Best Laptops with ARM Processors

ORIGINAL POST

Hi! I am searching for an ARM laptop and cant find the one for me. Why do I want ARM? I am interested in the architecture and absolutely want the long battery life. It should be 14 inch, have 4-8 GiB of RAM, preferably 8. It needs to be able to handle running stuff like Pulsar-edit or VScode, Firefox, and spotify at the same time without lag. I want to use it with either armbian or endeavourOS-arm. It should also have functioning bluetooth and wifi with these linux distros.

Do you have a recommendation?

8 replies

Dirty_South_Cracka · 1 year ago

There are several dirt cheap chromebooks that can be easily modified to run a full linux distro. Check out the compatibility list on https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility

GalliumOS is just a fork of debian with the chromebook specific key bindings and stuff.

They're not particularity snappy, but will get the job done and can be found for very cheap.

2 upvotes on reddit

aqjo · 1 year ago

I may be missing something, but all the ARM-based laptops listed there say supported='No'.

2 upvotes on reddit

Dirty_South_Cracka · 1 year ago

You're right. I was mistaken. I thought this project was ARM centric not exclusive.

3 upvotes on reddit

LowBarometer · 1 year ago

Robo & Kala make an outstanding Qualcomm based laptop. It's tiny and uses very little power. I switched from that to using DeX on my Samsung S24u which uses even less power with a portable monitor.

2 upvotes on reddit

pemb · 1 year ago

Perhaps the ThinkPad X13s? Linux support isn't exactly mature yet, though.

3 upvotes on reddit

aieidotch · 1 year ago

Apple MacBook Air or Pro M1 or M2?

13 upvotes on reddit

TunnagMor · 1 year ago

All Arm employees received a Mac M1 when Arm turned 30 as a gift. Quite a lot still have and use them. Light, fast and long life battery.

8 upvotes on reddit

juststayreal · 1 year ago

Asahi on MacBook with Apple silicon can help.

3 upvotes on reddit

See 8 replies

r/SuggestALaptop • [2]

Summarize

Looking for a Laptop with ARM based CPU

Posted by hornzi · in r/SuggestALaptop · 3 years ago

Hi, I really like the idea of an Arm based laptop like the new Apple M1, but don't want to buy a product from Apple.

Basically I'm looking for an alternative with these specs:

- 11 - 13"

- 16gb ram minimum

- usb c charging

- arm based cpu

- no touchscreen

- I always run linux, it would be a plus if the laptop doesn't ship with windows

Any suggestions?

2 upvotes on reddit

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SamsungAppleOnePlus · 3 years ago

The only ARM based laptops I'm aware of are budget laptops (slow, 4GB of RAM, that kind of thing). I'd really just get the MacBook Air M1.

Edit: After research there are a few good ARM laptops, although none would meet your criteria. The Surface Pro X is one of them, for example.

1 upvotes on reddit

hornzi · OP · 3 years ago

any laptop I own that even as much as touches windows would be instantly incinerated by my rage

0 upvotes on reddit

SamsungAppleOnePlus · 3 years ago

Misread your post as a Windows ARM laptop alternative, my bad. What's your reasoning for not buying an Apple product? If you don't mind me asking.

1 upvotes on reddit

MoChuang · 3 years ago

Ask again in a few years

5 upvotes on reddit

hornzi · OP · 3 years ago

where would you compromise to get something as close as possible?

1 upvotes on reddit

MoChuang · 3 years ago

There some decent ARM chromebooks coming out this year. I think some are already out. But for Windows AFAIK its just not ready yet. The amount of jank you'll experience with Windows on ARM is more than the learning curve of using an ARM Chromebook and learning Linux on ChromeOS.

1 upvotes on reddit

poorphdguy · 3 years ago

Unless you're planning to spend $300 on a substandard laptop, or buy surface pro x, you really don't have much options. I suggest you can even stick with the surface pro x. Just wipe clean the hard drive and install Linux. Considering you're looking for a wild ride, you'll have a fun month figuring how every part of the laptop will run with the half baked drivers. The laptop build is great. If you're not keen on surface, I suggest Lenovo flex. It'll be really slow but we'll give you a platform to develop or watch content.

1 upvotes on reddit

See 7 replies

r/msp • [3]

Summarize

Thoughts on the new(ish) Snapdragon laptops

Posted by desmond_koh · in r/msp · 1 month ago

Is anyone using the Snapdragon laptops like the Galaxy Book4 Edge or the Dell XPS 13 that come with the ARM processors?

Any challenges using them for real-world MSP/IT work? Do you have any tools that you rely on daily that either don’t work at all or work very poorly?

What about customers running them? Do you have any trouble supporting them?

20 upvotes on reddit

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https://www.support.xerox.com/en-us/product/global-printer-driver/downloads?platform=win11arm64&language=en&attributeId=

12 replies

Lone_Wolf_555 · 1 month ago

One of my customers insisted on a surface with an ARM chip. It runs fast enough and has good battery life. I had to set up a VM for him to RDP to so he can run their CRM and the Sophos VPN client wouldn’t work so I had to find a 3rd party one. My opinion is they aren’t ready for enterprise yet. They’re closer to a Chromebook in compatibility with a lot of software.

