Windows on Arm – Spit and Polish

Looking good but polish needed.

• For a first generation, things are looking very good, but it is clear that when one gets into the weeds there are a few loose ends that will need tidying up to really put an end to x86 in computing.
• The Copilot+ PCs are in the hands of the reviewers and by and large, the reviews are good but there are problems here and there that might make users wait for generation 2 before taking the plunge.
  • First performance: which is generally excellent when the app or test in question is running natively on Arm.
  • Tomsguide’s tests (see here) demonstrated that most of the claims made for performance are broadly accurate.
  • The X Elite (12-core version) comfortably beats Intel in multi-core tests and in some cases, beats the M3 and others match it.
  • The differences from one manufacturer to another depend on how the chip has been tweaked in terms of the firmware how the PC has generally been built and what it has been optimised for which is why there are differences with the same silicon.
  • It is important to note that the X Elite everyone is testing is not the fastest one that will be offered in this generation and so one would expect to see a moderate boost to these figures when that chip is available in devices.
  • On regular usage tests with the usual day-to-day apps and productivity, the feedback is universally positive but there is more mixed feedback on video editing.
  • For example, Adobe’s apps are working flawlessly but testers have reported some issues with Davinci Resolve and Blender.
  • Second, emulation which is for apps that have yet to be ported from x86 to Arm where they can run natively.
  • Once again, the vast majority of the time, the emulated apps work just fine as long as they are not beta versions but there have been issues reported with gaming.
  • For example, on the Windows Laptop, the Xbox app only supports cloud-based gaming while in the Windows Store, many of the games are not supported.
  • Games are downloadable from the usual routes like Steam, but many of them appear not to run well or at all.
  • One will never see this long tail 90% of the time, but Intel and AMD are likely to jump on with alacrity.
  • The obvious answer is that these are not machines designed to run games, but I am certain that these issues are being addressed and will improve a lot in the coming months.
  • Third, battery life which is one of the big selling points of these devices.
  • The claim on these devices is that they can run for 20 hours + in between charges and while this is demonstrably true, these tests are not often very good models for real-world usage.
  • In most tests for general usage, one can get a full day of usage out of the Arm-based PCs without any real difficulty, giving them a solid advantage over the best of what x86 currently has to offer.
  • However, when comparing to Apple silicon some areas for improvement did emerge such as battery drainage on standby and power consumption when the processor is running flat out.
  • The good news here is that all these issues are largely software-based, and so future tweaks to firmware should be able to rectify a lot of these shortcomings.
• The net result is that Arm on Windows is broadly living up to its promises in the areas that really matter, but Microsoft needs to redouble its efforts to ensure that the loose ends are tidied up if it wants to halt the bleeding to the Mac.
• It also highly relevant the X Elite is a 1^st generation product which almost always has issues like these and it is being compared to Apple’s silicon which is currently in its 4^th generation and has had much more time to iron out the kinks in the product.
• Hence, I think that these devices will appeal quite strongly to anyone who does not care very much about gaming (which is who Copilot+ is targeted at).
• However, there are clearly some loose ends that need to be tied up and it looks very much like these can be dealt with via a software update as opposed to having to buy a new machine.
• There is still some work to do before Arm can knock x86 out, but the foundation from which it can be done has been established.
• In short, a winning proposition but it needs some spit and polish to really start firing on all cylinders.