Released earlier this week, the Surface Pro X is Microsoft"s first Windows on ARM PC, after its partners released two generations of it using the Snapdragon 835 and Snapdragon 850. But now, we"re in the era of the Snapdragon 8cx, a Qualcomm chipset that"s built from the ground up for PCs and is meant to be on par with an Intel Core i5.
This one uses a custom chip, the Microsoft SQ1. The SQ1 still has some mystery around its specs, but it"s pretty much an overclocked 8cx with a slightly different GPU. The "SQ" stands for Surface Qualcomm, as Microsoft and Qualcomm worked together on this, just like with the 8cx. It"s meant to have some optimizations in it for the Surface Pro X.
There are also some key design changes from the Intel-based Surface Pro PCs, such as narrower bezels and a much thinner and lighter chassis that"s built out of aluminum. You"ll also see the new Slim Pen, which is rechargeable and has a garage inside of the Signature Keyboard.
Windows 10 on ARM is meant to run all of the apps that you know and love. It can run native ARM64 apps, and it can run 32-bit Intel apps in emulation. Obviously, emulated apps are slower, and that becomes a problem with web browsers. The only native browsers are Legacy Edge and Firefox, so Microsoft"s new Chromium-based Edge doesn"t even support it yet, despite the fact that it now has a release date.
Check out the unboxing video below:
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If you"ve got any questions that you want answered in the review, leave them in the comments!