Qualcomm is canceling its Snapdragon X Elite mini PC

Qualcomm has decided to cancel its Snapdragon Dev Kit, the company confirmed in an email to purchasers today. It said that the product didn’t meet its “usual standards of excellence”.

If you preordered a unit, you’re going to get a refund, and in fact, you’ll even get your money back if you’re one of the few that received one. You won’t even have to return it.

“At Qualcomm, we are dedicated to pioneering leading technology and delivering premium experiences to our valued customers. ​ The launch of 30+ Snapdragon X-series powered PC’s is a testament to our ability to deliver leading technology and the PC industry’s desire to move to our next-generation technology. However, the Developer Kit product comprehensively has not met our usual standards of excellence and so we are reaching out to let you know that unfortunately we have made the decision to pause this product and the support of it, indefinitely. ​

Working with the developer community is a priority for Qualcomm.​   If you want to learn more about Windows on Snapdragon, please engage with us on Discord or head to our developer portal on Qualcomm.com. If you are ready to build your next gen AI PC application, visit the Qualcomm Device Cloud (QDC) today.”

The Snapdragon Dev Kit was a unique product

The Snapdragon Dev Kit was announced during Microsoft Build on May 21, the day after the big launch event for all of the Snapdragon X Elite laptops. It was originally meant to ship on June 18 like everything else did.

What makes it unique, other than being the only Snapdragon X-powered mini PC at the moment, is that it had its own SKU of the Snapdragon X Elite. It carried the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-00-1DE, which clocks the boost cores at 4.3GHz, rather than the 4.2GHz in the X1E-84-100 or the 4.0GHz in the much more common X1E-80-100.

The good news is that there are still Snapdragon X-series mini PCs coming, something that Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has very publicly confirmed. In fact, back at Computex, he said that the chipset was going to arrive in a wide range of form factors, such as all-in-ones.

But those PCs will not be made by Qualcomm. This would have been the company’s first publicly available device, and it would seem that it’s going to let the OEMs make devices from now on.

Windows on Arm challenges

Back in June when the devices launched, reviewers like me fell in love with Snapdragon X Elite. Windows on Arm had finally arrived, with powerful hardware and important apps being recompiled to run natively.

Related

Surface Laptop 7 15 review: You don’t have to wait for Windows on Arm to get good anymore

It does most things right

But since then, Qualcomm’s big announcements have mostly been about lower-tier products like the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core and 8-core, with no new devices running its premium chips. In the meantime, Intel seems to have delivered on its big efficiency promises with Lunar Lake, something it’s been trying to do since Windows on Arm debuted back in 2016.

That’s not a win for Intel just yet though, since Snapdragon X Elite is still in some of the best laptops like the Surface Pro 11, Dell XPS 13, and Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x. It just means that the laptop chip market is going to remain incredibly competitive, and that’s good for everyone.