Qualcomm’s incoming Snapdragon X Elite (and Plus) processors are going to offer a seriously eye-opening level of battery life, a fresh leak suggests – and we’ve got an indication of when the next-gen ARM-based successors to these CPUs will emerge, too.
All this comes from a massive Dell leak that VideoCardz picked up, consisting of a whole pile of internal documents on incoming laptops from the manufacturer, and the likes of mobile CPU roadmaps.
Let’s start with the battery life info, and based on Dell’s internal testing, when playing a video locally, the new Snapdragon X processor will offer up to 98% faster battery life in its incoming Dell XPS 13 Plus compared to a previous Intel-powered version of that notebook.
Twice as much battery life? Yes, well ‘up to’ (almost) double in the best-case scenario, although the exact level of battery longevity will depend on the model of the XPS 13 Plus and the screen used. Gains will run from 68% to the mentioned 98%, in fact, so will be hefty – but there’s a caveat here, namely that this is compared to an Intel Alder Lake mobile CPU.
Now, those laptop processors are a couple of years old, so this isn’t an entirely fair comparison – Dell would ideally be comparing the Snapdragon SoC to Intel’s newest Meteor Lake mobile CPUs.
At any rate, these are still eye-opening gains, and Qualcomm’s own testing backs this up to a large extent when pitted against Meteor Lake (Intel Core Ultra). According to Qualcomm’s previous testing for local video playback, the Snapdragon X Elite boasts 43% more battery life than Intel’s Core Ultra 7, so that’s still seriously impressive – and YouTube streaming offers an 89% longer battery life.
Qualcomm rates these SoCs as having 25 hours of battery life, or even more in some cases going by the Dell leak – one device is shown with a 29-hour battery life, in fact.
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So, whichever way you dice it, the Snapdragon X range looks like a real leap in terms of battery longevity for the laptops they’ll be in.
As we mentioned at the outset, VideoCardz also discovered some info regarding the next-gen Snapdragon chips for AI PCs and the proposed launch timeframe for those future SoCs.
The second version of these CPUs – possibly known as Snapdragon X Gen2, but referred to as Oryon V2 in the Dell leak – is expected to debut in the second half of 2025. So, it may not be much more than a year out at this point. Dell is planning to use these chips in its Dell XPS 14 range in 2026, alongside Intel’s Panther Lake mobile CPUs, according to included roadmap details.
The following V3 (or Gen3) Snapdragon processors are planned for late 2027, so there’ll be considerably more of a gap between Gen2 and Gen3, at least the way things are planned right now. If this leaked material is correct, of course, and take all this with some degree of caution as with any such spillage.
That larger gap could mean that Gen2 is more of a simple refresh, and the third-gen Snapdragon X is where Qualcomm might push for greater architectural changes and a bigger performance improvement. That’s just us guessing, though.
(Image credit: Qualcomm)
Analysis: Mammoth leak
This is a very weighty leak, with a lot of info divulged, and while we must be careful about accepting it at face value as noted, it certainly seems genuine. (If faked, it’d be the fabrication of the Century, frankly – and VideoCardz is a reliable source anyway, in our experience).
What we can also see here is that the new Snapdragon X-equipped Dell XPS 13 Plus is running with the same size battery as the older model, but offering a big boost in battery life. It’s a shame Dell chose to run its comparison with an older generation of Intel mobile silicon, but nonetheless as we touched on above, the ARM-based SoC still compares very favorably to current-gen Intel Meteor Lake – though it’d be good to get independent testing that isn’t Qualcomm’s work, of course.
What’s also interesting here is not just the underlining of the excellent battery life on offer, but a provided cost comparison that shows the Snapdragon X is around half the cost to Dell versus the Intel Core i7-1360P (Alder Lake chip).
Mind you, don’t expect new Snapdragon X Elite-powered AI PCs to be cheap – they won’t be. But this cost-saving gives Dell a chance to fork out more on other components, in theory (and perhaps the consumer will get a slice of the savings as well, but these portables won’t be cheap, we can guarantee that).
The naysayers will, at this point, doubtless be acknowledging that while the battery life sounds great, there are issues with ARM-based PCs in terms of software compatibility. However, apps not written for ARM chips (most of them are coded for x86, Intel and AMD silicon) can be emulated, and while the obvious downside there is the overhead in running that emulation, one of the key selling points of the new Snapdragon X is that it’s much more performant in that respect.
For example, we’ve seen the Snapdragon X Elite running Baldur’s Gate 3 at a very respectable frame rate in a reference laptop – which is seriously impressive. At this point, these inbound Qualcomm-powered devices are poised to burst onto our list of the best laptops – with the first notebooks expected to launch later this month (next week, in fact).