Just to clarify by the mobile space in that first post I meant iPhone/Android mobile.
Is there really a huge gap between. mobile and ultraportable laptop at this point? The iPad Pro is running the exact same chip as the Macbook Air. Microsoft's Surface Pro 8 doesn't come with a keyboard ( it is a "slate" , non-clamshell, just like the iPad is).
Qualcomm's focus in Windows so far has been on "Always Connected Personal Computer". There is a higher percentage of those sold with a cellular modem in them then the iPad Pro or MacBook laptop. Presence of a cellular modem does not "drag in " a mobile adjective? Really? The point of being wireless is to enable the ability to move around at will (move ... mobile ). Disconnecting from Wi-Fi/Bluetooth broadens the range can roam even further.
It would make sense for Qualcomm to do a "Jade versus Jade-chop" variant of their SoC that doesn't have a cellular modem if they want deeper penetration into the Windows PC space. However, the primary design for Qualcomm is going to be the one that has a cellular modem. That is their primary business. Them coming up with a SoC that doesn't have a radio is similar to Apple doing a chip that doesn't provide any GUI. It isn't really the primary business they are in.
If Apple pushes their cellular modem into their iPad SoC that the plain Mx will get them also since Mx is being shared across iPad Pro ( and hence gets iPad Pro design requirements imposed on it. ) Long term Qualcomm is going to be much, much , much happier comparing to the SoC (and its associated costs ) then comparing agains the cellular radio less SoCs that AMD and Intel models will likely offer in the future.
Once get into the class of Windows PC where integrating a cellular modem into the design would be highly abnormal I suspect Qualcomm isn't going to want to go there with deep and heavy effort. Highly immobile , always plugged in PCs are not something they will likely drive these cores to over time. ( they'll leave the door open to looping back to server but unless the radio business craters and everyone else pushing server focused designs fails , that isn't likely. )
Similarly if. Android 12L ( large screen) and follow ons got decent development traction then there would be an iPad OS competitor. And Qualcomms SoC would probably would "fit" an "Android Tablet Pro" product as well as a ultraportable just like Apple's 'plain' M-series is destine to role fill.
There Apple not only has mind share but a significant market fraction.
If talking iOS then Apple has
no significant fraction share with a M-series SoC at all. That's actually the A-series; not the M-series.
Apple does straddling across iPad Pro and Macbook laptops. Qualcomm highly likely wants to do very similar straddling. It has to span operating system providers because Android "Large Screen" hasn't been good. So there is a mix of Android xxL , Windows 11+, and likely Chromebook that Qualcomm will have to juggle through to provide a significant market fraction.
So targeting that to actually get people to switch makes sense. Less so for the ultraportables.
i think you are looking to have Qualcomm skate to where the puck has been as opposed to where the puck is going.
Qualcomm isn't trying to make folks switch off of macOS, Windows, iOS , or Android with a SoC. There is significant software component to peoples decisions that they don't "own". What they can control is making some platform they support go "faster" and/or "user less battery".
In the ultraportables, Apple has mindshare but not quite the same level of market share (although ultraportables are their biggest market share I don’t know how big it is). I agree that it can still be useful to compare as Apple has set themselves up as having the best ultraportable around (mindshare) but my concern is that they are risking not convincing the customers of x86 Windows ultraportables to become ARM Windows ultraportable customers.
The "will my software run" is largely not Qualcomm's job. That is Microsoft's job. ( there is some sharing workload at the cross compiler , legacy "band aids" level, but big picture that is a Microsoft job).
If the Qualcomm SoC offers more performance than the 2-4 year old laptops folks are upgrading from , runs the software , and gets 2-3 hours better battery life, then that is
not going to be a hard sell. The native performance levels and battery life are Qualcomm major points.
For the subset of the user base running. multiple platform apps ( e.g., ported to both Windows/macOS , browser apps , Electron apps , video conferencing/streaming , etc. ) it is also a bit of a farce that there is some huge segmentation gap between macOS and Windows. When Qualcomm is likely to compare M-series versus what they got it probably will be with a multiplatform benchmarks. Not some macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, or Android specific metric. If they don't do it then many others in tech press will do it for them.
This strategy might be viable if in the minds of those customers they think “I’d get an air if only it ran Windows and here is something as good or better”. Very possible. But they might run into the problem of “yeah I wouldn’t get the air either. How do I know my software will run?”.
