Two years ago, budget PCs were often passed over in favor of expensive, premium laptops. Now, they’re all anyone can talk about.
Two new processors—Qualcomm’s Snapdragon C and Intel’s Wildcat Lake—are setting the stage for new, moderately powerful budget laptops to debut soon. I’ve already seen Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon C in the new Acer Aspire Go 15 (AG15-Q31P), and Chinese laptop maker Chuwi is aiming its Wildcat Lake-based UniBook squarely at the Apple MacBook Neo, with a $449 price that undercuts the Neo by $150.
Have you heard of our so-called K-shaped economy? A K-shaped economy is one where wealthy segments of the population experience different outcomes than non-wealthy segments. Companies increasingly want to attract wealthy buyers who have disposable income, all while poorer consumers are scratching to save up for food and other necessities. For the last nine months or so, rising memory and storage costs have elevated PC prices into the upper echelon, along with high demand for GPUs and rarified, AI-specific chips like AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ processor. Now, PC makers are finally riding to the rescue of everyday consumers at the “bottom of the K”—or so we hope.
Apple’s MacBook Neo grabbed headlines not just because of its low price, but also because the chip within was based on a cheaper mobile processor rather than the more powerful (and pricier) Apple M4 silicon. Lo and behold, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon C has taken the same approach, with a custom CPU core pulled from its Kryo lineup rather than the Oryon processor that powers its Snapdragon X2 Elite chip.
Why does this matter? Because the Snapdragon X2 Elite has moved away from what made Qualcomm great. My testing of the latest laptop processors found that the Snapdragon X1 Elite represents the best combination of performance and battery life—but with the current X2 Elite Extreme, Qualcomm’s designers went full steam ahead on performance at the expense of battery life. Hypothetically, the Snapdragon C could fill that niche of laptops with more of an emphasis on longer battery life for everyday consumers.
Sure, you could always spend several thousand dollars on a PC that can do it all. But getting things done shouldn’t have to mean spending truckloads of money that could be used on other things. Think of it this way: Do more, for less, for longer.
In an industry often dominated by deep discussions of processor architecture, Qualcomm’s not saying much at all—reporters had to dig out the detail that the Snapdragon C was based on Qualcomm’s phone chip. By the way, the “C” stands for “Compute” (not “Chromebooks”) and executives confirmed that it will run the latest versions of Windows 11.
“We’re bringing the Snapdragon core advantages to a price point that reaches students, families, small business unit users, frontline workers, everyone, which means you get all the benefits, like all-day battery life… a responsive system, lag-free performance, browsing, video calls, streaming, multitasking, everything,” said Mandar Deshpande, a senior director of product management at Qualcomm, in a call with reporters. “It does also mean that you’re going to get cool and quiet laptops without the loud fan noise, no heat, and it’s just a laptop that just works.”
Acer didn’t release pricing information for its Snapdragon C-based Aspire Go 15, but Deshpande said that Snapdragon C platforms were designed for prices at around $300 or so, an eye-poppingly low price given the state of memory. The company hasn’t announced a ship date, either. But the Aspire Go’s specs do look basic: a 15.5-inch 1080p screen, up to 8GB of memory, and up to 512GB of storage, backed with a 53Wh battery that will supply “all-day” battery life. None of it is particularly impressive, but 8GB RAM/512GB laptops have been the mainstay of budget laptop deals for years now. Pushing that price point even lower on a new Windows 11 laptop would certainly open the door for a strong competitor to the Apple MacBook Neo.
In addition to Acer, HP and Lenovo also plan laptops around the Snapdragon C, Qualcomm said. A Lenovo spokesman said that his company will have details in a few months.
Intel’s Wildcat Lake sneaks its way into laptops
Intel’s “Wildcat Lake” chips (also known as the Core 300 series) have flown under the radar, and for good reason. Intel initially positioned the chips in an April launch as processors for edge, embedded applications. Known as the Intel Core Series 3 chips when Intel announced them for laptops, they’re expected to be used by Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, and others. However, laptop makers like MSI and now Chuwi have begun racing out of the gate.
At one time, these chips might have been part of the Celeron brand. For now, they’re just a cheaper Core option.
Again, the point here isn’t the performance but the price. The UniBook should be priced at about $449, Chuwi says, and that target should influence other laptop makers as well. Chuwi’s scrimping a bit, though: the laptop only includes 8GB of RAM and just a measly 256GB of PCI 3.0 SSD storage, which means you’ll be minimizing app loads to preserve the existing SSD space. Chuwi’s also not disclosing the resolution of the laptop’s 14-inch display, which raises my suspicions. This seems to be a notebook you’ll want to use with external drives and an external display, connected via a standard HDMI connection. Chuwi’s laptop includes a 53Wh battery and a pair of presumably standard USB-C ports, though Thunderbolt 4 is supported.
Intel’s claiming that the new Core 7 350 (Wildcat Lake) outperforms the older Core 7 150U (Raptor Lake Refresh) by 2.5x to 4.3x in some specialized video analytics. The chip has six cores, six threads, and a pair of first-gen Xe GPU cores. Still, don’t expect anything substantial in terms of performance out of this chip or the Chuwi laptop.
Nevertheless, the Windows PC market is rallying, potentially with prices that outshine anything Apple offers. Of course, none of these laptop makers have the cachet that Apple does, but inexpensive Windows options should be available if you know where to look.
