With the launch of the business models of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 behind us, all eyes are on the consumer models, which are set to be announced on May 20. According to everything we've heard, these models will exclusively be powered by Qualcomm processors, specifically the Snapdragon X Elite, leaving out any Intel options. That means Microsoft will be moving to a fully Arm-based lineup, which is a major step to take.

Arm-based Windows PCs have failed to gain traction in the past, but things are looking to change with the introduction of the Snapdragon X Elite, finally giving Windows laptops the ability to compete with Apple Silicon Macs. But if it's true that a Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 will be Qualcomm-only, Intel may be in a concerning predicament.

Arm can be so much better than Intel

Redefining the expectations for laptops

Windows-based PCs with Arm processors may have been mostly unsuccessful until now, but that's by no fault of the Arm architecture in itself. Arm processors have major benefits over the x86 architecture used by Intel, specifically in battery life and efficiency. You can get so much more performance out of an Arm chip while using the same amount of power or less, which is why Arm processors are at the heart of most smartphones.

So far, Windows hasn't had the hardware it needed to show off just how great Arm processors can be, and the software efforts also fell a little short. But in 2020, Apple introduced Apple Silicon, and it went all-in. Every device in Apple's lineup is now powered by Apple Silicon, and that transition was fast. All of the company's laptops transitioned within the first few months, plus Apple also provided great translation tools so even unoptimized apps ran very well.

This was a wake-up call for Microsoft and Qualcomm, which finally started investing seriously in making good Windows PCs based on Arm. Windows 11 introduced emulation for 64-bit x86 apps, and many tools and apps were also adapted to run natively on Arm. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 was also a big leap in terms of performance, but it was kind of a stopgap solution while Qualcomm worked on its acquisition of Nuvia, which would allow it to develop fully custom Arm cores, similar to what Apple does with Apple Silicon.

The result of that acquisition is the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, and by all accounts so far, it seems to blow Intel and AMD out of the water in terms of performance and efficiency on laptops. We've seen Qualcomm's reference design consistently outperform Intel laptops while using significantly less power. The Snapdragon X Elite is poised to change what you can expect out of a laptop, finally bringing Windows PCs up to par with Apple's MacBooks for the past three years.

Industry support for Arm is looking better than ever

Hardware and software are all coming together

The promise of the Snapdragon X Elite hasn't gone unnoticed in the industry, and for the first time since Windows came to Arm processors, every major manufacturer is standing behind the platform. In the past, only a handful of devices launched with any given Arm processor, but HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, and even Dell have expressed their intention to launch devices with this new chip. Dell is a pretty big one, considering the company staunchly refused to launch any Arm PCs until 2023, when it quietly released a cheap Inspiron laptop with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 chip.

More recently, though, we've heard that Microsoft is launching the consumer models of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 exclusively with Qualcomm processors, leaving Intel exclusive for business users. That's unprecedented, and almost ridiculous, in a good way.

For nearly two decades, the industry has been almost entirely dependent and reliant on Intel. Every PC maker focuses on Intel first and foremost, almost every flagship laptop has exclusively Intel processors. HP Spectre? Intel only. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon? Same thing. Dell XPS? Yeah, you get it. Any laptop that makes headlines is Intel-powered, and if there are AMD versions, they're just that — versions of an existing laptop. You'll almost never see a company tout an AMD laptop as its top-of-the-line offering.

All that is to say that getting companies to move away from Intel is incredibly hard. Microsoft used to have AMD versions of the Surface Laptop, and those went away after a couple of generations (not to mention they were always worse in the first place). So to see Microsoft now willing to go all-in on Arm for its consumer devices sounds almost insane, but if you wanted a sign that companies are confident in Arm laptops, this is it. One of Intel's tightest partners is choosing to replace it entirely and go with Qualcomm instead. I wouldn't be surprised if other PC manufacturers bring Qualcomm to all their premium products. The landscape of the industry will change.

And then there's the software. Support for Windows Arm PCs has always been pretty light, but things are starting to seriously change. Google Chrome is finally officially available for Windows on Arm, after years of holding back for no good reason. Most browsers have Arm versions now, actually. And even DaVinci Resolve, one of the very best video editing tools out there, is promising native Arm support. The industry is finally rallying behind Windows on Arm, and that's going to take away the big advantage Intel has had for a long time.

Can Intel ever catch up?

Energy efficiency just doesn't suit x86

When Arm-based PCs started making the rounds, Intel obviously understood that there was a potential threat there. Sure, Qualcomm-based Windows PCs aren't anything special performance-wise, but they still had low power consumption going for them, and they allowed devices to be thinner with fanless designs. Plus, with Apple Silicon coming into the frame and Intel being pushed out of Apple's laptops (some of the most popular out there), the threat became that much more real.

Because of that, Intel has been trying its best to make improvements. With its 12th-generation processors in early 2022, Intel introduced processor designs with performance and efficient cores, mimicking the layout of most Arm processors. This was to help laptops use less power when that high-end performance wasn't needed. For 2024, Intel Core Ultra goes even further and introduces LP E-Cores (low-power efficiency), designed for even less power-demanding tasks. Intel and AMD processors also slow down very significantly if you unplug your laptop from the outlet, another attempt at improving battery life. Intel has been trying its best to match the battery life and efficiency of Arm processors, but it just won't happen.

In the end, Intel's solutions feel more like hacks, trying to find ways to lower power consumption on processors that are intrinsically not efficient. But it doesn't look like x86 can get much better, despite all of Intel's efforts. Intel Core Ultra laptops have pretty good battery life so far, but it's still nothing like Apple Silicon. And if you're on battery power, performance drops significantly, which you don't see on Arm laptops nearly as much.

Intel still has the business market

It's hard to beat reliability and familiarity

All of that isn't to say that Intel is going away any time soon. After all, a ton of laptops have just launched with Intel Core Ultra processors, including the recently-announced Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business. No one is giving up on Intel yet, and for good reason.

Our editor-in-chief, Rich Woods, often uses the phrase "Nobody ever got fired for buying Intel", a play on a popular phrase used when referring to IBM back in the 90s and early 2000s. Even if Intel is selling less exciting, less innovative technology, there's always going to be a market for Intel because it's the safe bet. Intel is the brand everyone goes to for reliability and compatibility, and that's very hard to undo. Even if Qualcomm processors are excellent, there's always going to be some little thing, some app that doesn't work right that will make businesses stick with Intel.

That being said, that can only get you so far. IBM eventually had to sell its PC and x86 server businesses, and basically exited any form of consumer-facing market. It's still a huge company, but one that no one really talks about. In 20 years, we could be talking about Intel in the same way.

Intel has been preparing for this

Interestingly, Intel seems to be aware that its dominance as a provider of PC processors is going to be shaken. For the past few years, the company has doubled down on its IDM 2.0 strategy, investing more in its foundry services. Essentially, Intel is no longer just building its own processors. It's manufacturing processors for other companies, too. It's almost like the company knows its own processors may not be around forever, so it's expanding the scope of its business.

That's not necessarily an admission of defeat, but it is an acknowledgment that competition is fierce, and relying solely on being the premiere processor designer and manufacturer is no longer enough. That's a smart move on Intel's part to ensure that the company doesn't go under, and I don't think Intel will go away any time soon. But you might b hearing a lot less about its processors a few years from now.