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ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

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Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#51

Post by notimetorelax »

cm2187 wrote: post #34

I tried a surface pro as a replacement for an ipad, but I found it to be extremely frustrating. Beyond the bugs and blue screens, I found the battery life to be way shorter, and the surface to take a long time to wake up, not an instantaneous experience like an ipad, where you can forget it in a bag for 10h and use it straight away. More like a laptop. Would an ARM based windows device achieve an ipad style battery l…

They mention in the article that battery life, while not in use, is one of the key advantages.

Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#52

Post by mtgx »

starik36 wrote: post #46

I am skeptical that the emulation can achieve reasonable speeds. I would like to see first that Qualcomm’s chips are even up to par with Intel's. Secondly, can a heavy duty Win32 app like iTunes or TurboTax or Photoshop could run reasonably fast via emulation, something that has historically been a problem. I'll believe it when I see some benchmarks.

They are, at least with the mainstream Macbook Air-type/older Mac Pro type chips, not the latest and most expensive Core i7's, obviously. But they don't need to reach that high, either. Even taking over the Celeron/Pentium market from Intel would probably make Qualcomm bigger than AMD is in the PC chip market.

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he...

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusi...

Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#53

Post by shams93 »

skrebbel wrote: post #19

Download my great free Windows program now! Please choose: EXE installer 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM MSI installer 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM Portable Zip 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM (Download my great free macOS program now! Click here ) This is already a usability problem, and adding 2 more target chipsets makes it worse. Given both bandwidth and smart programmers, c…

If they want the surface phone to be a slam dunk they need to give it ability to run android apps as well as UWP and emulated win32, if the could get a license from Google to merge in the android app store with the windows app store it would fill in a lot, add the ability to run win32 and the ubuntu for windows console and you have a pretty killer does everything device.

Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#54

Post by mtgx »

loeg wrote: post #12

> First, Qualcomm’s System on a Chip (Soc) designs have improved so dramatically in the past four years that their performance rivals that of mainstream Intel Core chipsets for PCs. Hah! > And even better, Microsoft has developed an emulation technology that allows Win32 applications to launch and run unmodified on ARM-based PCs. And to do so with what I am assured is excellent performance. I don't believe it.

Why are you laughing? Last's year's Apple chip was as powerful as the chip in the Macbook Air:

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he...

This year's chip is even more powerful:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusi...

I'm also a bit skeptical about the emulation part, but if it's less than 10% overhead out of the gate, it should be okay, and I assume Microsoft could continue to optimize it over the years.

Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#55

Post by colemickens »

mtgx wrote: post #49
colemickens wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't considered that. I assumed this was only x86 desktop apps on ARM via emulation. If they're going to let people build/distribute native ARM binaries for Windows 10... then I'm even more impressed. I guess I would've expected that to be mentioned though. If this is the case, that would certainly invalidate my comment about the compatibility matrix. I guess in that scenario, I'd agree and hope that those folks…

> If they're going to let people build/distribute native ARM binaries for Windows 10 Hasn't that been possible since Windows RT?

Sort of. Windows RT only ran Microsoft-signed ARM binaries. Hence why I assumed it would've been an explicit announcement if they were allowing devs to distribute native ARM executables.

Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#56

Post by cm2187 »

dcw303 wrote: post #50
cm2187 wrote: post #34

I tried a surface pro as a replacement for an ipad, but I found it to be extremely frustrating. Beyond the bugs and blue screens, I found the battery life to be way shorter, and the surface to take a long time to wake up, not an instantaneous experience like an ipad, where you can forget it in a bag for 10h and use it straight away. More like a laptop. Would an ARM based windows device achieve an ipad style battery l…

which version of Surface Pro? 2 / 3 / 4 ?

4

Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#57

Post by dcw303 »

cm2187 wrote: post #56
dcw303 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which version of Surface Pro? 2 / 3 / 4 ?

4

Thanks. I'm thinking of replacing my MBP for a Surface Pro 4.

I'd heard the battery life wasn't great but didn't know about it taking a long time to wake up.

Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#59

Post by m_mueller »

liamzebedee wrote: post #47
m_mueller wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encourage anyone who wants to know how to manage software transitions to watch Apple's presentations about Next, Rhapsody and OSX between 1997 and 2000. This was IMO a textbook example of how to move over a whole ecosystem to a more modern underpinning, even under very difficult circumstances (where Apple's leadership first had to think about how they can survive another year even).

Sounds intriguing, could you offer up a more detailed insight or a link? :-)

Basically, you get a corporate drama, a human drama and a tech drama all wrapped up in one series of presentations:

Jobs' return (as a consultant) 1997, promoting technologies from NeXT. Watch basically everyone asleep at the wheel except Jobs, the man with a plan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QrX047-v-s

WWDC Q&A - 'the art of saying no' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iACK-LNnzM

Jobs' hostile takeover in July by doing a (probably illegal?) stock dump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Amelio#Apple_Computer

Announcing a Deal with Microsoft as de facto CEO in August, booed by the crowd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOs6hnTI4lw

Internal meeting in September 1997 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GMQhOm-Dqo

iMac introduction 1998 - Apple is back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwmF0OJ0vg

Macworld 1998 - Apple is essentially saved as a company https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdYiqVzPjAc

OSX Strategy reveal (if you only have time for one presentation, watch this one) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5dWDg6f9eo

1999 - OSX Server launch https://youtu.be/NuCYHrSig94?t=48m40s

2000 - OSX launch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4V3G4NqII

Re: ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

#60

Post by ac29 »

skrebbel wrote: post #19

Download my great free Windows program now! Please choose: EXE installer 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM MSI installer 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM Portable Zip 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM (Download my great free macOS program now! Click here ) This is already a usability problem, and adding 2 more target chipsets makes it worse. Given both bandwidth and smart programmers, c…

macOS (nee OS X) has supported PPC (32-bit and 64-bit), x86-32, and x86-64 over the years. Furthermore there are plenty of applications that require 10.6+, 10.8+, etc. I get your point, but macOS is at least at fragmented as Windows in terms of needing multiple binaries.
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