We'll see!
--Ed--

 

Another review: Windows on ARM Benchmarked > Native App Performance - TechSpot
The performance is terrible when using x86 apps

 

At one time I was wishing Windows on Arm would run on my raspberry Pi. I was actually more hoping 10 Mobile would be ported to run on a Pi. But after reading the above reviews the phrase "be careful what you wish for" comes to mind. *Wink

For me personally, the trade off of performance for extra battery life doesn't really factor into it. Not for my use anyway, I'm retired with simple needs. Even when I use my laptop, its almost always plugged in. The only time I ever run it on battery for an extended time is if we have a power failure. My Internet would be off anyway? I don't own a smart phone and couldn't afford 4G or 5G for a tablet, just isn't going to happen with my current financial situation.

 

Architecture crib sheet:
Understanding the Differences Between ARM and x86 Processing Cores

I can envision a time when ARM gives Intel/AMD a run for their money and everybody wins.

 

I thought you could already run Windows on a Pi.

I've not tried so perhaps (probably) I'm wrong but this says you can: Developer installs full Windows 10 ARM on a Raspberry Pi 3

I'd like to do it - perhaps I could run a (something or other) server. Not sure what exactly yet but it would be fun to try.

 

You can officially run Windows 10 IoT on a Pi. It bears very little resemblance to any desktop version of Windows 10. Very very striped down development platform. Best I can describe it is just a shell really. No store, no start menu, no apps other than Edge. Not something I'm interested in. It's just to much work to get anywhere with it. I have no Visual Studio skills etc.

It will be interesting to see how that developer makes out. Something tells me Microsoft won't be too happy if it ends up freely available on the internat. It is their intellectual property.

EDIT: There are lots of Linux server images for the Pi, no real need to do a Windows server on one. I'm more interested in running desktop / mobile Windows on it.