Tantra Analyst

Always-On, Always-Connected PCs Are Redefining Personal Computing

A bunch of recent events, including the announcement of Microsoft Surface Pro X and Samsung Galaxy Book S, are supporting a turning point in the largely stagnant laptop market. These devices, dubbed as always-on, always-connected PCs (ACPCs), bring the hallmark characteristics of smartphones to laptops while also providing enterprise-class computing performance. As a long-time observer and an industry analyst, I strongly believe that ACPCs are set to transform laptops and redefine personal computing.  

After revolutionizing portable personal computing in the late 1980s and ’90s, laptops have not changed much. Of course, they have become a bit thinner, lighter and more powerful. But considering that you still need to carry the charger and look for Wi-Fi or other connectivity wherever you go, you can’t call those incremental improvements a big leap. These incremental steps look even smaller when compared to the speed at which smartphones have evolved.

ACPCs completely change the outlook for laptops and accelerate the pace of innovation. They are always on, connected to LTE or 5G, can run a full day without needing a recharge and provide performance at par with or better than today’s bulky laptops. All of this is made possible by a new breed of processors with micro-architecture similar to the ones used in smartphones.

Smartphone Revolution Powered By Arm Processors

Ever since their debut in the early 2000s, smartphones have been dominating the personal computing space. They have rapidly grown in both performance and influence. Almost all of today’s smartphones are powered by processors with a micro-architecture designed by the British company Arm Holdings. Smartphone players such as Apple and Qualcomm use processor cores designed by Arm.

(Full disclosure: Qualcomm is a client of my company, Tantra Analyst.)

These processors have been proven to be power-efficient. Designed primarily for portable devices, they seem to have previously focused more on power consumption than processing capability. But the evolution of these processors and the optimizations from the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have dramatically improved their performance in recent years. This has set Arm processors up for performance-focused devices such as laptops, PCs and even servers.

Laptops Have Survived The Test Of Times

Laptops have defied many predictions of ultimate demise. It was netbooks they said would kill the laptops, but they ended up just being a fad. Then it was tablets that were supposed to replace laptops. But they never scaled up.

The way I see it, the biggest trait of laptops, which made them stand strong against these odds, was their ability to be a productivity and content creation tool — be it for personal and consumer-type use cases or enterprise ones. The basic needs for such use cases are excellent performance and support for thousands of existing Windows applications.

Writing The Next Chapter Of Laptops

The first attempt at making the Windows operating system (OS) compatible with Arm processors was circa 2012, called Windows RT, designed for tablets. But it turned out to be a dud, mainly because it couldn’t run existing applications. Its makers, Microsoft and Qualcomm, still believing in the concept, doubled their efforts. This round made sure Windows 10 and all those existing applications would work flawlessly on Arm processors used in ACPCs.

It is debatable whether ACPCs are a new category or an existing yet transformed laptop category. Some OEMs such as Lenovo, Samsung and Asus are continuing with traditional clamshells, whereas others like Microsoft are trying out the 2-in-1 model with detachable displays that covert to fully functional tablets.

I think it is telling that many PC vendors have introduced ACPCs. I believe that the attractiveness of bringing the smartphone-like battery life and user experience to laptops, the proliferation of 5G, along with a strong commitment from Microsoft and the entire PC ecosystem makes it clear that ACPCs are the future of laptops.

What’s Inside The ACPCs?

ACPCs are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon platforms. The first-generation devices used optimized versions of Snapdragon SD835 and SD850. But the latest ones, including Samsung Galaxy Book S and Surface Pro X, use purpose-built Snapdragon 8cx (Pro X uses a modified version of 8cx chip called SQ1). Snapdragon 8cx has a powerful CPU and GPU, as well as strong artificial intelligence capability.

I’ve seen many popular browsers, video game platforms and media player developers porting their applications to run natively on Arm processors. Likewise, many enterprise vendors have ported their applications on Windows on Arm. Adobe announced that its drawing and painting applications will be available to ACPCs. And according to Microsoft, Surface Pro X offers three-times higher performance compared to the previous generation Surface Pro 6 that used a conventional x86 processor. So, there is no question in my mind that ACPCs are now primed for running high-performance workloads of consumers as well as enterprises.

The progress of ACPCs may be slower than some might have expected, but it takes time to transform an industry with more than three decades of history. I believe the Arm micro-architecture ready for performance-focused computing has repercussions beyond laptops, as there could be many applications and use cases.

What This Means For Marketers 

Because of the stagnant market, it seems that marketers have gradually reduced their attention to laptops and, instead, moved their strategies toward media more suited for smartphones. I believe ACPCs will drastically change that equation. Marketers will likely need to quickly pivot their marketing plans and spend. Specifically, the 2-in-1 model almost creates a new category of devices, and marketers will be well served if they capitalize on this growing popularity and devise their marketing plans around them.

We are at the turning point of personal computing, and at the dawn of a new era with devices powered by Arm micro-architecture. It will be interesting to watch it unfold, especially for an analyst and a keen industry observer like me.

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