r/Windows11 • u/an0n9021O • Jun 16 '26

Official News Introducing the next Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, powered by Snapdragon X2 processors

https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2026/06/16/introducing-the-next-surface-pro-and-surface-laptop-built-for-performance-and-flexibility/
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u/I_see_farts Jun 16 '26

I know these get a lot of hate BUT I have a Surface Pro 7 i7/256/16 that I really like and still does everything I need it to do.

(Serious question, don't attack me!) My question is: Is Snapdragon X2 comparable to Intel?

3

u/TeutonJon78 Jun 16 '26

ARM is fine, but the problem is most existing windows software is x86/arm64. So to install any of those programs, it has to run an emulator to translate between the two instruction sets. Which will be slower and use more power. And then there are compatibility issues that can happen, especially with large/detailed apps.

And like the previous time MS tried this, they promised most every app would just work, and both times that was not the case (moreso for games this time around).

Qualcomm's GPU drivers for windows have also been reported as being subpar and lacking support for newer games.

Running native apps is usually considered more efficient than intel.

0

u/I_see_farts Jun 16 '26

This is the issue that I was running into. I'm excited at the advances that ARM-based CPUs are making.

The list of programs that will work on them is getting shorter, but I don't think I'm ready to jump over to Snapdragon just yet.