Qualcomm announces Snapdragon C Platform for $300 and up laptops — Windows on Arm and NPUs for the budget tier | Tom's Hardware
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Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon C Platform today in the runup to Computex 2026. The Snapdragon C (Compute) Platform will power budget laptops designed to compete in the the $300 range, and features a processor based on a custom variant of its Kryo chip architecture that was originally designed for mobile phones. The platform is designed to slot in under the company's higher-performance Snapdragon X chips and runs Windows on Arm, but it notably features an NPU for local AI workloads in this low price tier, whereas most Windows-based Copilot+ laptops with an NPU fall into a higher price tier. However, while the platform supports local AI processing, Qualcomm did confirm that Snapdragon C will not support Copilot+.Given its low price point, it isn't surprising that the Snapdragon C Platform addresses light workloads for families, small businesses, and students. Utilizing a customized Kyro architecture tailors the chip for long battery life and cool operation, which hints at the option for fanless designs.
(Image credit: Qualcomm)While the company hasn't shared any meaningful details about the chip or laptop specifications, we do have a few details from Acer's announcement of its Aspire Go 15 based on the new platform. The Aspire Go 15 will feature 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, though it is unclear if that will represent the high watermark for the new platform. Qualcomm did say that we should expect limited RAM capacity due to increasing memory pricing, a side-effect of the ongoing shortages.Latest Videos FromNaturally, at around $300, these chips will compete with Chromebooks powered by Intel's N-Series and Mediatek's Kompanio series. AMD also competes in this pricing tier with its Medocino processors.
(Image credit: Qualcomm)“As costs rise and customer expectations evolve, Snapdragon C brings together value oriented computing, all-day battery life, AI capabilities and responsive performance in cool-quiet devices for expanded platform choice,” said Kedar Kondap, Qualcomm's SVP and GM of Compute and Gaming. “We’re delivering modern computing experiences that help our ecosystem reach new audiences and expanding access to reliable, efficient technology for students, families, customer-facing small businesses, and beyond.”Acer, HP, and Lenovo will launch new laptops based on the chips, but haven't shared firm specifications or launch dates. Qualcomm says it will reveal more details during its Computex 2026 keynote.
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Paul AlcornEditor-in-ChiefPaul Alcorn is the Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
16 Comments
Comment from the forums
Qualcomm needs to stop being so damn stupid and collaborate with the Linux people more.
Windows has already demonstrated to be awful and slow. Dump your Windows focus and move to Linux instead.
Let, for instance, the Ubuntu people get your engineers and get those laptops out there for people at that price segment. Although this should apply to the whole vertical slice of your products. Again: stop being stupid.
Heck, Valve is already using the S-X for the Frame; take it from there and grow the ecosystem.
Regards.
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Hopefully it's not any slower than a SD 7c+ Gen 3. SD 7+ Gen 3 with 12GB RAM and UFS3.1 is just fine on Android, but I can't imagine how it'd perform on Winblows.
At $300 and up, it's going to compete not only with MBN, but cheap android tablets, like this one https://www.notebookcheck.net/Compact-fast-and-affordable-review-of-the-Alldocube-iPlay-70-mini-Ultra-tablet.1088014.0.html
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I wonder whether they'll use the latest Oryon cores featured in the Snapdragon X2 SoCs or the the first gen ones. If I had to guess, I'd say they're using the old ones and are made on a TSMC N4 node, in the interest of hitting the lowest price point. Those original cores aren't bad, but using them would make these laptops less of an absolute steal. That's probably another reason they wouldn't use the latest - out of a desire not to cannibalize their newest & highest-margin products.
Whatever they use, I hope they keep working to improve Linux support for these & all the rest of their Snapdragon laptops.
Notton said:Hopefully it's not any slower than a SD 7c+ Gen 3. SD 7+ Gen 3 with 12GB RAM and UFS3.1 is just fine on Android, but I can't imagine how it'd perform on Winblows.A reason they'd rather use their own Oryon cores is to avoid licensing costs. So, I think it's a pretty safe bet they're on par with the low-end, original Snapdragon X chips. They might even be the same silicon as something like the X1-26-100, just rebranded.
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-Fran- said:Qualcomm needs to stop being so damn stupid and collaborate with the Linux people more.They are, but it's slow going. Their core Linux drivers are solid, but there's a lot of packaging and integration work needed to make their Snapdragon X laptops work seamlessly.
To that end, they made a pretty big hire, last year: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Hans-Joins-Qualcomm -Fran- said:Windows has already demonstrated to be awful and slow.Hmmm... not sure. If you compare natively-compiled apps, like browser benchmarks, I think it's actually pretty good.
I have barely used my Snapdragon X Plus laptop in Windows, but it seemed fine when I did. I kept it dual-booting.
-Fran- said:Dump your Windows focus and move to Linux instead.I haven't tried getting Ubuntu 26.04 on it, but the level of effort needed to make it run 25.10 was nontrivial.
-Fran- said:Let, for instance, the Ubuntu people get your engineers and get those laptops out there for people at that price segment.I think the image I used (above) was prepared by an Ubuntu engineer.
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bit_user said:They are, but it's slow going. Their core Linux drivers are solid, but there's a lot of packaging and integration work needed to make their Snapdragon X laptops work seamlessly.
To that end, they made a pretty big hire, last year: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Hans-Joins-QualcommYeah, I know they do have active Linux projects and collaborations, that's why I made it clear it was more of a "focus shift" suggestion instead.
On what you linked, that's actually very good news, so thanks for letting me know.
bit_user said:Hmmm... not sure. If you compare natively-compiled apps, like browser benchmarks, I think it's actually pretty good.I didn't want to go on that tanget, as it kind of escapes my line of thought on this one. I know Windows can perform and be performant, but... Let's call it "rhythm", in which they've been making progress is rather... Hm... Pedestrian for how much resources they could throw at the problem vs what the Linux community (specially Valve) can achieve in comparison.
bit_user said:I have barely used my Snapdragon X Plus laptop in Windows, but it seemed fine when I did. I kept it dual-booting.
I haven't tried getting Ubuntu 26.04 on it, but the level of effort needed to make it run 25.10 was nontrivial.
I think the image I used (above) was prepared by an Ubuntu engineer.I just used Ubuntu as the more "common people" friendly name example, but I'd personally go directly to either Arch, RedHat/Fedora or Gentoo. Mostly due to Bazzite and CachyOS being very popular and gaining traction quite nicely. Side-note: give CachyOS a try; it's quite a good experience. Recommended 100%.
If Qualcomm wanted to get serious, then they should partner up with Valve, hands down.
Regards.
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-Fran- said:Windows has already demonstrated to be awful and slow.If you really care to be up-to-date and accurate in your assessment, then it'd be worth your time to go through this review in detail: Verdict - The Asus Zenbook A16 is pretty much unbeatable at $1599 The new Zenbook A16 is a very interesting 16-inch laptop and has the potential to shake up the x86 competition. The device itself with the lightweight, yet high-quality chassis with a weight of just 1.2 kg, good keyboard and great OLED scree