At the end of 2019, Qualcomm announced Snapdragon 8C and 7C, a pair of affordable chips for always-on Windows 10 pcs and Chromebook. At present, the company updated the latter of the two SOCs to improve performance. Snapdragon 7C Gen 2 displays the Kyro CPU that can reach clock speeds of up to 2.55GHz. The company claims to provide a 10 percent faster performance than “the most competitive platform.” Qualcomm is likely to have a processor from the Lake Gemini Intel family in mind here. The company also claims 7C Gen 2 can provide up to double the battery life of its competitors.
Outside the faster CPU, 7C Gen 2 more or less than the same chipcomm chip was announced in 2019. It features Adreno 618 GPU and the Snapdragon X15 LTE modem. The latter allows 7C Gen 2 to achieve the theoretical download speed of 800 Mbps. Like its predecessor, chips are designed for education and customer-conscious customers. According to Qualcomm, we can expect the first Snapdragon 7C Gen 2 laptop to arrive this summer, with the first model from Lenovo.
The new chip is not the only Qualcomm announcement that must be shared today. Working with Microsoft, the company has made a Snapdragon developer kit for Windows 10. As anandtech shows, we don’t see a Windows development kit almost ever, but this is a reasonable step. Application compatibility has become a problem that interferes with the Windows platform for ARM.
We don’t have too many other details on the device, but Qualcomm promises to share more information at Microsoft Build Developer Conference this weekend. This device is similar to the Apple Mac Minis equipped with A12Z provided to developers to help them optimize their application for new M1 chips. From the company’s photos sent, you can see that it includes a USB-A slot, SD card reader and what looks like a slot for SIM. Based on today’s announcement time and the Qualcomm facts say the developer kit provides an “affordable alternative for other consumer and commercial devices,” it won’t be surprising if it comes with a 7C Gen 2 processor.