39 upvotes on reddit

Vtrin · 1 month ago

Anyone who disagrees I challenge to setup a large multifunctional printer that’s roughly 5 or so years old with an ARM processor

41 upvotes on reddit

regularguykc · 1 month ago

Yep, first ARM-based Surface I saw at a customer site had to be returned because they couldn't print from it. Several VPN client softwares don't have an ARM-based version.

2 upvotes on reddit

Cold-Funny7452 · 1 month ago

This guy prints, since he doesn’t have ARM chip

23 upvotes on reddit

DefJeff702 · 1 month ago

This! Driver availability leaves a lot to desire. Including printers.

3 upvotes on reddit

dumpsterfyr · 1 month ago

May as well buy a MacBook Air. Will have more software available to you.

24 upvotes on reddit

rienholt · 1 month ago

I use one as my daily driver. The only issue I have is our ancient Canon copier doesn't have drivers so I have had to use a smaller HP in sales/accounting for the three things I printed this year. Battery life is truly amazing. Love how sleep, hibernate, and resume just work. When I first got it in August of last year there weren't any USB to Serial drivers yet and our VPN client was in beta but that was resolved by October.

We now have about 30 deployed to several small clients that are 100% M365 and one account that is all RDP.

9 upvotes on reddit

fletchnuts · 1 month ago

I've had some success using Xerox ARM drivers for Canon MFPs.

1 upvotes on reddit

2manybrokenbmws · 1 month ago

I have been on an arm surface laptop for a few months now. I mostly live in the browser so not a great use case BUT...!

Battery life is amazing to the point that I forget to charge it for a couple days sometimes I bought one of the lowest spec ones, and it is lightning fast. Was $900 if i remember right. The intel config i was looking at was going to be twice the price.

The bad: Random weird little issues. One example is that hibernate perpetually has problems on these. Another one is because of the way the npu works, there is some weirdness with external cameras. The fix is to disable the internal camera when using one. Software compatibility of course, but again I would mostly in the browser, so not seeing this very often.

We have a handful of clients using them, but only the executives that are living in Outlook and the browser.

6 upvotes on reddit

desmond_koh · OP · 1 month ago

>We have a handful of clients using them, but only the executives that are living in Outlook and the browser.

Does your RMM and EDR work OK on them? If so, what are you using?

2 upvotes on reddit

dumpsterfyr · 1 month ago

I run everything on Mac.

8 upvotes on reddit

rainierd · 1 month ago

The biggest issues are drivers and vpns. A lot of big manufacturers have been slow to adapt. Canon is crap, but we are now using ARM xerox drivers for canon copiers that are passable. Fortinet was slow but finally have a vpn client as of a few months ago. 80-90% of stuff just works with native MS drivers but you still need to test before a big buy in. YMMV.

2 upvotes on reddit

See 12 replies

r/snapdragon • [4]

Summarize

Considering getting an ARM laptop as a dev - need infos

Posted by NotThePyramidHead · in r/snapdragon · 2 months ago

Hey, i'll try to make this post different than usual "is ARM good? recommend me a laptop" posts.

I'm a student in CS, and i'll sell my old gaming laptop and other stuff so that I can buy a nice computer to work with daily. The only two main requirements I have are: a fast CPU (i'm not sure what tasks i might deal with in the future, so I need it to be a bit future proof) and great autonomy. I've always been kinda curious too, and to me ARM architecture seems like a pretty good deal.

For those reasons, I've considered a macbook first but then I've seen Snapdragon laptops. After documenting myself a bit, i've seen that support was getting better and better. Reviews i've seen are probably already outdated though, so I was wondering how does software support feel today - especially from a dev pov (web, software and gaming, feel free to share any experience)

Another question, in terms of performance, are ARM laptops usually worth their price (basically is a 800ish dollars laptop equivalent to what performances you could get with that money if it was x86?), or does being a "new tech" make them more expensive?

One laptop I've found for example is the Acer Swift 14 Ai for 840€, how good is the X1P-64100 (10 cores) chip? I'm not much of a benchmark connaisseur tbh.

Thanks for reading, and special thanks to anyone who'll share advices and experience :)

6 upvotes on reddit

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TallComputerDude · 2 months ago

I build PCs for fun and usually test 3 Windows builds at a time. Windows on ARM64 is the most interesting one right now. All the Snapdragon PCs have at least 16 GB, they all have cooling fans (as far as I know), and they have upgradeable storage. You can potentially throw in a 2280 SSD and install Windows from the OEM's installer method. The ARM64 ISO from Microsoft did not work for me.

