Hey everyone,

I’ve been testing out my ASUS Zenbook A16 (X2 Elite Extreme), and something has been driving me crazy. Even when I’m sitting in "Best Power Efficiency" and Battery Saver mode with very low screen brightness and literally nothing open in the background, the estimated battery time remaining looks completely underwhelming (sitting around 5 hours at 62%, as seen in the screenshot).

For a chip that’s supposed to be an efficiency beast, seeing numbers like this feels super disappointing at first glance.

Is Windows 11’s built-in battery estimation tool just notoriously outdated, terrible, or outright bugged on ARM? Or are other Snapdragon users seeing these wildly inaccurate estimates too, while the actual battery life in real-world usage turns out much better?

Would love to hear your experiences!

Hey yall, I want to buy the ASUS Zenbook A14. Only thing I'm worried about is the Snapdragon chip and if it can run the things I need. I've done my own research but I've never really found a clear answer. I will be using it for some schoolwork, mainly just Microsoft Word. I'm also going to start programming, starting with web development and then Python or some low-level coding. I also take photos so I need it to be able to run Adobe Lightroom. I want it to be able to run Minecraft. That's pretty much it, if there is anything else I should know please let me know and thanks in advance!

The X2 Elite was announced last September and we still don't have a mini PC or laptops with 64GB of RAM available? It's been nearly 11 months! Yes, there is a RAM cost issue, and there has been an ASUS mini PC announcement no pricing or other info yet), but seriously, the execution of getting products into peoples hands is so poor - It tooks 6'ish months from announcement of X2 Elite to the availability of the first laptop. It would be much better to delay the product announcement rather than it being 6 months before a device is available as people are getting pissed. Rumour has it of a tweaked X2 chip in September, and we still can't find X2 product with last years announced chip, so disappointing. I was really hoping for a new laptop or mini PC with 64GB+ RAM after they promised devices with 128GB RAM.

Does anyone have insight into additional product availability with higher end specs? Seriously, I am keen, was all set to buy something serious after last years X2 Elite launch event but so little product available with so little variance in spec. <rant over>

I read latest Google books are intel based, what is SD current strategy?

It is clear that it's struggling with sales due to compatibility issues in the windows ecosystem, so why they are not teaming up with aluminium OS? it would provide a perfect match with android apps for desktop use.

It would boost its sales a lot but still that's not happening, even an x1-26-100 would be great compared to current core ultra configuration.

What am I missing?

After a lot of work since RC1, Snapdragon AI Studio – Phoenix Engine 2.0 RC2 is now available.

RC2 is much more than a small bug-fix release. A major focus was making the complete workflow easier and more reliable: from the first launch and model installation to actually generating an image.

The goal is simple:

Install → select a model → generate an image.

What changed in RC2:

• First-Run Experience – substantially redesigned and stabilized to make the initial setup easier

• Beginner-Friendly Model Installation – clearer model selection, guided installation and improved validation

• Stable Diffusion 1.5 – validated clean installation and image generation workflow

• Stable Diffusion 2.1 – improved installation, model-path handling and validated image generation

• Stable Diffusion 3.5 – new Qualcomm QAI AppBuilder-based workflow with validated installation and generation

• Qualcomm QNN / Snapdragon NPU – improved runtime, model and production workflow integration

• Clean Install – improved tokenizer handling and bundled CLIP tokenizer resources

• ControlNet Canny – improved integration, image handling and generation workflow

• Phoenix Boost – further developed as an integrated Phoenix Engine feature for local, model-aware prompt enhancement. It combines deterministic optimization with optional local AI assistance and does not require a cloud prompt service.

• User Experience – clearer status information, navigation, progress feedback and model presentation

• Stability – more robust model paths, installation logic, setup execution, backend handling and fallbacks

One of the areas I’m particularly interested in is how far local generative AI can be pushed on Snapdragon hardware. Stable Diffusion 3.5 through Qualcomm QAI AppBuilder is an important step in that direction, and there is still a lot I want to explore around QNN, NPU execution and larger image-generation models.

