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Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

arstechnica.com

61–70 of 198 posts

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#61
post #46
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any threats to Intel's (almost?) monopoly on laptops/desktops is a good thing.

Competition yes, but I'd prefer from AMD rather than a different CPU architecture.

Putting out two fires simultaneously means fewer resources are spent on each individual one.

I could even fantasize about a scenario where Intel: "if you launch an ARM laptop we'll raise our prices" Microsoft: "fine, we will switch to AMD"

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#62
post #4

I don't see the purpose of this. Current Windows on ARM has pretty non existent support by developers.

There's a couple different things at play this time. Windows RT only allowed Store apps and Microsoft's own ARM desktop apps. Windows 10 on ARM will run UWP Store apps and x86 apps (desktop & hybrid "Centennial" apps). At at Build, they announced Edge support for Progressive Web Apps and they'll be adding PWAs to the Store automatically if they meet all the right criteria for features & quality.

So not only will this platform support almost all the existing Windows software out there, it'll treat PWAs as first-class citizens.

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#63
post #46
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any threats to Intel's (almost?) monopoly on laptops/desktops is a good thing.

Competition yes, but I'd prefer from AMD rather than a different CPU architecture.

Isn't AMD emulating x86 over RISC anyway?

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#64
post #48

I look forward to learning more about this product. I love that we're moving non-x86 into mainstream consumer products like this (and not limited to low-end chromebooks, e.g.). ARM SoCs lack the backward compatible x86 BIOS-style bootstrap. This is great because it's kinda crazy to think about booting into stuff like MBR, real mode, etc in 2017. But this is bad because without good standards it's really tricky to hav…

This is lunacy. It will break compatibility with nearly all software out there. From games to productivity apps. Like the stuff I actually use a PC for.

I think Microsoft had been working on emulation for x86 on ARM.

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#65

I look forward to learning more about this product. I love that we're moving non-x86 into mainstream consumer products like this (and not limited to low-end chromebooks, e.g.). ARM SoCs lack the backward compatible x86 BIOS-style bootstrap. This is great because it's kinda crazy to think about booting into stuff like MBR, real mode, etc in 2017. But this is bad because without good standards it's really tricky to hav…

Yeah, that's my biggest fear for this computer. I would snap up two or three in a heartbeat if I could put my favorite Linux distro on it. My little 10" ARM chromebook has already left my more powerful laptop gathering dust. It seems like 'just a browser' at first glance, but it becomes so much more when you add a chroot which can launch X sessions into Chrome tabs. These Microsoft ARM machines are encouraging, since…

> My little 10" ARM chromebook has already left my more powerful laptop gathering dust. It seems like 'just a browser' at first glance, but it becomes so much more when you add a chroot which can launch X sessions into Chrome tabs.

So you claim running X sessions in Chrome tabs is better than running X directly?

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#66

> With a Snapdragon inside your PC, you'll no longer need Wi-Fi to fetch your latest e-mail and catch up on Twitter. Instead, you'll be able to get online wherever there's cellular connectivity. I'm not buying the optimism, especially not in the US. The cellular data is still horribly limited. In Canada it is even worse. The "unlimited" plan is surging back, but it has automatic throttling at varying points. Oh and s…

It's still going to have Wifi...

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#67
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition yes, but I'd prefer from AMD rather than a different CPU architecture.

Isn't AMD emulating x86 over RISC anyway?

as is Intel, I don't think there has been a true x86 CPU in a while

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#68
post #34

> the new operating system will include x86 emulation, giving it the ability to run 32-bit Windows desktop applications unmodified Is this emulation done with a combination of hardware & software?

I believe this is WOW64 (used to emulate x86 on x86-64 in Windows) extended to support ARM64 targets.

There is no emulation in the traditional sense involved in running 32 bit x86 code on x86-64, the code is run directly on the CPU, only thing that needs to be "emulated" is the OS's ABI for system calls.

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#69
post #48

I look forward to learning more about this product. I love that we're moving non-x86 into mainstream consumer products like this (and not limited to low-end chromebooks, e.g.). ARM SoCs lack the backward compatible x86 BIOS-style bootstrap. This is great because it's kinda crazy to think about booting into stuff like MBR, real mode, etc in 2017. But this is bad because without good standards it's really tricky to hav…

This is lunacy. It will break compatibility with nearly all software out there. From games to productivity apps. Like the stuff I actually use a PC for.

Virtually all modern software vendors already write software for multiple platforms and are leaning more on cloud computing, so porting software to a new platform won't be the nightmare it used to be.

Adoption will depend on the killer features, which is currently "LTE" and "uses less power", neither of which PC users care about, so that's why this is doomed to fail.

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