Windows on ARM: Dell Snapdragon laptop offers a lot of CPU for little money

The US computer company Dell has jumped on the Snapdragon bandwagon and presented its first notebook with an ARM CPU from Qualcomm and Windows 11. The Dell Inspiron 14 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 costs only $499. However, the platform is also older.

Qualcomm has evidently found an important new partner in Dell, because the second-largest PC manufacturer in the world now also wants to offer ARM-based Windows PCs. Corresponding rumors have been around for a long time, as it was recently heard that Dell had even founded a dedicated team to develop devices for the next generation of high-performance Qualcomm chips based on the “Oryon” CPU.
Dell Inspiron 14 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2

For the time being, however, we are approaching things a little more cautiously, since the Dell Inspiron 14 is now also available in a variant with a Qualcomm chip, at least in the USA. Normally, the inexpensive mid-range notebook with a 14-inch display is only sold with Intel or AMD CPUs based on x86. Now the ARM-based variant with Qualcomm is added – and rounds off the range at the lower end, because the x86 versions of the Inspiron 14 are all more expensive.

Standard notebook with Qualcomm’s older high-end CPU

Basically, nothing has changed on the outside of the Dell Inspiron 14 with the Qualcomm chip. The device still has a Full HD resolution, no touchscreen, a 40-watt-hour battery and weighs 1.44 kilograms. There is one USB-A, two USB-C ports (USB 3.2 Gen2 compatible) as well as a headphone jack and a microSD card reader. Eight gigabytes of RAM and a 256 GB PCIe NVMe SSD complete the offer.

The operating system runs Windows 11 Home in S mode. A closer look reveals the Qualcomm chip’s advantage: Dell promises a full 16 hours of runtime because the SoC is more energy efficient than the Intel and AMD chips. With 3.2 gigahertz and eight cores, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 is quite powerful, but as usual you have to accept compromises in terms of performance if x86 programs are to be used via emulation. The low price of the Dell Inspiron 14 with a Qualcomm SoC is probably mainly due to the fact that the latest chip generation is not used. Actually, there is already the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, which brings even more performance, but devices equipped with it are significantly more expensive. Anyone who still wants a high-end chip from Qualcomm in their Windows laptop will now get a corresponding offer from Dell, which is also impressive in that this price range usually offers chips like the Snapdragon 7c, which is one performance level lower are.

Whether and when Dell will also offer the Inspiron 14 with a Qualcomm CPU in Germany is unclear and, given the small number of units, probably not very likely either.

Summary