Undermined by Controversy, Copilot+ PC Launches

We’ve waited years for this moment, only to have it undercut by pointless last-minute drama. But today’s the day: The first Qualcomm Snapdragon X PCs are now available under the controversial Copilot+ PC banner. The only question is whether it matters in the slightest.

Until Microsoft caught the AI bug, the point of bringing Windows to the Arm hardware ecosystem was to take advantage of the inherent benefits of that platform: Efficiency, battery life, and always-on connectivity. And until Copilot+ PC that’s how Arm-based Windows 10 and 11 PCs were sold, as Always-Connected PCs.

But AI changed everything, especially at Microsoft. And so this new generation Arm platform, Snapdragon X, finally delivers on the performance and compatibility that was previously missing. And Microsoft dropped the always-connected requirement, replacing it with an NPU requirement for on-device, hardware-accelerated AI capabilities.

Why not do both? It would be too expensive: Where previous generation Arm-based PCs were basically luxury devices with too many compromises, Snapdragon X-based laptops are premium PCs, yes, but also more mainstream, with prices starting as low as a reasonable $1000. We will get Copilot+ PCs with 5G connectivity at some point–Microsoft has already said that it will deliver a Surface Pro model with that capability later this year–but the Always-Connect PC spec is pretty much dead. 5G is now optional, as it is on all PCs.

What’s not optional is AI. Copilot+ PCs include a Copilot key on the keyboard, so you can mistakenly launch the new Copilot app each day as you fumble-finger. They include a Snapdragon X Elite or Plus chip, with integrated CPU, GPU, and NPU, the latter rated at 45 TOPS. The version of Windows 11 that’s included features a few features unique to this platform, like Cocreator in Paint (not to be confused with Image Creator in Paint, which everyone gets), Live Captions with real-time translation (not to be confused with Live Captions, which everyone gets), Windows Studio Effects (which pre-Copilot+ PCs with NPUS also get), and, coming soon ™, Recall, the controversial new timeline feature that garnered far too much attention.

And that’s about it. But not really: Thanks to improved thermals, Copilot+ PCs, while not fanless, are thinner and usually lighter than their mainstream x86 siblings and will run silently or nearly so in most cases. They should get about double the battery life of similar x86 laptops. And they should perform similarly, or even better in some cases, while offering unique capabilities related to game playing.

The big deal here is common to Windows: You don’t buy a PC to run Windows, you buy a PC to run apps, and it will be the AI capabilities in the third-party apps that make or breaks Copilot+ PC as a platform. Here, your results will vary wildly, depending on your needs and the speed at which developers embrace the on-device NPU-based capabilities. For the most part, the biggest gains will be seen in creator apps related to photo editing, video production, and the like.

For those who don’t need or want such things, the hope is that the thinner, lighter, more efficient, and silent/nearly silent nature of Copilot+ PCs–in other words, a big part of the original Arm and Always-Connected PC promise–will be a big enough draw for mainstream customers. Having reviewed multiple laptops each year for over two decades, and having experienced multiple reliability issues with modern x86-based laptops this year alone, I can assure you that these capabilities do matter. But that doesn’t mean that mainstream users understand any of this. The marketing is up to Microsoft and its PC maker partners.

And we can now see the go-to market strategy. Microsoft is promoting these PCs on its website and it’s published posts such as Top things to know about Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft Surface, available today at Microsoft.com and How to unlock new experiences on your Copilot+ PC. And its PC maker partners will do likewise on their own websites and in digital and traditional advertising. We are hitting the back to school selling season, which is good timing. And then we’ll have a new wave, presumably with AMD and Intel additions, in time for the holidays.

And off we go. God help us all.