Best Asus, HP announce ARM-powered Win 10 PCs with All Day battery life

Microsoft’s partnership with Qualcomm to bring Windows 10 to ARM-powered devices is finally bearing fruit. At Qualcomm’s second annual Snapdragon Technology Summit in Maui on Tuesday, launch partners Asus and HP unveiled the first Snapdragon 835-powered devices running Microsoft’s OS.

The Asus NovaGo is a traditional convertible featuring a 13.3-inch Full HD touchscreen display with Asus Pen support. It’ll be offered with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of local flash storage. The HP Envy x2, meanwhile, is a Surface clone that packs a 12.3-inch WUXGA+ display with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 and the same 8GB / 256GB RAM / storage options.

Both devices feature a fanless design and are incredibly lightweight. The NovaGo tips the scales at just 3.06 pounds while the Envy x2 will add just 1.54 pounds to your backpack. They’ll ship with Windows 10 S although both Asus and HP are offering a free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.

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The bigger story here, however, is the battery life and LTE connectivity afforded by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor. Asus claims its NovaGo is good for up to 22 hours of video playback on a single charge and over 30 days of standby while HP’s new Envy x2 is rated at up to 20 hours of local video playback and 700 hours of standby.

HP is shooting for a spring 2018 launch with pricing and mobile carrier support pending. Asus’ NovaGo will reportedly start at $599 for 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage and scale up to $799 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of space. That’s a bit more than I would have guessed for a Snapdragon-powered laptop but perhaps people will be willing to pay that price for true all-day battery life?

That’s assuming, of course, that the estimates are accurate. As we’ve seen in the past, such estimates can be a bit generous at times.