I’m switching to a long-lasting laptop. Here’s why I want Intel inside

I’m tired of my laptops running out of juice after only running for six to eight hours, so I’ve been itching for the past few months to buy a new laptop with Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon X Plus or Snapdragon X Elite processing device.

I have no doubt that I could get a lot more done in a day if I swapped out my x86 laptop for 6 hours of battery life for one with 20+ hours of battery life; plus, it means I don’t have to be near anything while traveling this holiday season type of store.

In fact, if I hadn’t been so burdened with household expenses this month, I’m pretty sure I would have jumped in and snapped up one, either HP Omnibook X or Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x.

But anyway, I’m glad I didn’t – at least for now…

Further reading: The best laptops we’ve ever tested

Qualcomm’s capable chips

First, let me say that my decision not to buy an Arm-based laptop had nothing to do with the capabilities of the Qualcomm chip. In fact, they really make my techie spider sense tingle.

When you hear that Lunar Lake laptops have comparable power efficiency, that’s not entirely true. Laptops powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus technology (at least the ones I’ve seen) have better battery life than most Lunar Lake laptops (although Intel’s new laptops can still last more than a day). One of them, the HP Omnibook X, even beat the competition by about six hours in our testing.

However, in terms of maximum clock speed, Lunar Lake has a slight advantage over Qualcomm’s best chip, the Snapdragon X Elite. But then again, the base clock speed of Qualcomm chips is slightly higher than Lunar Lake chips, so that offsetting performance is a big issue for me.

What I can’t get over, though, is the Windows 11 incompatibility issue I’m having on Arm, since I’ve already made my initial forays into the operating system. This is so annoying that I don’t want to put up with it!

Everything said in the forum is true

There’s no denying that Windows 11 on Arm breaks down more often than it should outside of its native application environment.

So far in my dabbling, I’ve encountered bugs and crashes with apps like Slack and Steam, although they’re some of the most common apps you’re likely to find. Daily updates also weren’t as timely as I expected, which makes me wonder if these apps actually get enough love from their creators.

In the worst case scenario, I’ve found that software that requires Intel components simply won’t run on Qualcomm-powered PCs – especially in the case of VPNs. Despite the high demand for hardware drivers, many software creators are lagging behind in converting hardware drivers.

When things go bad and things stop working, Windows 11 on Arm doesn’t offer a robust safe mode to keep things going smoothly. Troubleshooting is possible, but often requires lengthy browsing of the Microsoft website.

In short, the transition layer I expect to be implemented in Windows 11 on Arm at this point is nowhere near where it needs to be, even though it has been in development for a decade. I’d venture to say that even Apple’s operating system performs better outside of its native environment than Windows 11 on Arm.

If this was just my experience I would reconsider my stance, but I’ve seen the same issue on forums and even at laptop launch events.

At one such event, a representative from a laptop manufacturer said dismissively: “We simply can’t even get benchmarks for laptops using Qualcomm silicon.” Unfortunately, I’m not surprised.

Everything could change next year

However, compatibility issues may not last forever. Granted, this is the first generation of Qualcomm Arm-based PCs, and we’re already hearing about it as 2025 approaches More on the way.

This will encourage Microsoft and other software companies to develop more applications with a seamless user experience. After all, the number of users using Arm laptops will grow exponentially, and their voices will get louder.

The steps Microsoft has taken in recent years to make Arm-based apps easier to use may take more time to bear fruit.

To its credit, Microsoft has launched suites and Arm-native versions of Visual Studio and the .NET platform to simplify the conversion of x86 applications to x64 Arm applications. It also adds Unity support for Windows game development on Arm devices – all of which is welcome.

Time will tell. But there’s not enough support yet to convince me to spend more than $1,000 on an Arm-based laptop. Instead, I’ll find myself a nice Lunar Lake laptop – something like Lenovo Slim 7i Aura Edition I would feel calm because it would run everything I wanted.

While I’m enjoying a smooth journey, I’ll be sure to stay passionate about Windows on Arm users and get them the support they desperately need.