- Hey guys, this is Austin.
This is the Google Pixel 2,
one of the most advanced smartphones on sale today
and it's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor.
Now this laptop beside me is also powered by
that same mobile processor.
And that actually is kind of a big deal.
You guys might remember the original Microsoft Surface.
Now, it was powered by Windows RT,
a specific version of Windows 8 that was meant
to run on ARM processors,
which are typically found in your phone.
Now, there are some advantages here,
mostly with battery life,
but also some smaller things like being able
to have quicker standby time.
However, the biggest issue was,
was that it didn't run normal Windows apps.
Which, as you guys might know,
is kind of important for a Windows computer.
Now, yes, you could run stuff from the Windows store,
but, well, no one wants to do that.
However, on the Surface,
this looks to be a much better execution
of that whole idea.
And yes, I said Surface.
That was a bad joke, wasn't it?
This is the HP Envy X2, the very first
in the next generation of Window's PC's.
They're gonna be powered by Snapdragon processors.
Now, what makes these interesting is,
they actually do run Windows apps,
which is very important, although it is with some caveats.
But with promises of 20 plus hours
of battery life, it might be worth the trade off.
Take a look at the specs
and it's gonna look a little bit different.
So it's powered by that Snapdragon 835,
and it's backed up with four gigs
of ram and 128 gigs of storage.
You know, the almost identical specs that you
would find on a smartphone.
What makes this kind of interesting is
that even though it is in a tablet form factor,
a lot of these Snapdragon PC's are going
to be full fledged laptops.
But because it's being powered by a phone processor,
as you can imagine, it's going to be a little bit thinner
and a little bit quieter, or, well,
a lot quieter than pretty much any other laptop out there.
And so we see how to navigate the Windows start screen
which is useful, as well as a bit of foam.
But the real star of the show is the laptop,
and, wow, that's super, super thin.
Wow.
That actually looks pretty cool.
So this is very similar to something like the Surface
and the idea that pretty much everything is going
to be in the tablet section but it does come
with a keyboard which should be right here.
So this is a little bit of a different design.
So it's almost more like a case for the laptop
which just happens to have your keyboard
as well as the track pad.
But when you actually put the whole thing together,
it snaps on here, and then I think we can just fold it back?
Ya.
So we get an adjustable kickstand,
and, ya, that kinda looks like a Surface.
Also included is going to be a stylus.
Again, kinda similar to the Surface,
although the Surface actually I don't even think comes
with a stylus anymore.
But, as you expect with something like this it is going
to be a full touch screen device.
And that looks, again, exactly like the Surface.
Last but not least, you're also going
to be getting the power cable which,
thankfully, is going to be USPC.
Sorry, not last but not least,
there's also a USBC to USBA dongle.
Does this actually have any USB ports?
That would be a no.
Uh, okay.
So, this PC is going to be a little bit different from most.
Now again, the Snapdragon PC's will be available
in normal sort of laptop form factors.
And once you actually get into Windows you'll find
that, well, it looks exactly like Windows 10.
Now it does have some limitations
because it is using a Snapdragon processor,
but, on the other hand, one of the big advantages here is
that we actually do have built in LTE.
So, if a slide a sim card in here,
what we're getting here is essentially, well,
exactly what you'd expect with your smartphone.
The idea is because the Snapdragon 835 has LTE
and all the radios and stuff built in,
it's as simple as adding a couple antenna,
putting a sim card slot, and you have a PC,
that in theory, can be completely connected all the time.
At least when it comes to initial impressions,
the performance is pretty good on this guy.
Just normal day to day stuff feels snappy.
This guy ships running Windows 10S.
Now that's fine, but I think pretty much everyone's going
to want to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro,
which is going to allow you to run third party apps
that are from outside the Windows store.
Now the issue here is that while this will run most apps,
it's not going to run everything.
It's needs to be at the very least an X86 app,
so no 64 bit stuff, and as far as driver support,
this actually doesn't support standard Windows drivers.
You do need to get specific RM drivers which,
at this point, are basically non existent.
However, for most games, most apps,
most programs, they're at least going
to work somewhat on here out of the box.
Benchmarking the MV is going to be a little bit difficult.
So while it will run standard Windows apps
that are X86 based such as Gatebench 4,
the issue is that it's running it in a compatibility mode.
Now it means that it will work but your not going
to be getting that full performance.
And you can see that in the numbers.
So take a look at the scores compared
to a Snapdragon 835 phone which is running on native code.
You're seeing that you're getting a little bit less
than half the standard performance.
It's fine, but you do notice a slowdown.
But, keep in mind that
that's running in the X86 compatibility mode,
basically the lowest performance option
that you can get on this computer.
If an app such as Gatebench is recompiled
with Snapdragon in mind, you're probably going
to be getting much similar performance
to that what you actually get on android.
However, all that being said, you have to keep in mind,
that while it's not going to be crazy high end,
you're getting pretty decent specs here.
I mean, that Snapdragon 835 is going
to give you eight cores, four gigs of ram.
It's no slouch.
One area of this is really newsable is
when it comes to browsers.
So Microsoft's Edge is natively compiled
to work specifically on Snapdragon processors.
So when you're on the web, everything feels snappy,
it feels pretty much one to one like it would on your phone
or pretty much any other laptop.
