Qualcomm’s MacBook Killer Has One Massive Weakness

[00:01] weeks and you've seen reviewers just gushing about these new Qualcomm laptops with the X 2 Elite chips, particularly this one, the Zenbook S 16. Well, guys, a lot of those reviews were sponsored. This video is not. We don't accept those

[00:16] kind of sponsors. So, we've taken our sweet time. Not only did we run the usual suite of benchmarks, but we tested over 30 of the most common real-world applications, from coding to music production to gaming. We're also going

[00:29] to show you results across two laptops as we have Lenovo's new Slim 7 X in as as we have Lenovo's new Slim 7 X in as well. Now, what I can tell you is this. the game-changers that you may have heard. Yes, they are great for some

[00:43] folks. They really are, but they're also terrible for others. And on that note, let's jump in. Essentially, what Qualcomm are trying to do here is what Apple did with their M-series chips, replacing Intel and AMD's x86

[00:55] architecture with ARM processors that are more power-efficient. More less heat, less fan noise, and of course, longer battery life. The first version of these laptops, they did come out in 2024 to much fanfare, mainly

[01:10] marketing dollars Qualcomm and Microsoft spent. Qualcomm promised the world. They show off video editing, gaming, and running AI locally on these laptops, but

[01:22] they ended up under delivering. Single-core performance on the original chips was basic. GPU performance was horrendous, and they actually what all that power efficient went under load. What was worse is that these laptops

[01:34] required the ARM version of Windows. Some apps just didn't work that well and others didn't work at all. Now, this didn't mean that first generation of these laptops were bad. It just meant that they were only good for a specific

[01:47] group of people. I recommended one to a very close friend of mine, but she's only sticking to office apps and web browsing. Well, Qualcomm have now over the last 2 years we've seen more

[02:00] hardware. We've also seen improvements to the prism translation layer for apps that don't. The Zenbook A16, it has one of the highest end X2 Elite chips in it. It has a faster GPU and faster memory than the other non-extreme X2 chips. The

[02:15] Slim 7X, it also has an 18-core CPU, but this time an X2 Elite chip. Anyway, let's talk raw CPU performance. It is fantastic. In Geekbench, which tests common performance tasks like unzipping a file, this year's Slim 7X is 61%

[02:31] faster in single core and a whopping 48% faster in multi-core. That's when compared to the original X Elite chip. I'm talking here for the 18-core variant of this new Slim 7X. There is going to be a 12-core one, too. By the way, we

[02:43] are specifically comparing to the Slim 7X from 2024 as that was our fastest generation and guys, we tested a ton of them. This new Zenbook A16 with its Elite Extreme chip is again 61% faster in

[02:57] single core, but it's even faster in multi-core. In Cinebench, which tests the laptop when it is maxed out, we see a jump in single-core speeds between 36 and 39%. That's of course over the prior generation. In multi-core, the lead

[03:10] widens even further to between 53% and 87%. see such big improvements here, particularly in single core as that's where the first generation just lagged behind. I daily drove the Surface Laptop

[03:25] 7 for a very long time and it just didn't feel as snappy as my MacBooks. Speaking of the MacBooks, the X2 chip in our Zenbook A16, it does trade blows with Apple's M5 Pro 15-core. That's in multi-core. But in single-core, it's

[03:37] actually behind. The X2 Elite in our Slim 7X performs quite a bit worse, but it's still handily beats out Apple's base M5 chip. Compared to what Intel and AMD have on offer, at least at this price point, these X2 chips are just

[03:50] better for CPU workloads. By the way, I want to be crystal clear here. These are results from the highest end 18 core Qualcomm chips. You are going to find plenty of laptops with Qualcomm processors, but the lower end

[04:02] ones. As I said, I believe the Slim 7X will be sold at Best Buy with a 12 core those laptops won't be as good as what note, if you actually back into the numbers, most of the increase in

[04:16] performance appears to be coming from the additional cores that these high end chips have and their 40% boost in clock speed over the prior generation. Literally, the increase in single core performance is almost identical, 40%

[04:29] higher. So, it doesn't appear that there are any significant IPC improvements. On that note, let's take a look at our power efficiency scatter plot. You want to see as much performance as possible for as little power draw as possible. As

[04:42] you feed a laptop's cores more power, you do get diminishing marginal returns. That's why you see a lot of these lines just taper off. By the way, where there means that these were tested on the exact same laptop at different power

[04:55] modes. As you can see, more power does not always equal more performance. What Qualcomm appear to be doing here is just spreading the load across more cores so that is a good thing. These now trade blows with Apple's M

