**Microsoft's Snapdragon X86 Windows App on RM Processor: A Slow but Possibly Functional Experience**

Oh, wow, that's slow. It's like slow Rocket League. I'm not really entirely clear on how Microsoft is getting an X86 Windows app to run natively on an RM processor. So it seems like they're doing something to be able to actually maybe emulate it, or I don't know if it's some kind of hypervisor or something.

That's totally going to go in, great. Good job guys. What's really interesting to me is the idea that this is definitely something that can be improved with software. Obviously there's going to be a limit on what a processor like the Snapdragon is capable of, but the idea that I'm actually playing a proper PC game here, fully through emulation or whatever they're doing to actually make it work, is impressive.

Although, maybe not the greatest experience in the world. Next, I wanna try a game that actually should run on Snapdragon. The Windows 10 edition of Minecraft. Now the big difference between this and the Steam games I was trying earlier is the idea that the Steam games, well, they just were never meant to run on this kind of hardware, whereas this is something that actually I believe has actually been optimized to run on an RM processor.

If it hasn't, I can't tell cause the performance is pretty much on point. To be fair, I don't think anyone is going to pick up a Snapdragon powered PC with the intent of turning it into a gaming computer. Now, there are a few things to keep in mind.

First of all, this is the very first system that's shipping, so there's almost certainly going to be some more optimization and the idea that this is going to be a pretty small and lightweight system that is able to actually do all this emulation is impressive. However, that being said, even in standard apps, the performance just isn't as good as it should be.

You can definitely tell the difference between a native app and something that's going to be emulated. It's good, but there's more work to be done. There are definitely some advantages with going with a Snapdragon PC though. One of the easiest ones to spot is going into sleep.

So with an Intel system, usually it takes a few seconds between when you close the lid, wait for it to go to sleep, open it up. Whereas with this, it's like a phone. You hit the power button, it goes to sleep, hit it again, it wakes up. It's much, much faster.

Having built-in LTE is nice as well. I think that's going to be a huge selling point for a ton of people. And all Snapdragon PCs, this as well as some of the laptops, are going to have it ready. So all you do is drop a sim card in and it's going to be up and running.

And it's nice to be able to always be connected between LTE and wifi. Now that being said, I'm actually not a huge fan of the MVX 2's design in particular. For me, the tablet stuff, it's nice, but it's not that much smaller than just a normal 13-inch laptop.

But thankfully, there are going to be Snapdragon laptops as well. Probably the biggest selling point is going to be the battery life. So HP claims up to 22 hours of use on a charge, or 1000 hours of connected standby, which for a PC is totally crazy.

Now that's mostly thanks to the idea that the Snapdragon processor is usually found in phones and I mean, even something that's going to be this small is going to give you much, much larger battery than any phone will. However, all that being said, I haven't tested it yet so I don't know exactly how long it's going to last.

But if it gets anywhere close to those numbers, it is going to be a game-changer. A Snapdragon PC makes a lot of sense for someone who wants an always connected computer that can run Windows apps, albeit a little bit slowly, and has solid battery life.

Now with the HP MVX 2, it's a good system, but for me, it's hard to justify the $1000 price tag. If it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 or $800, I think I would be fine with it. But considering that it's going to be a little bit unoptimized right now, it's very expensive, and it doesn't even have the Snapdragon 845 yet, which I'm sure is going to be coming soon.

