At Computex, Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon C, a brand new chipset that it stated is geared toward laptops that can value $300 and up. Apart from asserting the chipset, it actually will not say the rest, as a lot as even acknowledging essentially the most trivial of specs.
It is not good, and after a string of underwhelming mid-tier launches between the primary Home windows on Arm PCs in 2017, and 2023, it has loads to show. This chip does not truly appear to be geared toward $300 laptops, and it appears primed to underwhelm once more.
The Snapdragon C just isn’t for $300 laptops
Possibly in one other timeline
I attended a Q&A session hosted by Qualcomm’s SVP of Compute and Gaming Kedar Kondap, and one factor that I took away from it’s that regardless of the messaging round it, the Snapdragon C is not truly a chip for $300 laptops. It is a chip for laptops that value $300 in a fictional timeline the place there is not any reminiscence scarcity.
This, in fact, places Qualcomm in an inconceivable scenario with the Snapdragon C. If it goes into $600 laptops, the dialog turns into about the way it competes with the likes of the MacBook Neo and Dell’s new XPS 13. So after I requested about the way it stacks up in opposition to what’s going to truly be its rivals, I could not get an actual reply.
Even other than all of that, this has all the time been a problem for Qualcomm. When Snapdragon X launched again in 2024, it was supposed to indicate up in laptops that value as little as $600. Then, laptops just like the Asus Zenbook A14 began hitting the marketplace for over $1,000. Decrease-priced gadgets did seem finally, however it by no means gave the impression to be the finances chip it was supposed to be.
At a sure level, you need to surprise if it is simply actually bold math.
I do assume that the messaging is a bit totally different although. When Snapdragon X Plus 8-core launched, Qualcomm CEO let it slip that the corporate could be in laptops that value as little as $600, although the goal value for that chip was $800 and Snapdragon X was going to launch later. There is a massive shift in tone if you go from, “Our chip shall be in laptops that value X {dollars}” to “We’re concentrating on laptops that value X {dollars}”. One implies that it is one thing that is already identified however but to hit the opposite, whereas the opposite is only a hope.
The specs aren’t there
It is a QCS6490
We all know what the specs of the Snapdragon C are, even when Qualcomm is not saying it. It is a QCS6490 underneath the hood, a chip that is existed for an excellent 5 years, residing on as a cellular chip, a Dragonwing, and extra. It is a long-term servicing chipset, so the corporate has tons of them.
But it surely’s nonetheless a five-year-old chipset that was made for telephones, telephones that weren’t even within the premium tier on the time. It has 4 Cortex-A78 cores, with a type of because the prime core, and 4 Cortex-A55 cores.
That is actually not good. Because it stands proper now, you may get a Floor Professional 9 5G, which features a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 (branded as Microsoft SQ3), for round $500, and that is going to get you significantly better efficiency.
There is not any thriller right here, and that is most likely why Qualcomm is not speaking about it. If these merchandise begin launching at value factors between $500 and $600, they merely will not stand as much as rivals.
The vibes are off
Hey, I’ve seen this film
I can not let you know what number of instances I’ve coated a brand new Snapdragon Compute announcement, and written concerning the hype. We had been all the time instructed that 8 meant premium, so the unique Snapdragon 835 was imagined to be nice, the Snapdragon 850 was supposed to repair it, and the Snapdragon 8cx was imagined to lastly convey it on par with an Intel Core i5.
When the Snapdragon 7c launched, Qualcomm was set to vary the panorama of mid-tier PCs, including worth the place nobody else may.
I reviewed merchandise and talked about how Microsoft Edge and Workplace ran effectively sufficient, however we would have liked higher emulation. When Adobe launched a local model of Photoshop, I handled the way it was so buggy that it will crash should you tried to open multiple file at a time. It was damaged like this for years, and Qualcomm nonetheless championed it as a local app accessible on its platforms.
I did all of it with optimism for the long run forward, and Qualcomm lastly delivered when it launched Snapdragon X Elite. We acquired the efficiency, and we acquired the native apps.
I nonetheless take a look at Snapdragon launches with a watch of skepticism although, and that is why I am scripting this. I’ve seen these merchandise get hyped, and I’ve seen the aftermath.
The one distinction this time is, there is not any actual hype. Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon C with a slide that basically stated, “This can be a product”. There is not any promise of revolutionizing $300 PCs, and like I stated above, it is not even really geared toward $300 PCs.
The maths is not mathing
The most important inform right here is that the Snapdragon C is not truly meant to enter $300 laptops, until the reminiscence scarcity was to out of the blue finish, one thing that there are not any indicators of. However in 2026, this is not a $300 laptop computer half. It is also simply not an excellent half, given the specs that we all know.
Qualcomm’s silence is deafening. It is not speaking about any specs in any respect (even easy issues like confirming that it does not have a Copilot+ NPU), it will not reply questions on how the Snapdragon C competes in opposition to its actual rivals, and it is not promising to disrupt the market that it is concentrating on.