CES 2025: Qualcomm Launches Lower-Cost Snapdragon X CPU for Laptops

Qualcomm has seen some success in the laptop market with its Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus chips, which were launched last year. Now, a new lower-cost option, simply called Snapdragon X, might help it penetrate the sub-$600 (approximately ₹51,000) laptop market. In addition, Qualcomm is targeting mini desktop PCs as a new avenue for its computing business. Announced at the CES 2025 trade show in Las Vegas, this new CPU will show up in laptops from Dell, Lenovo, HP, Acer, Asus, and other OEM partners over the next few months.

The Snapdragon X1-26-100 slots in below the Snapdragon Plus SKUs as a new entry-level option. Additional variants might be announced over time. It will feature eight Qualcomm Oryon CPU cores running at up to 3GHz, and an integrated NPU capable of 45 TOPs. It is fabbed using a 4nm manufacturing process and supports up to 64GB of LPDDR5X RAM. Other features include Snapdragon X65 5G modem support, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and an integrated image signal processor for high-quality webcams. 

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This chip supports Windows 11 with Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI features. The company claims significantly better performance and power efficiency than a comparable Intel Core i5 CPU in its own tests. Intel and AMD have also announced their own next-gen CPUs at CES 2025, so real-world test results should be available soon. Qualcomm also touts the maturity of the Windows of Arm ecosystem, with many popular apps including entertainment and productivity mainstays available natively for this architecture. 

Additionally, the company has teased a desktop mini-PC powered by Snapdragon X series CPUs, to be announced soon at CES. Such a device could reduce the price of a Snapdragon-powered PC even further and open up new markets such as business and home users.