- Microsoft recently announced the Surface Go,
a 10-inch surface meant for regular consumers
and the education market.
A lot of people are asking me, why didn't
they use Windows 10 on ARM and a Snapdragon processor?
Today, we'll talk about the pros and cons
of going with Intel versus Qualcomm.
Stay tuned.
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All right, when it comes to the Surface Go,
Microsoft went with an Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y,
yeah, we did say U in the original video.
Sorry about that, you can blame Microsoft, but that's okay.
The 4415Y is a pretty good processor, I'd used this device
for a few minutes, and I really had no issue with it.
The most important takeaway for me was it's way better
than Intel Atom, in fact it's supposed to be
two times the CPU performance of Intel Atom,
and two and a half times the graphics performance,
thanks to the Intel HD 615 GPU on board.
So this should be a pretty impressive device
for performance, but battery life is gonna be
all right at nine hours of video, which,
if you know anything about laptops, nine hours quoted
is actually one of the lowest battery lifes
we've been quoted at in 2018, that means realistically
I'm expecting five to six hours of usage.
This is drastically different from what Qualcomm
is promising, was up to 20 to 22 hours in their devices.
Now, bringing that into realistic proportions
is around 16 to 15 hours for regular use.
That's drastically different, though, from Intel.
So why isn't Microsoft using a Qualcomm processor?
A lot of this has to come down to timing.
The fact is, right now, if they were to launch a Surface Go
on August 2nd, it would come with a Snapdragon 835.
That's the only processor that's available,
even though we know Snapdragon 850
is due at the end of 2018 sometime.
So that means they could do two options.
Launch this with a Snapdragon 835, even though a lot
of you know the 850 is coming, then have to refresh it
maybe late in 2018 or early 2019 with that 850 processor.
That doesn't make anyone happy.
Or they could delay this device to Surface Go until late
2018 or early 2019, and go with that Snapdragon 850.
You do that, however, you're gonna miss two critical things.
One, the back-to-school sales in the education market,
which this device is actually primarily geared at.
The other thing you'll also miss is that holiday season,
which is super important to hit.
The fact is, launching a laptop or a tablet device
in, say, early 2019 in February or March
really doesn't do anyone any good.
That is not the prime time to launch those devices.
In fact, what we start to see then is a lot
of gaming laptops, and refreshes coming on board,
but not necessarily new launches.
The other issue with going Qualcomm
is it's not for everyone.
Now, I really enjoy these devices.
They're kinda for me, but there's a lot of caveats there.
And that's fine, that's sort of
what the world of PC is all about.
After all, that MSI new gaming laptop,
the GTX 1070, is pretty awesome.
Is it for everyone?
Absolutely not, but that's what PC is,
it's finding the device that works for you.
And Qualcomm on ARM does do that
for a certain demographic and audience.
That's not what Microsoft wanted to do, though.
They actually say this device is aiming
to hit the most market share possible
without caveats and performance compromise.
That means going with Intel.
Another thing is, when you go with schools and enterprise,
they don't want to have to have these little issues
with, does it run this software, does it run that.
But if it runs it, is it emulated
and not to performance as good.
They can't deal with that, they're dealing with a lot
of legacy apps, and only Intel is going to deliver that.
The trade-off though, is, you get less battery life
and then less performance, and it's still pretty expensive.
I often hear that people tell me that Intel
is just cheaper than going with Qualcomm on ARM.
That's actually not the case as far as we know,
the processor they're using in Surface Go has been
at about $161, and Qualcomm's chips are estimated to be
around $60 to $80, depending on what the form factor is.
Now, one reason why Surface Go is actually cheaper
than those ARM devices that are available now
like the Envy x2 or Lenovo Miix 630,
is because those devices have larger displays.
They're two inches larger.
They also ship with the pen in the box,
they also ship with a keyboard and cover in the box.
They also have doubled the storage.
So there's a lot more going into those devices
that bump up that price.
Were you to add all those things to Surface Go,
you'd quickly approach $1000 as well.
So the fact of the matter, this isn't
really Intel versus Qualcomm.
I mean, it is, but at the same time, the issue here is
that Intel Pentium chip was introduced last year in 2017.
Microsoft is using what's available to them,
and the fact is, Intel doesn't really have a lot of stuff
that's good in the low end that's also cheap
and affordable, and also gives LTE built in,
whereas Qualcomm on ARM is still a little too early.
So they're kind of in a pinch right here.
They could either wait 'til Snapdragon gets a lot better,
or wait 'til Intel comes out with something new,
but waiting and waiting is not something
they have much of an option for, especially
when they're trying to tackle this education market.
So you just have to sometimes go with what's available
in the market, and right now Intel for this device
is the best solution, but let's revisit this
in another year or two, and I bet
you will be talking a lot about Qualcomm on ARM.
That's gonna be a slow race, and not necessarily a sprint.
All right, so there are some quick thoughts on why
Microsoft is using an Intel processor in the Surface Go.
Now, if you want more information about this device,
subscribe to this channel, as we'll be covering
a lot about the Surface Go in the next couple weeks
and months, so stay tuned for that.
Otherwise, leave me a comment below and tell me
what you think, if you liked this video,
give us a thumbs up.
Thanks for watching, take care, everybody.