The core parking feature is really interesting too. Right click the CPU graph in Task Manager and Change Graph > to Logical Processors so you can see it. The mouseover tells you which cores are parked, but you can kinda see visually. X Elite runs shockingly well with only 3 cores enabled. A Zoom call with 30 people all on camera and it parks 9 of the cores but still doesn't lag. WHAT? There's now ARM64 build for VirtualBox. And then Discord's Developer build is ARM64 and silky smooth. It feels like there's a couple great apps each month being recompiled and released in ARM64 version. In most cases, the developer's web site automatically offers ARM64 version when it's available. And many X64 apps run flawlessly or well enough that I'm not bothered. It's pretty neat. Even runs some Steam games originally released for PS4.

But don't put a Samsung SSD in "Full Performance Mode" because mine BSOD'd until I swapped it in my Intel PC to switch it back. Huge pain. I would not recommend this as your only computer, but some aspects feel slightly beyond where Mac seems lately, especially with Windows Hello. It dims the display when I turn my head and locks when I step away. It is neat and the battery life is mostly quite impressive.

2 upvotes on reddit

SirkoSobaka · 1 month ago

Get a MacBook. You can run Windows in Parallels if you need to, it works perfectly. But most likely are you'll just use Mac OS, and will be happy with it.

1 upvotes on reddit

NotThePyramidHead · OP · 1 month ago

Yup I ended up getting a M4 Macbook air, i'm loving it so far!

2 upvotes on reddit

SirkoSobaka · 1 month ago

Good choice. Hope you got it with enough RAM.
When you get a job, you'll want a computer with the OS that your devops and team leads use. Because then your problems will be their problems, and vice versa.

2 upvotes on reddit

Lightwalker97 · 2 months ago

If you're really dead, set on running something on Windows, Consider looking into Intel's lunar lake. The same computers that came out with the Snapdragon chip, were then re-released with Intel lunar lake literally within the same year or the next year.

This is coming from a dude who's bought both a gaming laptop, the Microsoft Surface 7, and then ended up going back to Mac.

So again all with a grain of salt

1 upvotes on reddit

Reasonable-Peanut447 · 2 months ago

Not there yet.

1 upvotes on reddit

Gamer-4382 · 2 months ago

I have an Notebook from Honor. Honor MagicBook art 14 Snapdragon X Elite. I am very pleased with how it works. The battery lasts longer than I expected. The programs all work very well. Despite the fact that many say that Arm is not yet developed enough for Windows. Microsoft has already developed an emulator where programs work almost natively as in x64 or x86. Even through emulation, the processor and rams do not seem to be exploited more than on Windows x64 or x86. I'm playing through Nvidia Force Now streaming. Per premium member in maximum settings. Pleasant experience. I don't regret that I chose to try this type of processor. I also have a PC with AMD, I would like to point out. I don't use it much anymore. With my laptop, I have more freedom. Considering I have an 8 month old baby. And I can play or work on my laptop while rocking it in his roller crib.

2 upvotes on reddit

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r/linuxhardware • [5]

Summarize

Will we be getting ARM based Laptop workstation any time soon?

Posted by paulsiu · in r/linuxhardware · 2 years ago

I like the the Apple M series chips, but don't really like its lack of expandability. I was wondering if there will be ARM based computer soon that rivals Apple M series? Most of the ARM series tend to be on the lower end. Even the most recent Thinkpad x13's is slower than the current generation of x86 and M1.

I am aware that Qualcomm may be coming out with something this year, but Qualcomm is not greatest vendor for open source. Are there any other competitors out there? I am curious to see if I would be able to have a ARM laptop workstation running linux one of these days.

UPDATE

Currently, it appears the highest performing ARM processor other than Apple is probably the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, which seems to run at roughly 60% of a M1. The two laptop that uses it is Lenovo X13s and Surface Pro 9 SQ3. Sadly, neither is better than the Apple macbook in terms of expandability, both essentially have everything soldered in. My hopes is that one day we will have something like a Framework laptop with ARM processor.

Linux support is still in my opinion in its infancy, or may be it's more like a toddler now. I suspect that I have to wait a few years. However, as Windows hardware become more available, I am pretty sure that support will grow and eventually result in linux support from a manufacturer like Tux, or System76.

18 upvotes on reddit

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architecture

12 replies

[deleted] · 2 years ago

Hum... No? Apple's laptops could be expandable but it makes them more money to sell RAM and storage for 4x the market costs of standalone components

2 upvotes on reddit

sue_me_please · 2 years ago

Even if we did, ARM SoCs make it difficult to support Linux in the same way it would be able to support an x86 machine, because of the lack of ACPI and enumerable buses.

3 upvotes on reddit

MartinsRedditAccount · 1 year ago

It may be more difficult but not a deal-breaker. Linux has been running on various RISC systems for decades (routers). Also, UEFI implementations for ARM seem to work well enough, I was able to boot and run unmodified Memtestx86 on my Raspberry Pi 400 using U-Boot.

I think the benefits of RISC architectures are huge, especially for an ecosystem where so much has open source code, enabling much easier native compatibility.

