Just a day after Intel revealed its Lunar Lake laptop CPUs at IFA 2024, Qualcomm is firing back with a new Snapdragon X Plus chip. The aptly named Snapdragon X Plus 8-core trims down the core count that we’ve seen on a wave of Snapdragon X Elite laptops to undercut the competition from Apple. Qualcomm says that machines sporting the new CPU, which could show up on the list of the best laptops, will be available to purchase starting today.
The Snapdragon X Plus isn’t new, but this is a new variant of the chip. The major difference is right in the name. This CPU comes with eight cores instead of 10, but Qualcomm is still using a 4nm process, and it says the chip can reach up to 3.4GHz with single-core boosts up to 4GHz. Critically, the chip still sports a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), allowing it to show up in Copilot+ laptops with 45 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) of power. Laptops sporting this chip should come with great battery life as well — that’s a common thread we’ve seen with Qualcomm laptops like the new Dell XPS 13 9345.
Although this new chip will likely be weaker than the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus and 12-core Snapdragon X Elite, Qualcomm says it’s still much more powerful than the competition. The company says the chip delivers 108% better performance than the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U at 15 watts in multi-core performance, and that it provides a single-core advantage of 40% at 6W compared to the AMD Ryzen 5 8640U. Qualcomm likes to use these efficiency metrics, showing what it can deliver at certain power levels. As we’ve seen with new x86 laptops like the Asus Zenbook S 16, peak performance numbers are much closer than Qualcomm suggests.
Performance isn’t the main draw here, however. Price is. Qualcomm says this new CPU “enables” Copilot+ laptops in the $700 to $900 range. The verbiage here is important because it doesn’t appear Qualcomm is saying that these new laptops will be between $700 and $900 — the company is just saying that price range is possible. Two of the first laptops sporting this chip that we know about, the Asus Vivobook S 15 and ProArt PZ13, are arriving at $899 and $1,099, respectively.
Even if only a handful of laptops can reach down to $700, though, that provides Qualcomm a big advantage compared to the competition from Apple. You’ll spend at least $1,000 on the MacBook Air, and that’s with the aging M2 chip. By offering Copilot+ laptops below that price, particularly with requirements like 16GB of RAM, Qualcomm could make a big dent in the mainstream market.
Qualcomm says that laptops with the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core will be available from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung, with “select devices” available to purchase now.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.