Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon C processors herald inexpensive laptops with major compromises

The “C” stands for “compute” in Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon C processor, which targets… Low cost laptops. (Qualcomm reported a price target of around $300.) It appears to be an updated and perhaps rebranded successor to the Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform. Hopefully we’ll learn more once the announcement is made.

The 8cx Compute Platform was the generation before Qualcomm finally delivered the high-performance Snapdragon X series, which used the older Kryo CPU cores instead of the new Oryon cores in the X.

Laptops that include Snapdragon C are for people who need “everyday performance” for tasks like streaming, web browsing, video conferencing, and whatever “productivity” means these days.

Acer is one of the first partners to debut a laptop incorporating the chip – the Aspire Go 15: a 15-inch base model. There’s no word on price or availability yet, so it remains to be seen if Acer can get close to Qualcomm’s lower price targets for these systems.

The Aspire Go seems to harken back to previous budget models in a way that’s not particularly welcome. Obviously, Acer is keeping the cost down by reducing the memory size to maximum From 8 GB. This is barely enough to run Windows. until The MacBook Neo chokes on 8GB of RAMMacOS uses it much more efficiently than Windows.

Not surprisingly, the Aspire has a plastic casing, as is common with these entry-level offerings. But the rest of the specifications seem reasonable. It includes a 512GB SSD, a 1080p display, and a 1080p webcam.

We expect to see Snapdragon C offerings from HP and Lenovo as well.

The Aspire’s configuration poses the same dilemma we faced during the pandemic, when laptops were in short supply and more expensive but suddenly became essential for remote work and education: Do you buy a laptop that’s cheap but will likely outgrow it fairly quickly?