Hey everyone,

I just went through an absolute saga trying to find a new premium laptop, returning four different machines before finally finding "the one." Figure some of you might appreciate the breakdown, especially if you're struggling with the current state of Windows hardware.

The Backstory: Failing Up from the Galaxy Book 4

My spouse has an M4 MacBook Pro, and honestly, it’s amazing. Seeing that performance, I thought when I bought the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Pro 360, it would be the premium Windows laptop I deserved. I wanted reliability and speed. Instead, its specs were completely outshined by a terrible touchpad and constant throttling issues.

Aesthetically, it was super slim, had great ports, and nothing beats a Samsung OLED. To be fair, some of the issues weren't entirely Samsung’s fault—16GB RAM is just a massive limitation for my workflow on Windows, and Windows touchpads are notoriously hit-or-miss. But this touchpad was uniquely terrible, and the performance tanked under load. I only endured it because I didn't want to drop another $2k+, and that beautiful OLED kept me hooked.

It made me realize that compared to Apple's ARM architecture, Intel and AMD just cannot compete right now. I don’t care what the benchmarks for the Core Ultra Series 3 or Ryzen 9 4-series claim—it’s all marketing garbage. In the real world, they still struggle with severe thermal throttling and terrible optimization. You are constantly dealing with micro-stutters, UI hiccups, random spinning wheels, sudden slowdowns, and legacy bloatware that bogs the entire OS down.

The 3-Laptop Showdown (Spoiler: Returned Them All)

Determined to get a true premium machine, I isolated my search to three highly-voted Windows laptops. I ordered all three, and they were all good, but each had a fatal flaw that made them unusable for the price:

• Dell XPS 16: The keyboard was a total mushy miss for me, and the lack of traditional ports was infuriating. Otherwise excellent build, but insanely, unjustifiably expensive.
• HP OmniBook Ultra 14 (2026 Edition): I specifically tested this year's model featuring the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 3 processor. Even with the new architecture, it still suffered from the same old x86 downfalls. Worse, it completely lacked a premium aesthetic—it looked cheap, and the chassis felt significantly heavier and thicker than its competitors.
• Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Pro: Easily the best of the three. Because of my ecosystem, this was the one I considered keeping the most. The screen was unbelievable. But it was also the most expensive ($2500+ USD), and it had a loud, annoying fan profile that kicked in even when doing basic tasks. Plus, I honestly didn't want to reward Samsung with my money after my frustrating experience with the Galaxy Book 4.

(Side note: I actually ordered a 4th one too—a Dell Plus 16—trying to be cheap. But the second I opened it and saw the trash non-OLED LED screen, I closed it nicely, put it back in the box, and sent it back immediately.)

Defeated and demoralized, I went back to my existing laptop.

The Turning Point

Then, something emerged that I had not considered. I wondered if I should do it. Could it work? Would it work? Is it the right time to make the leap?

Yes, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme was released in 2026, marking a massive milestone for Windows on ARM. The launch device was the Asus Zenbook A16. I saw and read the reviews; this thing was pushing M5 performance and even overtaking it in multi-core tasks.

I pulled the lever. It cost me $1,699 USD, and it came with 48GB of the fastest ultra-high-bandwidth LPDDR5X-9523 RAM soldered directly on the package. For comparison, most premium laptops are still charging an arm and a leg just to step up to standard 32GB RAM.