Most customers aren't running around with Apple envy. The metric in most cases won't be on the MBA but on some functionality that the Air delivers on. Like 10+ hours of moderate work battery like. Can multitask well. etc.
Once get into the zone of "want something that looks and behave like an Air clone" then spans way farther than just the SoC. Case design choices . Operating system level choices , etc. etc. are all largely out of Qualcomms control.
While the current ARM designs may have “something” to recommend them, the devices are overall not great and I don’t see having a great reputation. You can tell by how slowly if at all software has been ported and the limited selection of software.
About 3-4 years ago AMD has a "bad" reputation in terms of performance. Can't "talk" their way out of that. Qualcomm has delivered some slow stuff.
If deliver something with a substantive performance uplift then folks tend to notice.
As a part of CES 2022, we have the new Acer Chromebook Spin 513 in the office and inside this handsome Chromebook is an SoC that we've been very, very excited to see in action: the MediaTek Kompanio 1380. To be fair, we thought the Kompanio 1200 was the model we would be looking out...
chromeunboxed.com
Can't find the article at the moment but its seems that they have caught onto the fact that the "always connected" part wasn't as big of a perceived value add as they thought it would be. [ Tethering and addition fees that several USA (and other ) cellular providers tack on means more costs also. The modem focus isn't surprising for Qualcomm but it is also a bit of a boat anchor also on delivering value to a wide segment of the Windows PC market. ]
Part of that is because full x64 emulation took so long. But a lot of that comes down to the hardware - Qualcomm has half-assed the chips in my opinion. They just aren’t good value. LTT did an entire video on “how did MS screw this up to the point that I forgot these existed?” when discussing WoA. And the Qualcomm CEO had to point to the launch of the M1 to say “see? this could work!” Not one of his own devices.
Not really "half-asses" but really just relabeled phone SoCs for the first 2-3 years of the effort. Some of that was because Qualcomm nuked their internal design teams when Broadcomm started rattling take-over rumblings and they were in bad relationship with Apple.
As ARM standard designs started to look farther out than just doing smartphone cores ( Neoverse , X-series , ...) the possible solutions have been better ( like the 8cx Gen 3 which is really relatively radical new approach than "just a Gen 3" name suggests ). Qualcomm is trying to promote continuity ( and probably save big name change for cores they paid $1B for. )
So if these forthcoming Nuvia chips are really good, then I actually think comparisons with x86 ultraportable is still warranted, even vital - particularly when running x86 software vs native. That’s going to be an important point for their pool of customers. That’s why I think that’s if I were Qualcomm I’d yes talk up how much better we are than the air, “we’re now the best ultraportable”
But they are NOT saying barely anything about the MBA. It is far , far more you subsuming the MBA into the loop because Qualcomm is talking about the M-series. The M-series and MBA are two , very substantively , different things.
Qualcomm is not confused that they are a full system builder and vendor. They aren't really talking much about their completed systems. They are primarily talking about building blocks to build something that is competitive with an Air on some dimensions.
The recompile from x86 binaries to Arm binaries isn't a huge deal if operating off of a base that is faster than the "old" x86 environment. (it is largely how the previous two macOS emulation foundations worked). So if M1 is faster than x86 and Qualcomm sets an objective to try to match from themselves to match that performance level level then the binary conversion stuff will take care of itself.
If the M-series falls behind x86, then yeah they should change the comparison. The baseline need is to set a target level above x86.... M-series is that for the ultraportable and tablet space at the moment.
but primarily I’d be telling Windows users that they’ll get to run all their software and it will feel just as good if not better because our new chips are so often. That, to me, is how you ship more Windows ultraportables to Windows users than Apple ships ultraportables to Mac users.
Qualcomm can't really guarantee that because Windows could screw it up. They could provide the baseline "horsepower" but if the OS scheduler and conversion software piss it into the ground then it won't be delivered to the end user.
AMD has been bitten by exactly this. "We got 16 cores in our SoC ... more power than Intel" ... and then the Windows scheduler pisses that down the drain.
Similar with Android between Qualcomm SoCs and end users. Some stuff gets lost in that Java layer.
Microsoft should be selling Windows primary pitch person. It is their product. Qualcomm sells SoCs so makes lots of sense to compare to another SoC with similar goals.
