Carbon Chemist

Tag: windows pcs

  • What Is a Copilot+ PC? Explaining Microsoft’s AI Term for Windows Laptops

    What Is a Copilot+ PC? Explaining Microsoft’s AI Term for Windows Laptops

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    In addition to these features, Copilot+ PCs have proven more than capable of running general business apps like Microsoft Office products, web browsers, and the like. Their benchmarks are outpacing Intel and AMD laptops at similar prices much of the time. Battery life is also great on Copilot+ PCs across the board, thanks to the lower power consumption required by ARM CPUs.

    So What’s the Catch? What Can’t They Do?

    There’s a tiny problem with the ARM world. For decades, Windows has been written and rewritten and rewritten again to run on x86 chips. Throw a new chip architecture into the mix and you have to rewrite your code. That’s not easy when there are thousands of apps on the market.

    Application compatibility on ARM is better today than it was five years ago, in part because Microsoft’s Prism emulator can bridge the gaps between code written for x86 and the ARM CPU, but not all of them. So problems remain. Some apps won’t run at all. Some are still in the works. Some require emulation—and emulation invariably means a significant reduction in performance. There’s no canonical guide to what’s supported, but this site has the most comprehensive list I’ve seen.

    The short of it is that the more you try to do with your computer outside the basics, the more likely you are to run into a compatibility issue. Various games and specialized apps like VPNs often don’t work (or don’t work well). Even some mainstream apps like Google Drive for Desktop aren’t supported on ARM. Many common Windows-based benchmarks won’t run on ARM either, which can make apples-to-apples comparisons with x86 machines difficult.

    Side top and front view of a silver laptop. Background blue and white fur texture.

    Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge Copilot+ PC

    Photograph: Christopher Null; Getty Images

    Graphics performance to date has also been uniformly poor on Copilot+ PCs, as the Snapdragon chipset’s integrated GPU isn’t up to snuff compared to Intel and AMD—and these laptops don’t support more powerful discrete graphics. If you are serious about gaming or GPU-heavy work like video rendering, a Copilot+ PC may not be for you.

    These caveats won’t apply to Intel- or AMD-based Copilot+ PCs once they become available, as they won’t have ARM-based compatibility issues, though don’t expect the same kind of battery life.

    Should You Buy a Copilot+ PC?

    Today, Copilot+ PCs are ideal for anyone who wants exceptional battery life but isn’t exactly pushing their laptops to the limit. Some of the Copilot+ PC AI features are useful—the Live Translate feature is downright amazing—while some are little more than novelties. Will a feature like Recall become a must-have or be shunned by those concerned about being tracked? Time will tell, and soon enough.

    Meanwhile, consider Copilot+ PCs on their own merits, as performance, features, and price vary more widely than you’d think.

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  • Asus Vivobook S 15 Copilot+ PC Review: Promising Battery Life

    Asus Vivobook S 15 Copilot+ PC Review: Promising Battery Life

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    The arrival of Microsoft’s AI-soaked Copilot+ PC has somewhat overshadowed the simultaneous launch of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X CPU, an upgraded, ARM-based alternative to Intel and AMD processors that have long dominated the laptop world.

    Qualcomm has made some incredible claims about what the Snapdragon X would be able to do since its announcement last fall, the most notable being a promise of double the performance over competing CPUs at one-third the power draw. Those competing CPUs have all been upgraded since that announcement, so examining the situation with the current environment fully accounted for is crucial. The catch is that Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs are only certified to run on Snapdragon X CPUs—for now, at least—so if you want the Copilot+ experience with all the new artificial intelligence features baked into Windows, a Snapdragon is the only way to fly.

    Before we get to the CPU, let’s look at the laptop containing it more broadly. The Asus Vivobook S 15 (now featuring a space in the name, but sometimes not) dates back to 2017, when it began as an Intel-based product. Intel-powered Vivobooks are still around, mind you. The Qualcomm-based version reviewed here is model number S5507Q.

    The silver laptop features a spacious 15.6-inch (non-touch) display running at 2,880 X 1,620 pixels of resolution. It’s plenty bright without being eye-searing, backing up its screen with a beefy Harman Kardon sound system. In addition to the Snapdragon X Elite X1E7810 CPU, the unit features 16 GB of RAM and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive, both standard on a modern laptop. The keyboard is roomy and responsive, even squeezing a tiny numeric keypad to the right.

    Slim laptop fully opened sitting on a wooden table with colorful abstract art on the screen

    Photograph: Chris Null

    An intriguing addition is the inclusion of color LED backlighting for the keyboard—something you don’t often see outside the world of gaming laptops. The single-zone lighting effects can be tweaked in the preloaded MyAsus app, which controls a range of functions ranging from fan speed to audio effects. The backlighting is understated in large part because it is hard to see, due to the silver color of the keys. Whether the backlighting was on or off, I struggled to read the letters and symbols on the tops of the keys; there just wasn’t enough contrast.

    Note that the unit does not include Asus’ new Ceraluminum shell—the S 15 has an all-metal chassis—nor does it include the older ScreenPad feature (where the touchpad doubles as a small display), which is present on some other Vivobook offerings.

    Port selection is good and befitting of a 15.6-inch laptop, with two USB-C ports supporting USB4, two USB-A 3.2 ports, a full-size HDMI port, and a microSD card reader. All ports are side-mounted. The Vivobook weighs 3 pounds and is 20 millimeters thick, acceptable stats for a machine of this size.

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