My Deep-Dive Review of the Zenbook A16

• The Silicon & Performance Curves: This chipset is incredible. It finally gives me the power I need for heavy productivity and photo/video editing, but at much lower power draws. The CPU architecture is perfectly optimized for these sustained productivity workloads; it just rips through tasks and workflows.
• Zero UI Stutter: You know those odd little blips, bloops, and micro-stutters that x86/64 Intel and AMD CPUs always seem to have when jumping between apps? Completely gone here. Transitions are buttery smooth.
• Flawless Touchpad Gestures: No matter what Windows laptop I have used in the past, triggering gestures always lagged. On this device, using the three-finger swipe up to pull up all open windows at a glance is a completely buttery smooth experience. It feels instant and exact.
• The Magic of ARM Power Delivery: The absolute best thing about ARM is that your performance curve doesn't change. You get the exact same power whether you are plugged into the wall or running on battery. Intel and AMD throttle heavily on battery, but this behaves like a smartphone—instant, uncompromised speed.
• True 10-Hour Battery: Tested and validated—I am getting a solid 10 hours of screen-on time on High Performance mode. I don't care what Intel/AMD claim on their spec sheets, they never realistically cross 4 hours under actual load.
• The Chassis & Weight: At just 2.6 pounds, this thing is insanely light for a 16-inch chassis. The "Ceraluminum" material feels incredibly premium, rigid, and durable. It’s an absolute joy to travel with.
• Display: The Asus OLED looks amazing. It only slightly loses to the Galaxy Book because Samsung’s anti-reflective coating is untouchable right now. If the Samsung were priced at $1,500 I’d probably take it for the panel alone, but at this price point, I’m incredibly happy with this display.
• GlideX Ecosystem Integration: Because I use a Samsung Tab S10, ecosystem continuity mattered to me. Asus’s GlideX software works seamlessly. I can use my Tab S10 as a lag-free second monitor wired or wirelessly, which completely solves my multi-tasking needs on the go.
• ARM App Compatibility & Printing: Every single one of my daily workflow apps ran comfortably or natively on ARM. Microsoft’s new Prism emulation layer is entirely seamless—it just works, and you don't even realize it's running in the background. The only hiccup I encountered was an issue with my Brother printer software, which I easily resolved by switching over to the IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) Universal Class Driver built for ARM. Problem solved.
• Gaming: Just a heads-up, I do not game, so I did not run any gaming benchmarks or test emulation compatibility for games. My focus is entirely on pure productivity, editing speed, and system stability.

Final Verdict

For $1,699, you get a gorgeous 16-inch 3K OLED touch screen, 48GB of ultra-fast LPDDR5X RAM, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and cutting-edge Wi-Fi 7 packed into a super-light, hyper-portable device.

Now is officially the time to invest in Windows on ARM. I am a complete believer. When the new Surface devices launch later this year, they are going to be incredibly good buys because of this hardware jump.

Like the title says. Seems like all of them are sponsored. I am really looking for some goddamn reliable review hopefully with usage longer than a weekend.

Hey guys,

Found this sub because I'm super interested in the Lenovo Yoga 7X - with 32GB RAM and the 120hz screen.

It's a LOT of money, and I'm nervous about buying one, especially as I have ship it in.

I saw a post here about the bad build quality, but was wondering if anyone else had any impressions they want to share about performance, build and so on? I'd really appreciate it!

I have pretty basic use cases really. I don't expect to do any or much gaming at all, and same goes for graphic design or 4K video editing. Not interested in Linux or niche apps. Purely a normal home office machine that just happens to be super fast, beautifully designed, and futureproof.

I guess I'm worried about future support, and how frequently qualcomm pushes out updates. I also see that there is no option to limit battery charging to 80%? This would probably be a problem as I'll be using the machine plugged in a lot of the time in my home office.

Probably overkill for that, but I'm kind of fixed on this. I just want to see some candid impressions!

I've been trying to get various arm ubuntu flavors to boot into the installer and have come up with nothing.

Does anyone have a HP Omni 3 w/ Snapdragon X1-26-100?

Would love to run any version of Linux on this device!

Thanks for any help!

No comment.

Looks like the book 4 edge snapdragon x elite got a firmware and drivers update today or this week. Trying to find info on the update. Thanks 😊

Can anyone plz Test PubgMobile or COD in Mumu player with his Snapdragon x laptop

All the current laptops with x2 plus have the 6 core version which is much worse, where is the 10 core version?

So I wanted to buy one of the laptops with X2E96100, probably the Asus one and I was wondering whether anyone has tried Linux on it and which distros have the most stable support. Particularly, I'm interested in:

- what works and what doesn't

- is the installation straightforward or does it require expertise

- battery life

- official drivers (whether they exist and are open source)

I have read a few posts here and on Google but none have answered my question fully, so all responses are welcome. Also, I'm interested in whether it is believed that more attention will be paid to Linux support this time. Thanks!

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x with Snapdragon X Elite was tested in StarCraft 2 at 1080p with the Low settings. The game maintained an average framerate of 25-50 FPS, providing a somewhat playable experience.

I saw a YouTube review of the laptop where they use a stylus for a couple of seconds, but no mention of brands. I'm looking for suggestions that would work on this laptop. I'd love to use it for photo editing.

My ASUS Zenbook A16 X2 Elite Extreme laptop is incredible, but the software stack is currently a mess.

I’m getting a pathetic 5,275 in Wild Life, should be much higher.

For a chip that’s supposed to have double the raw TFLOPS of an Adreno 840 and a 1.85 GHz boost, these scores are literally lower than the previous gen X1.

The issue is 3DMark’s SystemInfo scan.

It spends 60+ seconds emulating x86 polling code, hangs, and then the benchmark launches with the GPU stuck in a low-power P-state because the driver never got the handshake to actually wake up.

