Always Connected PCs are now a reality as Microsoft officially introduced Windows 10 on ARM with the help of HP and ASUS.
And while these computers are powered by Snapdragon 835 - also available in mobile devices - the full feature set is not offered, as the processor is optimized specifically for desktops.
One difference found in computers powered by the Snapdragon 835 processor is the 802.11ad Wi-Fi, as the integrated Wi-Fi + WCN3990 provides a 2×2 802.11ac chip with a maximum Mu-MIMO speed of 867 Mbps.
Furthermore, we no longer see wireless charging, a logical, of course, change for a laptop.
A more peculiar omission we notice is the lack of NFC support. Qualcomm, however, stated that the feature is available but is not included in the official documentation.
The Snapdragon 835 available in Always Connected PCs supports Bluetooth 5 with a maximum speed of 2 Mbps as well as six different satellite systems for positioning services, namely GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS and SBAS.
The remaining specifications are almost identical to the corresponding mobile version.
The chipset, however, has been optimized for long battery life. Microsoft even claims that devices powered by the Snapdragon 835 and running Windows 10 can achieve a week of battery life per charge. On average, these laptops offer about 20 hours of active use per charge, but this obviously depends on many factors, including the software running on the computer.
