During Microsoft’s BUILD 2024 conference, the company attempted to reassure developers that its new attempt at a Windows on ARM transition would bear quantified results thanks to its new Copilot + PC push as well as a buy in from all partners involved.
With Microsoft presumably doing the heavy lifting to entice PC makers to retool devices for Copilot + PC sales, Snapdragon is looking to help developers chip in on convincing consumers of an artificially led Windows future with a new Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows.
Following the opening keynote to BUILD was news that Qualcomm will be releasing a new minicomputer powered by the flagship X Elite chip designed specifically for developers. Qualcomm’s new NUC-style Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows will start at $899 and come with the same high-level Oryon CPU and 45 TOPS NPU processing power as some of the recently announced laptops from Windows partners.
These new special developer edition minicomputers from Qualcomm come with 32GB of memory and 512GB of storage. As for the I/O on the Dev Kit, developers can make use of 3 USB Type-C ports, 2 USB-A ports, an Ethernet connector, audio jack/mic combo and a single HDMI slot.
Thanks to the architecture of Qualcomm’s X Elite chip, there will be support for up to 3 4K monitors from a single USB Thunderbolt connector.
While Microsoft is relying on its new Prism translation layer to port old x86 apps from old developers over to the new ARM architecture, but it’s hoping solutions such as this new X Elite powered Dev Kit will help create new experiences for Windows going forward.