1 upvotes on reddit

sue_me_please · 1 year ago

Sometimes that difficulty is a moat that never gets crossed, or prevents others from easily improving upon those platforms over time.

My drawers are riddled with ARM SoCs that are essentially garbage because of the work it would take to maintain them is too much for anyone who might be interested in doing so.

Each SoC is essentially their own platform that isn't standardized like PCs are, and that requires a mountain of maintainers to maintain custom toolchains, bootloaders and kernels for each of them.

Whereas with something like a PC, someone can write drivers, mainline them into the kernel and that hardware will essentially work for years without any further maintenance. I can, and have, used x86 hardware from 2006 and can run a generic Linux image on it without an issue. It's nearly impossible to do that with some random ARM SoC that doesn't have a dedicated community, or company, behind it constantly working for free to make sure it continues to work with modern software/kernels throughout the years.

There are ARM SoCs that implement things like SBSA, and thus have UEFI and ACPI support, and thus also have the same benefits PCs enjoy when it comes to running generic and modern Linux images. Those tend to be servers, though, and I've yet to see any consumer facing ARM SoC that implements SBSA.

Without SBSA, replacing PC architecture with custom ARM SoCs in desktops and laptops is several steps backward from the hardware standardization we've enjoyed for decades on x86 PCs.

I think the benefits of RISC architectures are huge, especially for an ecosystem where so much has open source code, enabling much easier native compatibility.

What we're seeing with ARM SoCs is a reversion away from open source code and compatibility, especially around boot processes and hardware bootstrapping. Many ARM SoCs have closed source bootloaders, or use MIT-esque bootloader forks that aren't open sourced by the manufacturer, and require closed-sourced blobs to bring up CPUs, GPUs and other peripherals that might have been discovered and brought up using standard protocols, even if they needed closed source firmware.

The end result is that compatibility is negatively affected, as hardware compatibility standards seen in PCs and servers are ignored in favor of just winging it in the cheapest way possible to get ARM SoCs to market as fast as possible.

I agree with your points about RISC benefits, and hope to see them improve computing everywhere. I just want them to follow compatibility standards that make writing open source software like Linux as easy, if not easier, as it is for existing PCs.

1 upvotes on reddit

PM_ME_UR_TRACTORS · 2 years ago

Frame.work!

Well, they struggle slightly with efficiency I suppose. My battery life is "only" 5-6 hours...

(my work-issued MBA M2 is a quite-literal 21 hours)

3 upvotes on reddit

cn0MMnb · 2 years ago

Thanks for making my point :)

The framework is a fantastic piece of hardware, and I wish it was available in my region.

3 upvotes on reddit

Commercial_Bear331 · 2 years ago

I will. M1/M2/M3 MacBook Air with Asahi Linux.

Thinkpad X13s would be an alternative, too. But it's too expensive in Europe, for what you get, and MacBook out-of-the-box Linux support will likely be better.

6 upvotes on reddit

[deleted] · 2 years ago

You are going to buy an expensive MacBook to run an unsupported hobby OS in the Alpha stages? It's not even optimized enough to really take advantage of the MX chipsets.

-6 upvotes on reddit

Commercial_Bear331 · 2 years ago

dear clown,

thanks for trying to educate me.

I have a master degree in cyber security from one of the best elite universities on this planet. My last Thinkpad X1 Carbon was more expensive than most macbooks.

I've been working fulltime on linux for more than a decade, and made multiple millions of € of turnover using 100% linux.

so much about my hobby OS that is powering "the internet".

your turn.

0 upvotes on reddit

Ok-Beautiful4883 · 2 years ago

Lmao, Torvalds himself uses Asahi Linux on ARM. It is very well adopted. But yes most people use Linux on x86_64.

1 upvotes on reddit

MrGunny94 · 2 years ago

I hope so, love my M1 and M2 Pro laptops… But the native Arch experience itches me once in a while

6 upvotes on reddit

PM_ME_UR_TRACTORS · 2 years ago

Yeah! The Pinebook Pro is really ne-[ sees "workstation" ]

Oh.

4 upvotes on reddit

See 12 replies

r/thinkpad • [6]

Summarize

T14s Snapdragon 64GB OLED - the ultimate ARM workstation

Posted by SkyFeistyLlama8 · in r/thinkpad · 6 months ago

I was looking for a Surface Pro 11 with 64 GB RAM but that beast doesn't exist in most markets, in either Snapdragon ARM or Intel Lunar Lake form. So I ended up with this beauty: T14s Gen 6 with the Snapdragon X1E-78, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, OLED 2880x1800 screen, pretty much the entire options list except for WWAN. The price was around $1500 which is a right freaking steal thanks to some huge Lenovo discounts.