[05:09] series, beating out the base M5 chip and on par with the M5 Pro 15 core chip. But, Apple's 18 core is still more efficient than Qualcomm's 18 core. Lake and Golden Point, Qualcomm is just

[05:23] way ahead. This is really good to see as it just wasn't the case for their first generation. But as I said, we are looking at the 18 core variants. I doubt the 12 core or the lower models will be quite as efficient. Comparing laptops by

[05:35] power draw, you can see that this new Slim 7X it peaks at 55 watts and sustains around 25. This is up a lot from the prior generation which only very frugal for the performance it delivers. The ZenBook A 16 it peaks at

[05:50] 70 watts and sustains around 50. Comparing these two new laptops together, the Slim 7X it does appear to be more at an optimal power level for these chips that is. It feeds its CPU around half the power, but achieves 82%

[06:03] of the performance of the ZenBook. Now, given that the ZenBook feeds its CPU so much power, how does it actually feel to use when under load? On its max performance mode I'm talking about here. Well, not good, guys. It gets very warm

[06:17] to the touch and its fan noise is really loud, gaming laptop territory. The Slim 7X it does much better here. It still gets warm, but nowhere near as bad as the ZenBook and not as warm as the older model. The Slim 7X's fan noise it is a

[06:30] little bit louder this time around, but it's still under the 50 decibel level. But, I have to say this, in the real world performance applications that we tried on these laptops, we experienced no fan noise with these ones and they

[06:42] didn't get overly warm. Okay, so we've covered CPU performance at length. Let's talk about the integrated GPU. Steel Nomad Light is a 3D gaming benchmark and it runs natively on all hardware. Here you can see that this new Adreno X290

[06:56] GPU is just not a strong performer. It does depend which CPU it's paired with. higher speed as I said and it performs better. But, regardless it's behind Apple's base M5 chip and way behind their M5 Pro

[07:10] chip. It's also quite a bit behind Intel's B390, especially if you don't get the Elite Extreme version. But, this just isn't the full picture. You see, if you're getting an Intel or AMD laptop, you can get one of those paired with a

[07:22] dedicated Nvidia GPU, especially at this price point. That gives you far more graphics performance. You can't get a Qualcomm laptop with an Nvidia GPU, which really just limits what these laptops are capable of. Okay, so since

[07:35] app compatibility is so important with these Qualcomm laptops, we tried almost every major application that we could find. If you're just doing casual tasks collaboration tools, using office applications, well, everything worked.

[07:49] Most apps like Chrome, Slack, and Office, they run natively. The only app couldn't, well, Citrix. That's what corporate employees use to remote in. We just don't have a Citrix server available to us, but from our research,

[08:03] via the Prism translation layer, and apparently it works well. If you're doing programming, VS Code ran natively, as did Git, IntelliJ, and of course Android Studio. But the Android emulator, it doesn't run at all. So, if

[08:16] you'll need to test it on an actual physical phone, which could be annoying. actually starting to hear of limited support for this hardware. We thought Fedora 44 was meant to work. Apparently, if you use the ARM version and add a

[08:30] couple of kernel parameters, it should. But we tried this on both of these Realistically, Linux right now, it just isn't quite there yet. If you're a photo Lightroom, they all ran natively, and they ran well. You're looking at

[08:44] performance a little behind the base MacBook Pro 14 with that M5 chip. For the people using Lightroom Classic, it did run via the Prism translation layer. We tested it, and it worked well. Video editing, it's an odd one. You see,

[08:57] Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and HandBrake, they run natively, but that's not the issue. The integrated GPU in these laptops, it just isn't powerful editing. Unfortunately, Puget Premiere Pro and

[09:10] Resolve Benchmark, they don't run on this hardware. So, I'm going to show you some of our homegrown tests instead. Here you can see a Premiere Pro export of one of our recent videos. You can clearly see that this new Qualcomm chip,

[09:22] it is a big improvement from the prior generation, but it's still dead last. It is noticeably slower than the MacBook Pro with a base M5 chip, and to call a spade a spade, you really want a minimum of an M5 Pro chip or an Nvidia GPU to

[09:34] smoothly edit one of our videos, even at half resolution. After Effects worked of our simple transitions, but I'd caution you once again, this GPU, it's what you'd want if you're doing any

[09:48] heavy 3D work. So, if you're starting a YouTube channel, or you're stitching together, say, a family video, these are totally fine. But, for real video editing at this price point, these are just not the laptops to get. 3D work.

