At the WinHEC 2016 conference in China last year, Microsoft amazed the tech industry by announcing the partnership with the leading ARM based chip supplier, Qualcomm. As a result, Microsoft and Qualcomm dreamt of launching the first Windows 10 devices based on the ARM-based Snapdragon Processors and disrupt the mobile tech industry.
This was not only kept to words, or a good public speech, but Microsoft’s Terry Myerson demoed the capability on a machine with Snapdragon 820 processor (4GB RAM) running full Windows 10 OS including the resource intensive applications like Adobe Photoshop etc. You can check the video below.
After the Qualcomm announced its flagship mobile processor, Snapdragon 835, we came to know that Microsoft-Qualcomm partnership would be targeting this piece of technology and build always-connected devices based on Snapdragon 835, as was confirmed.
Today, the Qualcomm CEO, Steve Mollenkopf, speaking at the Q2 2017 Earnings Conference Call, left us with a tentative dateline for when to expect the first Windows 10 PCs powered by ARM processor, which is Q4 2017.
Here is an excerpt from the report:
We have an opportunity to disrupt the existing suppliers of the PC and the datacenter. Our Snapdragon 835 is expanding into Mobile PC designs running Windows 10, which are scheduled to launch in the fourth calendar quarter this year.
So there you have it. Windows 10 cellular PCs will be arriving at the end of this year. Since the past record for Microsoft introducing Windows RT tablets has not been well received, it seems we wouldn’t see loads of devices but only a few will be announced and released to the market for consumers. This will ensure and give the company an idea of consumer taste, whether they should carry on the build process or not, based on the consumer interest and the feedback.
We hope the history doesn’t repeat itself.
What do you think of the cellular Windows 10 PCs? Let us know in the comments below.