Speed: fast fast fast, faster than Lunar Lake for office stuff and coding under WSL, close to MacBook Pro M3 performance. Run ARM64 programs in Windows or WSL (virtualized ARM Linux) and you're good to go. x64 business apps like Power BI Desktop also run fine under emulation with a slight performance loss.
Heat: negligible to none, the thin T14s chassis and the single fan handle the Snapdragon's heat just fine. I can't hear the fan spinning up most of the time.
SSD: it's a 1 TB WD SN740 in M.2 2242 form factor, not the fastest or most efficient SSD but at least it's TLC
RAM: 640k is all you need???
Screen: 14 inches of OLED 2880x1200 120 Hz antiglare antismudge goodness. 400 nits overall brightness is fine because the antiglare coating cuts down on reflections even in brightly lit rooms and when sitting next to windows. There's no touchscreen layer that adds graininess either. HDR500 mode makes my non-OLED TV look dull.
Battery life: astonishing! This is getting into MacBook Air territory with a small 58 Wh battery. Windows' battery meter shows 13 to 15 hours remaining at 30% brightness and dark mode when running Office, Edge and WSL. Playing 4k YouTube videos gets that down to 12 hours. Just make sure the screen is set to 60 Hz refresh if you intend to use the laptop mostly on battery.

If you don't have drivers or weird programs that are x86 only and you don't mind running Windows 11, then this thing is the non-Apple equivalent of a MacBook Pro, while being lighter than a MacBook Air.

This T14s loadout is the closest to an X1 Carbon running ARM as you can get. Hopefully Lenovo makes an X1C Snapdragon in the future.

i.redd.it

516 upvotes on reddit

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flecom · 6 months ago

ARM in generally seems to end up being for disposable products...

my T430 from 2012 can run the latest linux OS' without issue, and windows 11 with a little persuasion...

a microsoft surface RT from 2012 (arm) can't run anything beyond windows 8.1 and some older linux releases that require "hacking" the device

-1 upvotes on reddit

hollywoodhandshook · 6 months ago

thanks thats really helpful! i wish there was an x1 nano - or any 12"/11" laptop - with this chip so it would be exclusively my travel laptop to throw in a bag.

3 upvotes on reddit

jaymemaurice · 6 months ago

Simply such ARM laptops haven't been built on sustainable foundations that can even result in the current models being well supported even if they suddenly became the most popular selling computing device.

To your point: Microsoft's own support for their own RT devices was awful and fizzled.

And it's not like you can just make new OS binaries run like 2012 MACs still running the latest OSX.

The hardware become literal paperweights when they inevitably become unsupported. They become unsupported because so little of the boot processes and drivers are standardized in ways that are supportable across multiple devices and implementations. And all vendors are fighting for their pie and keep their drivers and blobs closed source. There is zero interest in going back to supporting old shipped hardware. You are at the mercy of the hardware vendor to prioritize old hardware over next new incompatible thing or maybe some spectrum hobbyists who are generally more productive on these kinds of things in different socio-economic climates. (If you are reading this, we appreciate you ) PC x86 is riding on the backs of giant standards and efforts for cross vendor compatibility. ARM ecosystem is radically different and x86 alive seems to mean something a lot more specific than ARM.

2 upvotes on reddit

Masoul22 · 6 months ago

Best windows laptop on the market is the HP Elitebook x G1a. AMD HX 375. Silent, cool, amazing battery life and multithreading monster.

3 upvotes on reddit

SkyFeistyLlama8 · OP · 6 months ago

AMDs always have the issue of losing performance on battery. They run fast on mains power, slower and more efficient on battery.

Snapdragon and Apple Silicon laptops are similar in offering the same level of performance when unplugged and plugged in.

5 upvotes on reddit

flecom · 6 months ago

I have no doubt there will be some linux support but for how long? ARM in generally seems to end up being for disposable products...

my T430 from 2012 can run the latest linux OS' without issue, and windows 11 with a little persuasion...

a microsoft surface RT from 2012 (arm) can't run anything beyond windows 8.1 and some older linux releases that require "hacking" the device

4 upvotes on reddit

rwrife · 6 months ago

I still think the 7x is a better machine....similar specs, cheaper, smaller chassis and probably the best display you can get on a laptop.

7 upvotes on reddit

SkyFeistyLlama8 · OP · 6 months ago

Ain't no ThinkPad lol

The Yoga Slim 7x has a very nice OLED touchscreen but there's no 64 GB RAM option.

7 upvotes on reddit

hollywoodhandshook · 6 months ago

Can you ELI5- what is the potential downside of ARM if you just run win11 and the "regular" programs that run on it? Why are people very opposed to it?

Currently running an X1C gen 12 but might upgrade next year.

8 upvotes on reddit

Unhappy_Poetry_8756 · 6 months ago

Nothing. Only issue is for gamers or if you need specialty programs that don’t play well with ARM.

3 upvotes on reddit

SkyFeistyLlama8 · OP · 6 months ago

Business purchase. Anyway, the LCD non-touch T14s Snapdragon already has the best battery life so far among recent Snapdragon laptops, something crazy like 25 to over 30 hours depending on workload. Adding OLED knocks a few hours off. It's worth it because that screen is so damned good.

