First benchmarks on a new Copilot+ PC Qualcomm laptop are pretty disappointing

Here we go! The first batch of Qualcomm X Elite laptop reached the hands of some early adopters This includes Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge and luckily we also have a first feedback posted by cponica23 on Reddit who eagerly started using it. Let’s say, the outcome was a blend of expectation and slight letdown.

What did the benchmark revealed?

Geekbench Results: The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, which is used in many high-end smartphones, did not reach the 3000 and 15000 scores for single-core and multi-core tests as promised. One core test score is 1,841 while multi-core result reaches 11,537. Comparing these numbers to Apple’s A14 processors of the previous year shows that they are lower.

Going into more details, the device’s maximum running speed was found to be limited at 2.5GHz only, a significant difference from the promised 3.4GHz. This inconsistency raised some possible speculations that Samsung could intentionally slow down CPU to lengthen battery life. But, these tests didn’t check NPU of device which is very important for Copilot+ experience.

Coming to the sunny part, battery life appeared hopeful with a promise of one full day’s use. However, it still could not beat Apple M2-powered MacBook Air that Microsoft has been aiming to surpass. Tests in gaming at first stages with games such as Resident Evil Village showed frame rates are playable yet pointed out Copilot+ PCs might not be ideal for people who are serious about gaming.

So, in the end, even though these initial tests were not ideal, there may be a possibility of future solutions to tackle the performance problems with a simple driver update from Qualcomm. We won’t jump to any conclusions yet, and we invite you to do the same.

Would you buy a Copilot+ PC? Let’s talk about this in the comments below.