It's kind of hard to recommend. That being said, I think there's a lot of potential in Snapdragon PCs. So, what do you guys think? Let me know in the comments below, and I will catch you in the next one.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Hey guys, this is Austin.This is the Google Pixel 2,one of the most advancedsmartphones on sale todayand it's powered by a QualcommSnapdragon 835 processor.Now this laptop besideme is also powered bythat same mobile processor.And that actually is kind of a big deal.You guys might remember theoriginal Microsoft Surface.Now, it was powered by Windows RT,a specific version ofWindows 8 that was meantto run on ARM processors,which are typically found in your phone.Now, there are some advantages here,mostly with battery life,but also some smallerthings like being ableto have quicker standby time.However, the biggest issue was,was that it didn't runnormal Windows apps.Which, as you guys might know,is kind of importantfor a Windows computer.Now, yes, you could runstuff from the Windows store,but, well, no one wants to do that.However, on the Surface,this looks to be a much better executionof that whole idea.And yes, I said Surface.That was a bad joke, wasn't it?This is the HP Envy X2, the very firstin the next generation of Window's PC's.They're gonna be poweredby Snapdragon processors.Now, what makes these interesting is,they actually do run Windows apps,which is very important,although it is with some caveats.But with promises of 20 plus hoursof battery life, it mightbe worth the trade off.Take a look at the specsand it's gonna look alittle bit different.So it's powered by that Snapdragon 835,and it's backed up with four gigsof ram and 128 gigs of storage.You know, the almostidentical specs that youwould find on a smartphone.What makes this kind of interesting isthat even though it isin a tablet form factor,a lot of these Snapdragon PC's are goingto be full fledged laptops.But because it's beingpowered by a phone processor,as you can imagine, it's goingto be a little bit thinnerand a little bit quieter, or, well,a lot quieter than pretty muchany other laptop out there.And so we see how to navigatethe Windows start screenwhich is useful, as well as a bit of foam.But the real star ofthe show is the laptop,and, wow, that's super, super thin.Wow.That actually looks pretty cool.So this is very similar tosomething like the Surfaceand the idea that prettymuch everything is goingto be in the tabletsection but it does comewith a keyboard whichshould be right here.So this is a little bitof a different design.So it's almost more likea case for the laptopwhich just happens to have your keyboardas well as the track pad.But when you actually putthe whole thing together,it snaps on here, and then Ithink we can just fold it back?Ya.So we get an adjustable kickstand,and, ya, that kinda looks like a Surface.Also included is going to be a stylus.Again, kinda similar to the Surface,although the Surface actuallyI don't even think comeswith a stylus anymore.But, as you expect withsomething like this it is goingto be a full touch screen device.And that looks, again,exactly like the Surface.Last but not least, you're also goingto be getting the power cable which,thankfully, is going to be USPC.Sorry, not last but not least,there's also a USBC to USBA dongle.Does this actually have any USB ports?That would be a no.Uh, okay.So, this PC is going to be alittle bit different from most.Now again, the SnapdragonPC's will be availablein normal sort of laptop form factors.And once you actually getinto Windows you'll findthat, well, it looksexactly like Windows 10.Now it does have some limitationsbecause it is using aSnapdragon processor,but, on the other hand, oneof the big advantages here isthat we actually do have built in LTE.So, if a slide a sim card in here,what we're getting hereis essentially, well,exactly what you'd expectwith your smartphone.The idea is because theSnapdragon 835 has LTEand all the radios and stuff built in,it's as simple as adding a couple antenna,putting a sim cardslot, and you have a PC,that in theory, can be completelyconnected all the time.At least when it comesto initial impressions,the performance ispretty good on this guy.Just normal day to day stuff feels snappy.This guy ships running Windows 10S.Now that's fine, but I thinkpretty much everyone's goingto want to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro,which is going to allowyou to run third party appsthat are from outside the Windows store.Now the issue here is thatwhile this will run most apps,it's not going to run everything.It's needs to be at thevery least an X86 app,so no 64 bit stuff, andas far as driver support,this actually doesn't supportstandard Windows drivers.You do need to getspecific RM drivers which,at this point, are basically non existent.However, for most games, most apps,most programs, they're at least goingto work somewhat on here out of the box.Benchmarking the MV is goingto be a little bit difficult.So while it will run standard Windows appsthat are X86 based such as Gatebench 4,the issue is that it's runningit in a compatibility mode.Now it means that it willwork but your not goingto be getting that full performance.And you can see that in the numbers.So take a look at the scores comparedto a Snapdragon 835 phone whichis running on native code.You're seeing that you'regetting a little bit lessthan half the standard performance.It's fine, but you do notice a slowdown.But, keep in mind thatthat's running in theX86 compatibility mode,basically the lowest performance optionthat you can get on this computer.If an app such as Gatebench is recompiledwith Snapdragon in mind,you're probably goingto be getting much similar performanceto that what you actually get on android.However, all that being said,you have to keep in mind,that while it's not goingto be crazy high end,you're getting pretty decent specs here.I mean, that Snapdragon 835 is goingto give you eight cores, four gigs of ram.It's no slouch.One area of this is really newsable iswhen it comes to browsers.So Microsoft's Edge is natively compiledto