The funny thing is that the latest X1 Carbon Lunar Lake model also gets really good battery life for video playback, but it's slower and doesn't last as long when doing actual work.

21 upvotes on reddit

flecom · 6 months ago

would never buy an ARM laptop but to each their own, hope you enjoy it!

42 upvotes on reddit

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r/linuxhardware • [7]

Summarize

Linux on ARM

Posted by FirmSupermarket6933 · in r/linuxhardware · 29 days ago

Hello everybody! I'm very excited about macbooks with M chips. They have very long battery life, they are power efficient. So I started thinking about ARM laptop. Those of you who have arm laptop and especially lenovo thinkpad, could you tell me what doesn't not work, what works poorly (and what's wrong), which distro do you use?

13 upvotes on reddit

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MarcusE1W · 29 days ago

I agree. I have a Thinkpad X13s as well. Bluetooth, webcam, fingerprint scanner, all work. In some distros like openSuse you need a bit of config, then it all works. Ubuntu has done a really good job and the standard ARM install iso works of of the box.

1 upvotes on reddit

tomscharbach · 29 days ago

ARM64 (the version that has been around for a few years) is supported on a number of distributions (Arch Linux ARM, Debian ARM, Fedora ARM Edition, Manjaro ARM, Ubuntu ARM Server, and quite a number of others).

The newer Snapdragon versions of ARM -- the versions found in the new "ARM laptops" -- are not yet well supported. Ubuntu, for example, has been working on support, with somewhat mixed results so far: FAQ: Ubuntu 25.04 on Snapdragon X Elite.

I believe that the situation is similar with other distributions at this point. You will have to do some research. My suggestion is to move little by little by slowly at this point.

My best and good luck.

16 upvotes on reddit

the_deppman · 29 days ago

Have you considered a Lunar Lake or Arrow Lake system? Lunar Lake is closest to the ARM by having RAM soldered on-package for the sake of durability and power savings, but at the expense of flexibility. Various reviews indicate that Lunar Lake provide nearly-as-good power efficiency as the M-chips.

The Arrow Lake systems are not quite as efficient, but they are more modular and can have upgradable RAM.

I suggest this because both LL and AL have very good accelerated iGPU performance, robust drivers for Linux, and binary compatibility. ARM systems still have issues with all of these.

2 upvotes on reddit

FirmSupermarket6933 · OP · 29 days ago

I haven't thought about LL or AL. Actually, I know how hot x86_64 processors can be and I don't like the idea of having heater on your knees. That's why I thought about arm laptop. Can LL or AL stay cold on light tasks like chatting, browsing, notes taking?

2 upvotes on reddit

the_deppman · 28 days ago

> Can LL or AL stay cold on light tasks like chatting, browsing, notes taking?

Absolutely. The biggest power draw in these situations will be the screen. I encourage you to look at reviews that show LL systems running over 20 hours on a 65 WHr battery. That's definitely Mac territory.

2 upvotes on reddit

hz44100 · 27 days ago

Man I've been burned consistently by reviews and benchmarks. The people I've talked to in person who have the latest Intel gen are saying the battery life is still garbage.

That said, Ubuntu ARM battery life on my X13s is about comparable to my 12th gen Intel CPU. I think there's still work to do.

1 upvotes on reddit

the_deppman · 26 days ago

The ability to suspend resume is a killer feature. I use that all the time on my arrow lake HX laptops because it maintains whatever I'm working on. From what I've read, that doesn't often work in ARM. Have you have a good experience on this?

1 upvotes on reddit

LocalNightDrummer · 28 days ago

What about battery life? The best argument for ARM is, after all, energy efficiency. Does it live up to the expectation regarding power management of the ARM chips with linux?

1 upvotes on reddit

Ulysses_Zopol · 28 days ago

The thing I don't understand: does an ARM OS on an ARM machine enable you to use any Linux software or do these need to come in a version compiled for ARM?

1 upvotes on reddit

T0ysWAr · 26 days ago

I run Asahi Linux on a M1 Pro.

Perfect

Careful, newer models have less support (maybe has been fixed…).

1 upvotes on reddit

OnkelVomMars · 29 days ago

even if you get it to run there are fields which are only supported on intel and amd64, for example binary-only-codecs - bad if you have a decades old collection of media.

my household is back on amd64, the only leftover raspberry pis do some logging of environmental data.

3 upvotes on reddit

FirmSupermarket6933 · OP · 29 days ago

It's not a problem for me. Even though, I can covert such media to supported formats e.g. via ffmeg.

I've found that snapdragon x elite support decoding in following formats: H264, VP9, AV1, H265 (link).

1 upvotes on reddit

See 12 replies

r/laptops • [8]

Summarize

Anyone using those new Qualcomm ARM laptops? Worth it?

