What Display Daily thinks: There is a marketing push, ahead of the end of May launch of new Windows 11 Surface laptops, one that is heavily spiced with talk of AI co-piloting in Windows as being the next big thing in computing.
The notion that more than half the PCs that will be sold in the future will be AI-enabled is the latest trend, and I can leave that to be dissected by people who make their living selling those prognostications.
The big what if is this, can Microsoft actually outperform Apple and will it actually mean much to the IT business? Now, remember, the Surface laptops coming out of Redmond are going to have OLED displays, and the AI-enabled thing is a nod to the fact that Apple is nowhere near having a clear strategy or implementation to compete.
The truth of the matter is that Microsoft is way more important than Apple when it comes to laptops and computing. The world of business, the IT market if you will, runs on Windows, not Apple software. Apple software is easier, so much easier, to manage, but Windows software isn’t designed for end users but for IT departments.
The numbers don’t lie. Microsoft will sell more computers for you, and maybe by extension, more displays, than Apple can ever hope to do. It the lack of a clear business strategy has always been a problem for Apple’s computers. Consumers love them but businesses don’t.
Yet, if AI-enabled PCs actually deliver AI value, whatever that means, then the calculus changes. Creativity, creative applications, the lifeblood of Apple’s sense of superiority over PCs, are all going to be AI-enabled to a degree that we have not even anticipated. If you thought PowerPoint killed the art of presentations, wait until AI kills the art of creativity. If you don’t believe me, just ask AI itself. The image below is how Dall-E sees the relationship between AI and art conceptually.
But, for display makers, that may be good news. If they fire up their imaginations, and see the broader opportunity, the IT market is going to be fertile ground for displays that appeal to the creative instincts of users and not just their productivity. At least it’s better than trying to keep a bunch of hard core PC gamers happy (they are never truly happy).
Of course, the reality of the computing ecosystem is much more nuanced. Apple has benefitted enormously from the BYOD (bring your own device) trend in business environments. It is also an easier platform for end users because, despite all the arguments to the contrary, Apple provides a relatively private and secure platform. Ai is also an unknown quantity, one that will succeed on the basis of its added value, and not as a replacement for anything. It may be that a big subset of consumers will rebel against the push for AI and want to feel more secure, and in control. Apple could be the best partner here.
Still, either way, creative applications may be the bigger driving force of IT monitor sales than gaming monitors or productivity. I am willing to take a bet on that.
Microsoft Looks to Outperform M3 Macs
The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite SoC is an ARM-based processor designed for PCs, featuring a 12-core Oryon CPU built on TSMC’s 4nm process node and using ARM’s 8.7 instruction set with clock speeds up to 3.8GHz, and a boost feature reaching 4.3GHz. It promises 2x faster CPU performance and one-third the power consumption compared to its competitors. The latest benchmarks and real-world experiences suggest that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chip is a significant step forward for Windows on Arm performance.
The SoC integrates a 136GB/s LPDDR5x memory bandwidth, up to 42MB cache, an Adreno GPU, and a Hexagon NPU, supporting DirectX, OpenCL, and Vulcan APIs. It’s capable of delivering up to 75 TOPS of AI computing performance, with the Hexagon NPU alone providing up to 45 TOPS, which is 4.5 times faster than its competitors. Designed for on-device AI experiences, it can run large language models with up to 13 billion parameters, achieving the fastest Stable Diffusion performance for a laptop chip, generating 30 tokens per second for 7 billion parameter LLMs. The Snapdragon X Elite is versatile, suitable for laptops, tablets, and desktop PCs, showcased in 12W fanless, 23W, 45W, and 80W TDP reference designs.
The chip demonstrated impressive gaming capabilities and outperformed Intel and AMD flagship mobile CPUs in Geekbench 6 tests. Microsoft is confident that upcoming Arm-powered Windows laptops will surpass the performance of Apple’s M3 MacBook Air, particularly in CPU and AI-accelerated tasks. However, questions remain about potential compromises in battery life and GPU performance.
While the progress is encouraging, Windows on Arm still faces challenges in terms of third-party app support and optimization. Real-world experiences highlight the excellent performance and battery life when using Arm-optimized apps, but the ecosystem needs further development to provide a seamless experience across all applications.
