Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 850 for Always Connected PCs

Qualcomm today announced the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 Mobile Compute Platform, designed for Always Connected PCs. The company promises up to 30 percent increase in performance, up to 3 times increase in AI performance, up to 1.2 gigabits per second LTE connectivity speeds, and up to 25 hours of continuous usage.

This is largely an incremental release (the Snapdragon 850 is essentially an improved Snapdragon 845), though Qualcomm’s comparisons above are against the Snapdragon 835, since that was the first phone chip to support Always Connected PCs. Nonetheless, it seems Qualcomm is willing to give Windows 10 on ARM a dedicated chip, even if it’s not built from the ground up for PCs — the Snapdragon 850 will not be used in any phones.