Snapdragon C powers a $300 Windows laptop that beats the MacBook Neo

The first Windows laptops and tablets with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X processors were launched a few years ago, bringing good battery life and AI smarts. These chips appear largely in premium to mid-range laptops, but Qualcomm has unveiled a brand new Windows chip for cheaper laptops.

Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon C processors a few days ahead of the Computex Expo. The company says this chipset will appear in laptops that cost ~$300 or more, making it a truly mainstream play for Snapdragon-powered Windows laptops. In fact, Qualcomm suggests this chip will power laptops for classrooms, small business owners, and families.

Qualcomm provided almost no details about the chip, but confirmed in a media briefing that it does not feature a custom Orion CPU core. Instead, it said the processor has Kryo CPU cores based on Arm’s IP. However, the company did not specify which arm core was used. It also did not provide information about the GPU, maximum amount of RAM, or specific manufacturing process.

The chip designer said that laptops with Snapdragon C will offer sleek and quiet design, long battery life and some AI capabilities thanks to the integrated NPU. However, Qualcomm told reporters that this NPU will not support CoPilot Plus capabilities, suggesting that it does not meet the 40 TOP requirement.

Acer is the first brand to launch a laptop powered by Snapdragon C, as it announced the Aspire Go 15. Acer describes it as a “mainstream” product, featuring the aforementioned chipset, up to 8GB of RAM, and up to 512GB of storage. Other notable specifications include a 15.6-inch display (1080p, 16:9), two “full-function” USB-C ports, an HDMI port, a 1080p webcam, and a 53Wh battery.

Unfortunately, Acer has not yet revealed the price or availability of the Aspire Go 15. Qualcomm’s previous statement about targeting the $300 and above price segment suggests that we could be looking at a cheaper Snapdragon laptop that costs significantly less than the $600 MacBook Neo. So hopefully we will have an aggressively priced product.

However, can this chip power Googlebooks? We asked Qualcomm about this possibility:

We’re excited about our partnership with Google for Googlebooks, and will share more details in the near future.

In other words, your guess is as good as mine. Qualcomm is one of several chip partners for the platform, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the Snapdragon C (or Snapdragon X family) comes to several Google-powered laptops.