I’ve already reached out to UL support to push for a native ARM64 SystemInfo.

If we’re paying for "Extreme" tier silicon in 2026, we shouldn't be getting bugged scores because of legacy emulation timeouts.

Is anyone else seeing these flatlined frequencies on the X2 series, or did I just get a dud firmware?

Does anyone have the performance numbers for this?

I literally can't find anything and yet laptops with these are shipping

Specifically, i want to know if the GPU is capable enough. It's 40% faster but it's vs the very weak GPU of the 8 core Snapdragon X1 Plus. I want to compare vs the 8 Elite, 8 Elite gen 5 and AMD/Intel

Edit:

It seems there is Geekbench GPU compute benchmarks

X2P 6c - 17111

8 Elite gen 4 - 24776

X1 Elite - 27155

8 Elite gen 5 - 27300

X2 Plus 10c- around 30k expected

X2 Elite 12c - TBD

X2 Elite 18c - 40k-47077

X2 Elite Extreme - 47k-52757

I expect the 10 core X2P to be around 30k so better than the 8 Elite gen 5, but still far behind the X2 Elite (and that's fine)

I have been using HP Omnibook Ultra 14 with Snapdragon X2E-84-100, 32GB RAM, for the last few weeks. I have it connected to HP Thunderbolt Dock G4 where I have 2 external displays connected - 1 by HDMI (2560x1600), 1 through DisplayPort (3440x1440).

I am experiencing weird issues with these screens (my suspision is around power management). When I plug-in my laptop for the first time all external monitors work normally and everything is fine. But when laptop goes to sleep - later after waking it up one of the monitors doesn't wake up (DP one). Unplugging and pluging the Dock again doesn't help - DP monitor doesn't work and never wakes up. I need to perform a full rebooot of the laptop and only then all monitors start working normally again. After laptop goes to sleep it repeats again and again. It's very frustrating because it forces me to perform a full reboot few times during workday. My previous HP Pavillion with Ryzen 7-5700 didn't have such issues with the exact same setup.

Has anyone faced similar issues with their Snapdragon X2 laptops? Do you maybe have any homemade solution to avoid such problems?

HP Support hasn't yet been able to help me. Their first answer was that HP Thunderbolt Dock G4 is a business product not dedicated for general consumer market (like my Omnibook Ultra is) and it might not be fully compatile with the new Snapdragon platform. But they are still investigating system dumps from my computer and hopefully they will be able to find some solution 🤷.

Apart from that the laptop itself is awesome, I love the haptic touchpad, screen is also great (although it could be less reflective), I have even started using the touchscreen sometimes, because the form factor makes it comfortable when I use it in bed. The system feels very snappy for all of the office tasks that I usually perform at work. The build quality very good, the aluminium frame and the keyboard provide a great feel. I haven't yet been able to go below 50-60% of battery, because I keep plugging it to the dock. I believe it can easily go over 15hrs, maybe even up to 20 with energy saving enabled.

This is something I found interesting:

IdeaPad Slim 3 15Q8X10 PSREF

Lenovo has listings for an 8GB model of the Slim 3x up on PSREF, and it is still supposedly a "CoPilot+ PC" despite the requirements for that being 16GB RAM minimum. It is only available in France apparently.

https://preview.redd.it/vhyfqckhsm0h1.png?width=2023&format=png&auto=webp&s=c0a947496e239d8e16fabb902e09b918639ba499

Could this mean that Microsoft has lowered the requirements for the CoPilot+ branding to either compete with the MacBook Neo or maybe to allow shrinkflation? (Allowing OEMs to sell CoPilot+ PCs with 8GB at the same price the 16GB models used to sell due to the on-going RAM shortage.)

Another thing that points towards Qualcomm prepping for a bigger focus or refresh of the base model Snapdragon X chip is that they've introduced an X126101, mentioned since the NPU driver dated April 2026:

https://preview.redd.it/zezl4v8jtm0h1.png?width=1537&format=png&auto=webp&s=bb5da85acd101b5b720200ed890137a575655106

For those unaware the last 3 digits on the CPU number is meant to be for "variant" which up until now has not been used at all:

https://preview.redd.it/xfa3q078um0h1.png?width=1654&format=png&auto=webp&s=f97a8f810234893d050080aff2232c683e518496

I've tried restricting my X Elite laptop to 8GB of RAM just for fun but it ended up in my Windows install getting soft-broken, having needed to enter recovery and remove the boot flag. It could be that they've made a whole new variant just to address this?