Windows on Arm has had another good year

In 2024, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Unlike Previous ARM laptops That struggled to even run Windows well, this new series delivered solid performance and the best battery life on Windows, and They impressed us In Microsoft’s own Laptop desktop and Service Pro Offerings. But inconsistent compatibility with applications remained the biggest obstacle to running Windows on Arm. (It forced me to use the watered-down Adobe Lightroom app instead of Lightroom Classic, which is a sin.) Gaming, one of Windows’ greatest strengths against the walled garden of Apple’s Macs, was basically Non-starter.

Throughout 2025, the slow burn of software improvements made the situation worse very good To much better. Some creative apps that were absent from Windows on Arm now have native versions or run using Prism emulation. Adobe Premiere Pro runs natively. I found that Lightroom Classic, which is compatible in emulation, works well with light adjustments, even on the low-end Snapdragon X Plus chipset.

More games work too, thanks Emulator improvements x86 Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) and AVX2 support. Qualcomm even has it designated Snapdragon control panel To provide quick graphics driver updates, just like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheatused before fortnite And other games, now running on Windows on Arm. And Xbox Now game player Supports local game installations on Arm Instead of just offering cloud streaming.

At this point, I have no hesitation in recommending a Windows on Arm laptop to friends and family as long as they don’t require specific software, e.g. Ableton Livethis is not compatible yet (and even Ableton will have an Arm version in 2026). Or, if gaming is their top priority and they are best served by Asus ROGs and Lenovo Legions From the world of thin and light. In fact, I encouraged my sister to buy Surface Laptop 13 inch While it was on sale for $550 during Black Friday. This is a good deal, and I’m confident it will be the quietest, most portable, most powerful, and longest-lasting laptop you’ve owned yet.

Even if you’re not upgrading from a 10-year-old laptop, the first-generation Snapdragon Very bad Generations to Intel processors. However, Intel’s Lunar Lake chips and AMD’s Strix Point chips took some wind out of Qualcomm’s sails when they launched a few months later, with competitive performance and nearly as good battery life.

Intel and AMD have shown that the x86 architecture is still here. And as Builds hype For the 2026 showdown between Qualcomm Snapdragon X2,Intel Tiger Lakeand AMD Rumored “Gorgon Point” We could be in for a tougher fight than usual. It could get even hotter if Nvidia enters the fray.

there Rumors and Leaked standards Which suggests Nvidia is working on a new Arm-based chip to debut in a yet-to-be-announced Alienware laptop — plus… Whatever is cooked with Intel For x86. The combination of Nvidia and Alienware refers to an Arm chip with a heavy focus on graphics, just like AMD’s premium chip Strix Halo On the x86 side. The integrated GPUs we’ve seen so far on Snapdragon chips aren’t powerful enough to run modern games at high settings, and Arm chips don’t yet support discrete GPUs. An Arm chip with Nvidia graphics could be very attractive to gamers.

Windows on Arm had a good year. The gap between x86 and Arm Windows laptops is narrowing, and will narrow even more in 2026. Arm laptops are easier to recommend to more people, although x86 will remain the better choice for gaming for the foreseeable future.

2026 will bring new challenges: not only new Intel and AMD chips, but fierce competition from Linux, which also It was a very good year. As Microsoft turns Windows into a “proxy operating system,” it fills it with more Semi-functional artificial intelligence bloatit risks more Provoking userswho may find greener pastures elsewhere. Maybe the question in 2026 won’t be, “Should you buy a Windows on Arm laptop?” But “Should you buy a Windows laptop at all?”