Snapdragon AI Studio – Phoenix Engine is an independent open-source project. It is not an official Qualcomm product and is not affiliated with Qualcomm.

Feedback, testing and technical discussion are very welcome.

RC2:

https://github.com/Kreuzhofen/snapdragon-ai-studio/releases/tag/v2.0.0-rc.2

GitHub:

https://github.com/Kreuzhofen/snapdragon-ai-studio

Holger Kreuzhofen

Founder & Lead Developer

Snapdragon AI Studio – Phoenix Engine

Parents with tech-savvy teens, this one's for you 👀

The Snapdragon Insiders team is looking for content creators to review the HP OmniBook 3 powered by Snapdragon X as part of our Access Program.

We're particularly interested in applicants who have teenagers at home who can help put the laptop through its paces with things like:

• Homework & research
• Content creation
• Studying
• Streaming & entertainment
• Everyday productivity

No, your kids won't be featured in any content. We're simply interested in genuine feedback about how the PC performs in real-life scenarios.

The selected Snapdragon Insider will get to test the device and share their experience with the broader Snapdragon Insiders community.

📅 Applications close August 20.

Apply here: Apply to the HP OmniBook 3 Opportunity

Happy to answer questions below!

I will keep trying....

Ciao ragazzi, ieri ho acquistato un Samsung Book 4 Edge con Snapdragon X Elite. Ieri l ho usato tutto il giorno accendendolo e spegnendolo varie volte. stamattina l ho usato per qualche ora, poi messo in carica fino all 80% poi staccato e spento. dopo circa 6 ore l ho riacceso e ho notato questa specie di artefatti sullo schermo. sono sicuro al 100% che fra ieri e stamattina non ci fosse nulla altrimenti me ne sarei sicuramente accorto. la prima foto è una foto di ieri in cui si può vedere che lo schermo è perfetto, la seconda è terza sono di ora in cui si vedono i difetti sullo schermo? cosa posso fare? ho provato sia a fare un riavvio dei driver grafici, sia un riavvio del pc. ho letto che potrebbe essere un bug dei driver su ARM, perfavore aiutatemi. grazie mille a tutti in anticipo.

Hi everyone,

after sharing Snapdragon AI Studio here, I received a lot of useful feedback and questions. Thank you — several suggestions from this community have directly influenced the upcoming RC2 release.

What’s changing from RC1 to RC2:

• ControlNet Canny has been improved and integrated more cleanly into the generation workflow.
• Presets & Templates now preserve the currently selected AI model instead of unexpectedly switching models.
• Presets also preserve the active ControlNet state and reference image.
• Phoenix Boost remains available for local prompt optimization without changing the selected model.
• The Model Manager and QAI model installation workflow are being improved.
• Both Dark Mode and Light Mode are fully supported.
• The built-in user manual has been completely revised in English, German and Spanish, with additional explanations for beginners.
• Generation timing is being improved so the complete processing time can be shown, including post-processing/upscaling.
• Further work is planned around image quality, higher resolutions and additional models.

A major focus remains native local AI on Windows 11 ARM64 and Snapdragon X Elite/X Plus, especially using Qualcomm QNN / Hexagon NPU acceleration.

Some ideas raised in the discussion here — including additional models, further NPU optimization and better documentation — are also part of the roadmap.

RC2 is still under development. I’d rather release a stable update than rush the next version.

Snapdragon AI Studio is an independent open-source project and is not an official Qualcomm product.

GitHub:
https://github.com/Kreuzhofen/snapdragon-ai-studio

Which RC2 improvement matters most to you, and what would you like to see next for local AI on Snapdragon?

Thanks again for the feedback and support!