Posted by Winter_soilder35 · in r/laptops · 1 month ago

Hey guys,

I’m looking to upgrade my laptop and I keep seeing these new Qualcomm ARM processors (like the Snapdragon ones) in some of the latest Windows laptops. Never owned an ARM laptop before, always been on Intel.

From what I read, they’re supposed to have better battery life and run cooler, which sounds great. But then I also see people saying apps don’t always run well, and performance isn’t the same as regular x86 chips.

I don’t do heavy stuff, mostly office work, browsing, YouTube/Netflix, and sometimes light photo/video editing. Maybe casual gaming if it runs.

So yeah, kinda curious:

Are they actually good in real everyday use?
Any annoying issues I should know before buying?
Or should I just wait another year or two until things improve?

Would love to hear from someone actually using one, because reviews online are kinda mixed.

Thanks!

5 upvotes on reddit

12 replies

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12 replies

Own-Log-2964 · 1 month ago

I've been using the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 which comes with the Snapdragon chip (X Elite), for almost a year now. For your use case, it will be perfect. The performance is also really good, flies through everything I use it for. App compatibility is also drastically improving every day. Photoshop and most other Adobe apps are also now natively compatible with Windows on Arm. So just go for it.

7 upvotes on reddit

TheITSEC-guy · 1 month ago

+1 just surface pro

2 upvotes on reddit

Winter_soilder35 · OP · 1 month ago

How is the battery life and multitasking?

2 upvotes on reddit

Own-Log-2964 · 1 month ago

The laptop lasts for about 14 hours which includes a lot of MS Office, Outlook, Power BI, Zoom calls, PDFs, multiple browser tabs, YouTube, etc. Never faced an issue multitasking having all this open. My variant has 16 gigs of RAM.

2 upvotes on reddit

vip17 · 1 month ago

check out https://www.reddit.com/r/ARMWindows/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/SnapdragonLaptops/

5 upvotes on reddit

md222 · 1 month ago

I bought a Lenovo Slim 7x about 8 months ago and it has been solid. I wouldn't pay more for one than the newer efficient Intel chips (core 2 ultra) but for the price I paid I have no complaints. Screen is arguably the brightest on the market and the battery life is very good (but not exceptional).

5 upvotes on reddit

Winter_soilder35 · OP · 1 month ago

How much battery life are you getting (normal usage)?

0 upvotes on reddit

md222 · 1 month ago

I mostly use it for web browsing, office, and some YouTube. I'd say I get about 10 hours from a charge.

2 upvotes on reddit

Legitimate-Angle-408 · 1 month ago

Typically 12-14 hrs . 90% web browsing and YouTube

2 upvotes on reddit

scara1701 · 1 month ago

I'm using mine for browsing, youtube and some programming (Visual studio / C#). Very happy with it.

I get about 10hours of runtime on battery. The screen is very bright and pretty to look at. It's a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x (X1E8100 - 32GB).

I would not recommend it if gaming is a must. I also think Linux support is still not quite there yet.

2 upvotes on reddit

vip17 · 1 month ago

Summarize

To hold or to jump in (Windows on ARM)

Posted by Issalk05 · in r/snapdragon · 6 months ago

Hello everyone, I recently fell in love with ARM powered computers… or at least with the concept.

I mean, I already have a decent PC with enough horsepower to do everything I need, but… it’s just… too bulky, extremely heavy, and I don’t like that, less so now that I’m gonna start studying again.

Now, firstly, I saw MacBooks, and I LOVED the idea, but there’s one very specific hurdle for me…

MacOS.

Yeah yeah, it’s a matter of preference, but I’ve grown using Windows all my life and I don’t wanna run into any “uhhh… how do you do this on Mac?” moments mid-lecture.

And I do art as a hobby, and AFAIK you can’t just draw on a Mac screen directly like you can do with Microsoft Pen Protocol (MPP)-enabled Windows PCs that have touchscreens.

So, here’s my predicament;

I’m looking for a Windows ARM Laptop that has:

Decent performance. I’m NGL, I like playing games on the go. Not really demanding ones, but I’d appreciate if I could hop on Roblox without many issues if possible.
A Touchscreen
MPP
At least 90Hz display (higher is appreciated but I can concede there in favor of economics)
OLED, preferably… but nothing wrong with regular screens.
USB and USB C ports, the more the merrier.
Good battery life with non demanding apps (OneNote, Word, PowerPoint and such being on active use should preferably last about 8 hours and still have around ~30%< battery left in case something comes up)
GOOD POWER MANAGEMENT PLANS BY THE MANUFACTURER.

That last one I cannot do without. I don’t care if I shoot myself on the leg performance-wise temporarily, if I need to drag the battery life to its absolute limit during an emergency (such as an outage), I need to be able to. That’s sadly somewhat common around here.

Now, I wanna know if there are any laptops that fit this criteria or if I should start working out my back muscles to carry my regular laptop…

Any recommendations appreciated!

