Windows 10 on ARM gets a speed/battery boost with the Snapdragon 850

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The Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 is now official and later in 2018 you can expect the first laptops and hybrids - and maybe an ultra-portable folder (Surface Mobile). The 850 is a more powerful version of the Snapdragon 845 found in 2018 smartphones and will replace the 835 used in current Windows-on-ARM devices.

USPs

From Qualcomm:

The Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform enables advanced, industry-leading camera and XR functionality with new architecture features. Our Spectra 280 ISP is the first to feature HDR video capture designed for Ultra HD Premium displays. These videos pack 62x more color information and can capture over a billion shades of color. And we’re transforming XR experiences, including VR and AR, with our new Adreno 630 visual processing architecture—the first to enable 6DOF with SLAM.

The Kryo 385 Gold cores are now clocked at 2.95 GHz, a small bump in speed over those in the Snapdragon 835. Performance will be sustained for longer too. There's a 30% boost in performance and 20% better battery life. The X20 LTE modem increases downlink speeds to 1.2 Gbps.

Chips

Microsoft has been tweaking Windows 10 on ARM as well, of course, so the end of 2018 should see some very tasty Windows devices and form factors. Instant on and multi-day battery life are killer features in this professional world. How small can they go, do you think?

Source / Credit: Qualcomm