However, download a third party browser,
such as Chrome or Opera, and things are noticeably slower.
Run a quick Java script benchmark like Octane 2.0
and you can see that Edge
absolutely destroys Opera's performance.
Now part of that is, of course, due to the fact
that there's some slight differences between
how Edge and Opera perform,
but running in that compatibility mode,
while it will get an app to actually run on this guy,
really does mean it's going
to take a big hit to the performance.
For me, the difference is enough
that I would rather use Edge over any kind
of third party browser.
I think even beyond the benchmarks,
you're really going to get something
that is going to be noticeably slower
when you do install something like Chrome or Opera
that just wasn't designed with this in mind.
It works, but just not very fast.
But we do have the compatibility mode for a reason,
and in theory, games will work.
Although, the idea of how well they work
is probably a little bit questionable
when you consider that this is a phone processor
running an emulator for Windows apps that is, ya,
let's just try it.
First up, I wanna give CS Go a try.
As a slightly older game, it has the best chance
of actually being able to run on such a low end processor.
Like, and I say low end, I mean obviously you can play
some pretty nice looking games on a android,
but Windows is a little bit more challenging.
Your graphics hardware does not support
all the features needed to run this game.
Okay.
Not a great start.
Let's try something else.
Hey, okay, so now we have Rocket League.
Now this is a game that, again, should in theory
be able to be run on some sort of Snapdragon class hardware.
Now the main question though is
how the actual GP drivers are going to work,
because this looks like normal, oh, wow, that's slow.
It's like slow Rocket League.
It might work though.
I'm not really entirely clear on
how Microsoft is getting an X86 Windows app
to run natively on an RM processor,
so it seems like they're doing something
to be able to actually maybe emulate it,
Or I don't know if it's some kind of hypervisor
or something but this actually looks like it might work.
Now what's interesting to me is the idea that...
That's totally going to go in, great.
Good job guys.
What's really interesting to me is the idea
that this is definitely something
that can be improved with software.
Obviously there's going to be a limit on
what a processor like the Snapdragon is capable of,
but the idea that I'm actually playing
a proper PC game here,
fully through emulation or whatever they're doing
to actually make it work, is impressive.
Although, maybe not the greatest experience in the world.
Next, I wanna try a game that actually
should run on Snapdragon.
The Windows 10 edition of Minecraft.
Now the big difference between this
and the Steam games I was trying earlier is the idea
that the Steam games, well, the just were never meant
to run on this kind of hardware,
whereas this is something that actually I believe
has actually been optimized to run on an RM processor.
If it hasn't, I can't tell
cause the performance is pretty much on point.
To be fair, I don't think anyone is going
to pick up a Snapdragon powered PC
with the intent of turning it into a gaming computer.
Now, there are a few things to keep in mind.
First of all, this is the very first system
that's shipping, so there's almost certainly going
to be some more optimization and the idea
that this is going to be a pretty small
and lightweight system that is able
to actually do all this emulation is impressive.
However, that being said,
even in standard apps, the performance just isn't
as good as it should be.
You can definitely tell the difference between a native app
and something that's going to be emulated.
It's good, but there's more work to be done.
There are definitely some advantages
with going with a Snapdragon PC though.
One of the easiest ones to spot is going into sleep.
So with an Intel system, usually it takes a few seconds
between when you close the lid,
wait for it to go to sleep, open it up.
Whereas with this, it's like a phone.
You hit the power button, it goes to sleep.
Hit it again, it wakes up.
It's much, much faster.
Having built in LTE is nice as well.
I think that's going to be a huge selling point
for a ton of people.
And all Snapdragon PC's, this as well as some
of the laptops, are going to have it ready.
So all you do is drop a sim card in
and it's going to be up and running.
And it's nice to be able to always be connected
between LTE and wifi.
Now that being said, I'm actually not a huge fan
of the MVX 2's design in particular.
For me, the tablet stuff, it's nice,
but it's not that much smaller
than just a normal 13 inch laptop.
But thankfully, there are going
to be Snapdragon laptops as well.
Probably the biggest selling point is going
to be the battery life.
So HP claims up to 22 hours of use on a charge,
or 1000 hours of connected standby,
which for a PC is totally crazy.
Now that's mostly thanks to the idea
that the Snapdragon processor is usually found in phones
and I mean, even something that's going
to be this small is going to give you much,
much larger battery than any phone will.
However, all that being said,
I haven't tested it yet so I don't know exactly
how long it's going to last,
but, if it gets anywhere close
to those numbers it is going to be a game changer.
A Snapdragon PC makes a lot of sense
for someone who wants an always connected computer
that can run Windows apps, albeit a little bit slowly,
and has solid battery life.
Now with the HPMVX 2, it's a good system,
but for me, it's hard to justify the 1000 dollar price tag.
If it was somewhere in the neighborhood
of 700 or 800 dollars I think I would be fine with it.
But considering that it's going
to be a little bit unoptimized right now,
it's very expensive, and it doesn't even
have the Snapdragon 845 yet,
which I'm sure is going to be coming soon,
it's kind of hard to recommend.
That being said, I think there's a lot
of potential in Snapdragon PC's.
So, what do you guys think?
Let me know in the comments below
and I will catch you in the next one.