11 upvotes on reddit

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ChrischeHH · 6 months ago

Lenovo Slim 7x comes to mind as it ticks most of the boxes. Only downside would be the missing USB-A port (only 3 USB-C ports). I don't own one myself so only second-hand knowledge, but given a variety of reviews it is a very decent laptop with very good battery life on "Balanced" mode. I'd check it out if I were you.

Just Josh reviewed it here:
Yoga Slim 7x Review: What You Need to Know!

Bear in mind that it has a mechanical trackpad (Macs and Surface Laptop 7 have a haptic one which seems to be better).

Good luck!

6 upvotes on reddit

Issalk05 · OP · 6 months ago

I see…

USB A is a must for me, given I don’t wanna carry USB hubs as I’m forgetful… I’ll still check it out though.

Also, I didn’t even know haptic trackpads existed. All my life I’ve been using mechanical ones, so not something to worry there lol

1 upvotes on reddit

Valuable_Nose_1349 · 6 months ago

a little USB-A to USB-C adapter is like $4. I think you can get some that loop onto your keychain.

my gut is that insisting on built-in USB-A is going to immediately cut out a lot of the natural benefits of ARM (slim & light)

1 upvotes on reddit

LlamaNL · 6 months ago

As a slim 7x owner i can't recommend it simply for the terrible driver support from Lenovo. While all other Snapdragon laptops get regular driver updates the lenovo has had 1 in a year.

1 upvotes on reddit

Stunning-Act6038 · 6 months ago

Not true Lenovo system updates come with Windows Update. I also own a 7x and had plenty of Lenovo updates.

1 upvotes on reddit

pradha91 · 6 months ago

Based on your use cases, I would recommend the Surface Laptop 7, 13 or 15 inch. It ticks all your requirements and the only thing is, games can be a problem on ARM. Removing games from the equation, it does everything else so perfectly and smoothly. The battery on my SL7 is fantastic, I have zero issues with it. I run MS Office apps all the time, accompanied by Edge and Chrome, YTM running in the background, some graph plotting software, and occasionally Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Nord VPN. Have experienced zero issues with all the apps running at same time.

With just office apps/non-demanding ones, you will easily get 12+ hours of usage or even more. I occasionally put the machine in Energy Saver mode (reduces the brightness a bit. and most importantly runs efficiently, but you dont feel any lag, like zero lag), and it can extend the battery a bit more too. I use the 15 inch version, but on 13 inch with X-Plus variant, you can squeeze more battery life out for non demanding tasks.

Also, if you use the haptic touchpad, you might not go back to mechanical ones.

2 upvotes on reddit

Issalk05 · OP · 6 months ago

I see… this one sounds very interesting, but that aside— Edge + Chrome combo…?

Why?

1 upvotes on reddit

pradha91 · 6 months ago

I am an academician, I read a lot of articles (mostly pdf files), and Edge seems to be taking less RAM compared to Chrome for that purposes. I still use Chrome because my Pixel device runs on Chrome, so it is quite easy to check history and open tabs from multiple devices. Edge seems a bit buggy on phone. I am totally ok with this combo too.

1 upvotes on reddit

Budget-Bad-8030 · 6 months ago

I know this is the snapdragon sub, but have you considered Intel LNL? Battery life is competitive, and compatibility won't be an issue. So if you ever branch out to games other than roblox, you'll be alright.

1 upvotes on reddit

RegularVillage9 · 6 months ago

Yoga 7x would be best for you.

5 upvotes on reddit

Issalk05 · OP · 6 months ago

No MPP 💔 otherwise would be perfect, but for the form factors I’ve been seeing be tossed around, seems like I’ll have to part ways with MPP for now…

2 upvotes on reddit

Critical-Agency629 · 6 months ago

Im from a Dell Inspiron (3x), iMAC “27, Macbook Air, and a Macbook pro (intel and M-arm). Im really enjoying the Samsung 16” that I have now. it gets the exclusive 4.2GHz core boost on a nice AMOLED display. So far so good for me. But I will warn I dont play much games (neither did I on Apple)

I do like running those Geekbench numbers because until M4 it was really nice against the M3pro - thats said I picked this for the long and will keep using it as the Arm windows ecosystem continues to take hold

1 upvotes on reddit

See 12 replies

r/linuxhardware • [10]

Summarize

Whats the best arm-based laptop that someone can buy?

Posted by nuudul · in r/linuxhardware · 4 years ago

5 upvotes on reddit

5 replies

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5 replies

Johannes_K_Rexx · 4 years ago

The M1 MacBook Pro followed by the M! MacBook Air. The latter is fanless and sips battery power.

1 upvotes on reddit

secondpresident · 4 years ago

Probably MacBook Pro.

4 upvotes on reddit

-Jehos- · 4 years ago

This. Apple's new M1 chip beats the pants off everything else on the market.

1 upvotes on reddit

[deleted] · 4 years ago

Still waiting for linux distro.

5 upvotes on reddit

HomeGrownRichard · 4 years ago

Dunno if it’s the best but the Pinebook pro is pretty mint

2 upvotes on reddit

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