work specifically onSnapdragon processors.So when you're on the web,everything feels snappy,it feels pretty much one toone like it would on your phoneor pretty much any other laptop.However, download a third party browser,such as Chrome or Opera, andthings are noticeably slower.Run a quick Java scriptbenchmark like Octane 2.0and you can see that Edgeabsolutely destroys Opera's performance.Now part of that is, ofcourse, due to the factthat there's some slightdifferences betweenhow Edge and Opera perform,but running in that compatibility mode,while it will get an app toactually run on this guy,really does mean it's goingto take a big hit to the performance.For me, the difference is enoughthat I would rather use Edge over any kindof third party browser.I think even beyond the benchmarks,you're really going to get somethingthat is going to be noticeably slowerwhen you do install somethinglike Chrome or Operathat just wasn't designedwith this in mind.It works, but just not very fast.But we do have thecompatibility mode for a reason,and in theory, games will work.Although, the idea of how well they workis probably a little bit questionablewhen you consider thatthis is a phone processorrunning an emulator forWindows apps that is, ya,let's just try it.First up, I wanna give CS Go a try.As a slightly older game,it has the best chanceof actually being able to runon such a low end processor.Like, and I say low end, Imean obviously you can playsome pretty nice lookinggames on a android,but Windows is a littlebit more challenging.Your graphics hardware does not supportall the features needed to run this game.Okay.Not a great start.Let's try something else.Hey, okay, so now we have Rocket League.Now this is a game that,again, should in theorybe able to be run on some sortof Snapdragon class hardware.Now the main question though ishow the actual GP driversare going to work,because this looks likenormal, oh, wow, that's slow.It's like slow Rocket League.It might work though.I'm not really entirely clear onhow Microsoft is gettingan X86 Windows appto run natively on an RM processor,so it seems like they're doing somethingto be able to actually maybe emulate it,Or I don't know if it'ssome kind of hypervisoror something but this actuallylooks like it might work.Now what's interestingto me is the idea that...That's totally going to go in, great.Good job guys.What's really interestingto me is the ideathat this is definitely somethingthat can be improved with software.Obviously there's going to be a limit onwhat a processor like theSnapdragon is capable of,but the idea that I'm actually playinga proper PC game here,fully through emulationor whatever they're doingto actually make it work, is impressive.Although, maybe not the greatestexperience in the world.Next, I wanna try a game that actuallyshould run on Snapdragon.The Windows 10 edition of Minecraft.Now the big difference between thisand the Steam games I wastrying earlier is the ideathat the Steam games, well,the just were never meantto run on this kind of hardware,whereas this is somethingthat actually I believehas actually been optimizedto run on an RM processor.If it hasn't, I can't tellcause the performanceis pretty much on point.To be fair, I don't think anyone is goingto pick up a Snapdragon powered PCwith the intent of turningit into a gaming computer.Now, there are a fewthings to keep in mind.First of all, this isthe very first systemthat's shipping, so there'salmost certainly goingto be some more optimization and the ideathat this is going to be a pretty smalland lightweight system that is ableto actually do all thisemulation is impressive.However, that being said,even in standard apps,the performance just isn'tas good as it should be.You can definitely tell thedifference between a native appand something that's going to be emulated.It's good, but there'smore work to be done.There are definitely some advantageswith going with a Snapdragon PC though.One of the easiest ones tospot is going into sleep.So with an Intel system,usually it takes a few secondsbetween when you close the lid,wait for it to go to sleep, open it up.Whereas with this, it's like a phone.You hit the powerbutton, it goes to sleep.Hit it again, it wakes up.It's much, much faster.Having built in LTE is nice as well.I think that's going tobe a huge selling pointfor a ton of people.And all Snapdragon PC's,this as well as someof the laptops, aregoing to have it ready.So all you do is drop a sim card inand it's going to be up and running.And it's nice to be ableto always be connectedbetween LTE and wifi.Now that being said, I'mactually not a huge fanof the MVX 2's design in particular.For me, the tablet stuff, it's nice,but it's not that much smallerthan just a normal 13 inch laptop.But thankfully, there are goingto be Snapdragon laptops as well.Probably the biggestselling point is goingto be the battery life.So HP claims up to 22hours of use on a charge,or 1000 hours of connected standby,which for a PC is totally crazy.Now that's mostly thanks to the ideathat the Snapdragon processoris usually found in phonesand I mean, even something that's goingto be this small isgoing to give you much,much larger battery than any phone will.However, all that being said,I haven't tested it yetso I don't know exactlyhow long it's going to last,but, if it gets anywhere closeto those numbers it isgoing to be a game changer.A Snapdragon PC makes a lot of sensefor someone who wants analways connected computerthat can run Windows apps,albeit a little bit slowly,and has solid battery life.Now with the HPMVX 2, it's a good system,but for me, it's hard to justifythe 1000 dollar price tag.If it was somewhere in the neighborhoodof 700 or 800 dollars I thinkI would be fine with it.But considering that it's goingto be a little bit unoptimized right now,it's very expensive, and it doesn't evenhave the Snapdragon 845 yet,which I'm sure is going to be coming soon,it's kind of hard to recommend.That being said, I think there's a lotof potential in Snapdragon PC's.So, what do you guys think?Let me know in the comments belowand I will catch you in the next one.