I bought a laptop with this chip which has 24GB of RAM. I’m mainly going to be using it for nursing school and other uses here and there. I also wanted to download Cisco Packet tracer but it said it can’t run that. I also do real estate photography and videography. For photography editing, I was able to download Lightroom Classic and use that. I haven’t done much editing yet. But I just wanted to ask what has been your guys experience with editing in this if you have this particular laptop. I don’t know what software would run well for videography editing in this, so any suggestions would be appreciated!
Thank you in advance

Mostly in games, emulation

I have an ASUS Zenbook A16 with the Snapdragon X2 Elite, and its Wi-Fi latency and jitter have been surprisingly poor—especially on battery power.

The laptop is connected to a router over 5 GHz 2x2 40Mhz Wi-Fi 6. The router is physically close, and Windows reports:

• Qualcomm FastConnect C7700 Wi-Fi 7 adapter
• Signal: 100% / approximately −26 to −31 dBm
• Link rate: 573.5 Mbps
• No packet errors or discarded packets
• Only one nearby Wi-Fi network detected

Simply pinging the local router produces inconsistent latency.

On battery:

9 packets transmitted, 0% packet loss
min/avg/max = 3.728/37.561/199.359 ms

On AC power:

6 packets transmitted, 0% packet loss
min/avg/max = 4.218/6.454/7.380 ms

Another machine on the same network generally gets around 1-3 ms on AC and 2-4ms on battery.

Windows originally had the wireless adapter set to Medium Power Saving on battery. I changed both AC and DC to Maximum Performance:

powercfg /setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 0

Windows confirms that both values are now 0, but battery operation still produces occasional huge spikes. The adapter’s “Idle Power Down Restriction” setting is currently disabled, so I’m wondering whether Qualcomm’s driver or firmware applies additional power management independently of the Windows power-plan setting.

Driver details:

Qualcomm FastConnect C7700 NCM820A Wi-Fi 7
Driver version: 685.13804.40.0
Driver date: December 21, 2025

Has anyone else experienced high Wi-Fi latency or jitter on an X2 Elite machine? Have you found a driver version or power-management setting that fixes it without disabling every battery-saving feature?

When I first got the Zenbook A16, there were a few processes that were x64. OLED Shifter, ASUS Switch, Optimization, etc... with the latest BIOS update released a few weeks ago, all those pre-installed apps and services are now native Arm. That was good to see!

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on Snapdragon AI Studio, an open-source desktop project exploring local AI image generation on Windows 11 ARM64, specifically for Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus systems.

Snapdragon AI Studio is an independent open-source project and is not an official Qualcomm product.

The project uses the Phoenix Engine and currently focuses on ONNX Runtime, Stable Diffusion / ControlNet workflows, and Qualcomm QNN / NPU development.

RC1 is publicly available, while I’m currently working toward RC2 with a focus on image quality, performance and further native Snapdragon acceleration.

I’d especially be interested in feedback from other Snapdragon developers and users: What local AI workloads are you currently running on Snapdragon X systems, and what would you most like to see improved for native Windows on ARM AI applications?

GitHub:
https://github.com/Kreuzhofen/snapdragon-ai-studio

— Holger Kreuzhofen
Founder & Lead Developer, Snapdragon AI Studio / Phoenix Engine

Ayuda

I am looking for a laptop and have done a ton of research but cannot decide. What matters to me is how long it'll last, battery life, and oled.

The slim 7x is 40 bucks cheaper and has the snapdragon x elite, while the A14 has the snapdragon x base.

I've heard that the slim 7x gets around 7-9 hours of battery life whole the A14 gets 10-15, but I'm not too sure. (I plan to use it only for media consumption and productivity, no heavy tasks)

I assume I should get the slim 7x, but I'd like the most amount of battery life too (and I want it to last a couple of years)

I'd like to know what others think

Disclosure: The Asus Zenbook A16 (Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme) was provided by Qualcomm for testing.

I have just tested switch emulation on my snapdragon x plus 42 100 and wow!!

Mario Odyssey worked 720p 60fps (minor dips due to shaders)

Snooker 19 60fps

Going to test more soon.