[10:01] to do an actual render, it didn't use the integrated GPU at all. It used the CPU to perform the render, and it was crazy slow. It's super odd, guys, as the viewport actually did use the GPU. For engineers, we tested AutoCAD, and it ran

[10:16] through the Prism translation layer, and it appeared to work well, even on a wouldn't even install, even though it installed fine on Intel and AMD laptops. For AI work, LM Studio runs natively, but we couldn't get it to use the GPU.

[10:31] settings. Cursor, Claude's Code, and CodeChat, they all ran natively, and OpenAI's Codex ran through Prism. But, all of this bunch, they're really doing the inference server-side, not locally. For musicians and audio engineers, on

[10:44] the surface, everything appears to run well through emulation. We tested Pro Tools, Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Recordbox. But, once you start using them, cracks start to show. You see, when we plugged

[10:56] in my Pioneer DJ controller, Recordbox, it just couldn't detect it at all. Given it's essentially a MIDI controller, this does make me pretty concerned for musicians, as MIDI is what their instruments use. At this point, I do

[11:08] want to mention that we did have other issues with peripherals. Our 2.5 gig Ethernet adapter, it looked like it was working, the lights were blinking, but switched over to our 1 gig adapter,

[11:20] This really hits on a point here. You just don't really know what's going to work and what's not with these laptops. And on that note, let's talk about gaming. Yes, many games run that didn't run before like Fortnite. Prism now

[11:34] compatibility with some anti-cheat software. very low settings on the laptop's native resolution and we even hit around 100 frames per second. But I want to step back here, guys. Realistically, gaming

[11:48] performance is really woeful on these laptops. In Cyberpunk, which is a very old title, even running at lower resolution with upscaling on, we couldn't average more than 60 FPS. Better than the original Snapdragon X

[12:00] chips for sure, but way behind competitors at this price point. weird UI elements and glitching in the final result screen. And my favorite game, League of Legends, it wouldn't run at all as it just couldn't install its

[12:13] Vanguard anti-cheat software. Overall, please don't buy these laptops if you're in any way serious about gaming. Let's finish talking about pull out the power, both of these laptops, they were able to operate at

[12:26] full performance. To test battery life, we hit them with our new tougher battery test, office tasks on repeat with the screen at 300 nits of brightness. The Slim 7 X did very well, lasting 10 and 1/2 hours. The ZenBook 16 with its

[12:39] larger screen to power lasted almost nine. That being said, the MacBook Pro 16, it's still in the lead amongst high-performance laptops. And before we move on, I do want to call out one thing. There are Intel Panther Lake

[12:51] laptops available that do last longer than these. Dell's XPS 14 with its X chip and its AMOLED display, it's a good example. I put its battery life results on screen so you can see them right now. So, let's wrap. Qualcomm has made some

[13:04] very solid progress here, but as you can see, these are not the laptops for everyone. If you're a casual user, these are great. Excellent performance, very long battery life, no heat or fan noise, but they have one big problem, the

[13:17] significantly cheaper and already gives these kind of buyers what they're Where we think these laptops do well though is for programmers. People who want strong CPU performance and lots of memory. The ZenBook 16 in particular, it

[13:31] gives you everything you need in a light and portable chassis with a stunning the gotchas that we called out. You know, no Linux, no Android emulation, some peripherals may not work, and you won't be doing much gaming in your

[13:44] downtime. Talking about gaming and even creative work, sure, for photographers, these do very well, but in general, these aren't the laptops to get. Their GPU performance just isn't as strong as other ones that you can buy at this

[13:56] price point, and there are some compatibility issues that I showed you. All of us here recommend you look for a laptop with an Nvidia GPU if gaming is your priority. If creating is, you'd be better off going for say the MacBook Pro

[14:08] 14. And of course, if you want to do a bit of everything, Intel's Panther Lake X laptops, they're kind of the jack of all trades, master of none, but they don't have the compatibility concerns of these Qualcomm laptops. Out of the

[14:20] Panther Lake laptops, the Acer Swift 16, it's a good competitor to the ZenBook. it does have one downside that you do need to be aware of. It has dreadful trackpad palm rejection. The ZenBook, it doesn't have that issue.

[14:35] Guys, buying a laptop right now, it really is a case of pick your poison. To help you navigate this, I have put a list of all our recommendations down You'll also be able to find them on our website bestlaptop.deals.

[14:49] right across retailers, so you know when one of these drops, making them a really good buy, which is very important right now given the way laptop prices are. full reviews of both of these two laptops, so do get subscribed with the

[15:04] should be coming soon. Till next time, have an awesome rest of Till next time, have an awesome rest of your day, and I will catch you later.